I have always been told by my elders and betters that the worst sin one can commit is the corruption of the innocent. Once one has destroyed the innocence of a child or innocent older person, there is no way of going back, because that person is no longer the person they once were.
It is therefore particularly chilling to read the 2,600 page document produced by the Commission of Ireland into Child Abuse. This abuse was systematically carried on by Roman Catholic religious orders over a period spanning nearly 50 years, and affected at least 30,000 children who had been placed into the 'care' of religious schools. Sexual abuse by monks and priests of male children and mainly physical and emotional abuse of girls by nuns. These children were made to feel worthless, dirty and less than human. If they complained and they were lucky the abusers were moved elsewhere, normally they were just punished even more and branded as liars.
The report produced a list of recommendations but no criminal prosecutions will take place, mainy because the Christian Brothers (the order most commonly involved in the sexual abuse of boys in its care) have managed to get a court order in 2004 that prohibits the report from naming names of either the perpetrators of the abuse (dead or alive) or the victims. God knows how they managed to get that sort of judgement in their favour, there must be something seriously wrong with a judicial system that grants immunity to perpetrators of child abuse.
A further worrrying trend is that it seems the Irish tax payer will be the one paying the bill for the compensation of some of the victims (as though monetary compensation will in any way alleviate the suffering of these people). The Irish tax payer has already paid the compensation claims of approximately 12,000 abuse victims, who only qualify for compensation if they sign a declaration stating that they will not subsequently sue the State or the Church. Luckily, thousands of abused Irish adults (then children) have not signed the declaration and are not accepting those conditions, and are determined to take the Church to Court.
I wish them luck. The Catholic Church is the single richest institution in the world. They are led by a man whose knowledge of science is extremely limited (see earlier post on Pope and Health Education) and who pontificates about things about which he knows nothing. They appear to have the Irish Court System in their pocket (easy when you have so much money I guess) and they preach about celibacy as being a holy thing whilst their monks, nuns and priests abuse children. And when it comes to time to pay the bill for their vile behaviour they hide behind a court order that more or less gives them immunity. Pass me a sick bag someone.
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I can relate to this - I was brought up Catholic, and was sexually abused by the pastor of my church over the course of 2 years [ Ages 13-15 ] - I came forward, and he denied everything, and went unpunished for almost a year - Then, 6 other children ages 7-15 came forward and accused him of molestation, also. The police opened the case back up [ It was closed in my case because of 'lack of evidence' ], and arrested him - As it turns out, he had been molesting children and young adults for over 20 years, and was never reported to the police - The churches just sent him to other churches, to molest other kids. The fact that for 20 years the church knew of this pastor's conduct and covered it up was one thing, but the kicker is that when he went to court on 58 counts of child molestation, only 3 of us 'victims' showed up to court - Because of this, the judge ruled that due to lack of substantial witnesses and evidence, she could not make a non-biased ruling, and he was acquitted...
ReplyDelete3 months later he was arrested at a rest area on a local highway, engaging in oral sex with a 12-year-old boy in his car - At his arraignment, he claimed that the act was consensual. The judge presiding over the case took his past history into account, and sentenced him to 175 years in prison without possibility of parole - I was happy with that ruling, but the headlines in the paper that next week made me believe in a higher power again:
CATHOLIC PRIEST FOUND DEAD IN CELL
Fr. Michael V. LaMountain, 56, of West Warwick, RI, was found brutally sodomized and beaten to death in his cell at the Adult Corrections Institution early this morning. Fr. LaMountain, who was sentenced last week to over 100 years in prison on numerous molestation charges, was in a single cell unit. When questioned about the incident, prison officials say (sic) "These things happen in prison all the time, especially to the 'rippers'...", and "...Scum like LaMountain should expect retribution in prison..." - I found out 5 years later that one of the kids who was molested paid prison officials to have him killed - He is serving a 3 year sentence [ To be over in 4 more months ]...
What a terrible experience for you, but good for you about standing up for yourself and not remaining this man's 'victim' for the rest of your life.
ReplyDeleteI think what hurts me most about the abuse perpetrated by priests etc is that they are in a position of supposed 'moral superiority'. The Church claims that homosexuals, unmarried people etc should not have sex because it is againt God's law. They further claim that all 'legal' sex between two people who are married should in principle give rise to the possibility of a child being conceived. I may take issue with them on all of these ideas, but that is the dogma of that Church and if you are a member of any 'club' there are rules - so if you do not like them, then you leave the club. But for their supposedly exemplary people who are celibate and chaste to sodomise children makes the offence in my eyes 100s of times worse, because of their pompous attitudes when it comes to the expression of sexuality of their flock. And then not to face up as an institution to what has been done in your name, expect to escape scot free and let the taxpayers of the country where it happened pick up the compensation bill, ggggrrrr, it makes my blood boil