I saw a boy hit on the knuckles with a steel ruler at 7 years old. It certainly isn't Catholicism. Oberon Copeland is a graduate of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, with a degree in economics and HR. After all, slavery played a crucial role in the development and ongoing operation of the Cults economy. June 2021 Sadly, those abusive women were sadists who should have been imprisoned themselves and also hospitalized. Nuns are no different; however, we choose not to act upon these natural, sexual feelings and urges. No matter what any "spiritual leader" might say. For William, and thousands of others, the nightmare goes on. The children were beaten regularly and the nuns were never really nice to them. Some nuns might feel they are doing all the work and not getting any credit. I remember we all did not want to leave the home in Brecon because the nuns there were so kind. The victim lies prostrate on the ground, at the Nuns feet. Some of these women and girls from middle-class backgrounds and with no professional training, were transformed into some of the most vicious Nuns running various Religious Institutions in Ireland. As a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Wednesday marked . In the 1940s, the Bon Secours nuns were paid by the Irish state nearly 100 per child a week to care for those in their care. The slaves of Magdalene. Unexplained-Mysteries.com They would see women who had sex outside marriage as being deviant. The religious habit was a distinctive set of clothing worn by members of a religious Order with the style and colour differentiating each Order. Across thousands of miles, across decades, the abuse took eerily similar forms: People who grew up in orphanages said they were made to kneel or stand for hours, sometimes with their arms straight out, sometimes holding their boots or some other item. You are right nuns are human like you and everyone else. Which makes you think that older women who were long time inmates were in charge of the day to day running of the Laundry. One of the old ladies had died." They were left there all night with the corpse and to this day, Mary says she has. Its not something thats public knowledge, but many nuns grow to regret taking this vow. There was a constant atmosphere of fear, and beatings all the time. Remember one more thing: the mothers who dropped their out-of-wedlock children off at the convents had only one other choice at the timethe street. It raises the question of whether the difference between a. Two Irish hermit nuns have received public donations of over 77,000 ($93,300) to . In those days the people were encouraged to bring their children to the mission to be schooled by the church and they children all lived there. I believe in God, though". They were let go home on some weekends and hollidays. It is also true that in the Free State times families could have taken their daughters home at any stageWe had a Constitution which obliges due process before incarceration. Never has been and never will be. Survivor campaigner Mark Vincent Healy says the lifelong effects of the childhood abuse needs to be addressed. "I had three sons with my second husband. The innocent novice Nuns, with their good intentions, had no idea of what awaited them in the hellholes known as the Magdalene Laundries with their captive and illegally-held female slaves and their children who, although they had committed no crime, toiled there. I was 8 years of age. In some cases the Nuns even used their long heavy-duty wooden rosary beads to beat the slave women or the children. ", News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. The Residential Institutions Redress Board, set up in 2002, received 16,500 applications for financial compensation - 15,500 of which were successful - and paid out an average of 62,000 (55,000) in sums ranging from 10,000 to 300,000. As the result of a rape and beating by a Nun, I spent two years in a coma in hospital hiding from my mangled mind and body. "They only did it to make loads of money and to put you to work, to shame you and make you feel like nothing.. Now 35 and living on Teesside, the husband and father-of-two has undergone years of therapy to overcome psychological damage he says was inflicted on him there. So I guess if someone can tell me why they are so mean and abusive that would be nice. I was never so happy as when I left that place, but it's stayed with me ever since. "Looking back, I think one of the reasons was that the nuns weren't happy and decided we damn well weren't going to be either. That was when her main tormentor at the Nazareth House in Middlesbrough, Sister Laurence, died. I have cried so much wondering what happened to my loving brother. Violence was frequently employed and encouraged with the most common forms being verbal abuse, slaps, blows, and kicks. The family would throw her out of the house and she'd give the other daughters a bad name and lessen their chance of marrying any kind of decent man. You believe the bibles the word of god? July 2018 But theres an expectation for nuns to dress modestly at all times. You think your nuns were bad? Only my opinion of course, but I'd blame it on a lack of physical and emotional shenanigans with members of the opposite sex. The nuns at Ypres likely had friends and family in the Irish Brigade of the French armya group of Irish soldiers who followed James II to France after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne. Revelation 18:2-42-"She has fallen! Golda Meir, One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. . And thats a good thing for everyone involved. Some nuns are just following the example set by other nuns. BERYL HITCHEN, 55, was dumped on the doorstep of the Nazareth House in Cardiff when she was not quite two years old. The nuns were terrible.". Some of the Irish Nuns who ran the Magdalene Laundries had notorious reputations and were known for their extreme violence, even in many cases as we know today, beating the inmates to death. I was lucky one. April 2020 Long gone are the days of teaching nuns to be cruel, and now theyre being taught with more compassion. No doubt there were a few gentler Nuns, but they remained passively silent as they watched the violent Nuns run amok, behaving in a frenzied, out-of-control and unrestrained manner. It was bad enough in Newcastle, but after the war broke out we were moved to Carlisle where it was much more cruel. (11 Reasons Why). Being on the receiving end of this behavior is horrifying and confusing. The gagging order is such an appalling and cruel abuse to all of us survivors who went through the Redress Board. 10 The Duplessis Orphans. But, back in the day, this is how nuns were taught, and its no wonder they turned out to be so cruel. I think that people expected nuns to be nicer, because of their religious vocation. secrets passed from mother to daughter. This caused a huge strain on me.. Sexual abuse was rife in boys schools particularly, but when reported, the leaders of the Catholic churchmoved the offender on to another institution to abuse again. "Looking back, I think they really despised the children. In the words of one man who had been put into a home after being abandoned by his family: "Some people say to me, 'Well, that's what it was like everywhere then', but it wasn't. A helper, a big 20-year-old girl, dragged me to the washroom. This button displays the currently selected search type. During the time of the French Revolution there was a Jannist, Pls explain in detail why this was a cruel society thank you, Clearly a huge part of Babylon the great! Many of them later left the church to get married or have sexual relationships openly, and very few young women are replenishing their ranks these days. Later in life, all the Nuns were exhausted with the monotonous work and the intolerable religious life in the convents attached to the Magdalene Laundries or other institutions to which they were assigned. February 2018 The early Irish monks and nuns, who tried for a time to be as strict with themselves as the hermits of the Egyptian desert, found that it was just about impossible to starve properly in Treland, because the country abounded in delicious food of all kinds-"leeks from the garden, poultry, game,/Salmon and trout and bees," as a salivating monastic Wicked City is an erotic thriller set in 1982 Los Angeles where two police detectives, Jack Roth & Paco Contreras, team up with Karen McClaren, Diver Hawkes & Dianne Kubek to find the serial killer Hollywood Slayer and his partner Betty Beaumontaine. 5 Top The Silver Thong Member 33.4k "Most of the nuns were Irish and though they were trained to be nuns they were not trained to look after kids, and that is where a lot of the problems were. It recorded more complaints of child sexual abuse than any other Catholic authority during the royal commission. The Pope is now aware of the priests raping the nuns and getting rid of the babies. Remember some of these women and religious men and priests too went unto these institutions at 13, 14, 15 years of age. Its not easy to always be modest. Indeed, the twisting of limbs was a characteristically Christian torture method, as the shedding of blood was apparently discouraged by the Church. . Terrified, I remember holding out my hand thinking an adult would take it. She was tied to a chair and beaten for weeks until she started to learn english. Every morning he had to wash and dress his little brother Thomas, who had brittle bone disease and was unable to walk. They would use canes, sticks, the leather belts around their waists. But the fact remains, why were nuns so cruel? October 2021 The Irish, and nowhere more so than in America, made Catholicism a phenomenon of the English-speaking world. The Mother Teressa took him to the creek behind the dorms and drug him through the cold water until he died. Many Nuns pretended not to see or hear what was going on around them, but instead were passive, taking refuge in their work and silent prayers. However, nuns arent the cruel teachers they used to be. Yet the harsh conditions of the Tuam home meant the infant. A nun and a former nun with ties to the residential school in Shubenacadie, N.S. Sign up for a new account in our community. Now, writes Jane Wheatley . Are thay taught "Spare the rod spoil the child" in nun school? Some who did get a grant, like Philomena, say that most of the money was taken by unscrupulous companies paid directly to carry out work deemed necessary to improve the lives of survivors. William, then aged 10, was just one of 30,000 children placed in 50 of the schools throughout Ireland between 1936 and 1990. (11 Reasons Why), Why Does Batman Not Kill? I am no studying the Bahai faith which is very much the opposite of the RC Church. February 2020 The daily torturing and beating of the slave women and children enabled the cruelest of the Nuns to assert their place in the Magdalene Laundries and other Institutions. It took maybe a week or two to metamorphose the awkward, timid, novice Nuns into the new, confident and vicious Nuns so demonstrably capable of using verbal and physical violence on their captive slave women and their children illegally detained in the religious prisons known as the Magdalene Laundries and other institutions. It is also a powerful order across the world, and its published accounts show it is worth pounds 154m. One of my cousins, she is 64 now, is just now recieving justice for abuse and sexual abuse by the catholic mission nuns and priests commited on her some 50 or 60 years ago. She came for a visit one year while she was still in good health, and we all took a trip to the mission to pay our respects to family members buried there. We were stripped naked, put over the nuns' knees and leathered on the backside with a hand at other times.. They did so because they wanted to jealously safeguard the gold standard for all children, a stable home run by their mothers and fathers. A recent redress fund, set up by the government to provide financial help for the victims, received 16,500 applications, but William is now fighting to scrap the gagging orders required to receive any money. I was more in shock that the bitch assaulted me. Thus, nuns act out their cruelty towards others. Once the other boys were lined up and I was beaten with a wooden sandal on my knees and elbows. Go any length of time you can without any form of sexual release and see how it affects you. It makes perfect sense that some would take their emotions out on others. Nursing Nuns of the Civil War. We found nine reasons that may shock you. Iona Institute Director. Jean Guerrier, like her sister, Vera Willshire, recalls the regime at the Nazareth House in Middlesbrough as unrelentingly brutal and frightening. "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." November 2018 June 2019 I don't think you answered the question "Why were some nuns cruel". "When the Sister died, we were told to pray for her in Heaven, but we all prayed that we were glad. The scenes from a cruel school for indigenous young women run by the sadistic nun Sister Mary (Jennifer Ehle) and a strap-happy and possibly pervy priest, Father Renaud (Sebastian Roch), were . But by and large, theyre much nicer than they used to be. WILLIAM Gorry is still haunted by the look in his six-year-old brother's eyes as two priests ushered them into a room, took off their robes and decided who to rape first. These emotions can eventually turn into anger and resentment. Was Thomas given away or sold? Violence was frequently employed and encouraged with the most common forms being verbal abuse, slaps, blows, and kicks. There are a lot of expectations and rules that they have to follow, leading to stress and anxiety, which in turn leads to nuns being cruel to others. We were in our nighties and we weren't allowed to wear underwear, because the nuns considered it 'dirty'. An inquiry last year into Ireland's Magdalene laundries, where for decades thousands of women were forced to work by nuns, found no evidence that workers were abused. Any child caught speaking native was punished. But its also important to remember that Mothers used to be nuns at some point, as its a matter of hierarchy. I went to a convent and the nuns were from Ireland - I landed one who also beat me and her face whilst hitting me with a ruler on the back of my legs was absolutely horrid. It was a known fact among the slave women and children that beating them was a way of compensating for the Nuns own incompetence and of imposing and demonstrating their authority. The act of forgiveness is powerful. She would choose . Their thinking was instutionalized as of course they were too. Then we were beaten black and blue and made to apologise in front of the whole school.. My child never went to church or catholic upbringing. They were like prison officers. Instead I was a child who was physically, mentally, emotionally and sexually abused.. Then I was told never to tell anybody what had happened or Ill be sorry, and he took me across the road to a shop for sweets.. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/, Thousands of children at Ireland's industrial schools endured years of backbreaking work and abuse, William Gorry was abused as a teenager at Mount Carmel. It is a greater act of contempt than striking the face because it emphasises the asymmetry between the torturer and her victim. However, she has become as cruel, petty and jealous as the rest of Garradrimna, and connives with the postmistress to sabotage Myles Shannon's chance at romance with an English girl, to get revenge on the Shannon family for rejecting her. Violence was frequently employed and encouraged with the most common forms being verbal abuse, slaps, blows, and kicks. We were told, The priest will be up to bless you now.. "But girls were beaten every day. They left the unfortunate girls to their fate. The church-run institutions, set up to care for children who were neglected, orphaned or unwanted, were hotbeds of disgusting, hidden abuse. All the female Religious Orders that ran the Magdalene Laundries and other Institutions in Ireland believed that power and violence were inseparable. After Duplessis received the provincial Church . Anyone who suffers from it can rest easy in at least knowing they're not alone, and when KQED looked at why so many horror movies feature nuns, they found that part of it was the secrecy of convents that put the fear of God into people.. It's been that way for a long, long time way back in . January 2018, List of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, Mother and Baby Homes, Industrial Schools of Ireland. In another horrific incident, he and Thomas, then six, were left alone with two priests who abused them in the same room over a whole weekend. I don't think my grandma knew exactly what he was sick with but she told me that the Nuns had NO empathy for a sick child. The female . The investigation is still active & more depravity is being uncovered. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Mrs Guerrier, who is now 73 and lives in Tottenham, north London, said: "The nuns were extremely harsh. September 2021 Think for example of other people in committed relationships. Police are also investigating after lawyers representing former residents passed on relevant files. Sister Josephine had no explanation for why the commandment was given Thou shall not kill but people were killing each other in Gods name. I just want to try to understand it. The proud wearing of the religious habit was a profound experience for the middle-class women, and the uniformity contributed to forging an esprit de corps, a feeling of pride and mutual loyalty even though it did not exclude hierarchies of rank and did not preclude friction within the group. Getty Images. It was a dreadful experience and I will never forget it. This can lead to nuns being quite resentful toward Mothers. I don't think they are a mean as they were back in the turn of the century, but I have had some dealings with them in the last 30 years or so and they can still be mean. I have seen programs about nuns and most of those show a wonderfull helpful loving nun who just loves the whole world. Her Irish mother, Mary Burke, had been staying with her brother but left five of the children there while she travelled home to get more money from her husband to extend the holiday. The one thing that I have found from talking to them and from past stories they have told me before they died was the Nuns of the Caotholic Missions were always mean and abusive to the children. If they see other nuns being cruel, they may think its okay to act the same way. Sometimes when I'm feeling down I'll go in and cuddle them and lie down and remember how we were treated, and cry. What gives? They had no rights, were (still are to some degree) exposed to all sorts of abuse of the Catholic hierarchy, who always were their superior and who always has to be present to some degree because women can't do things by themselves in Catholicsm by design. ", Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. I saw boys picked up by the throat by a nun for disobedience in line changing classes in Catholic school. Obviously the nuns needed psychiatric evaluation and should never be in charge of anyone. It is now 37 years and it has been eating me up the whole time. Born into Catholicism and devout as a child, I witnessed cruelty and abuse by Sisters of IHM. Then they took the other two from her as well. So nuns did their best to keep you from committing a mortal sin and their way of doing that was to enforce a sort of discipline by various means of which some were mean like hitting your knuckels with a ruler. Priests. Flagrant and cruel. They go more stir crazy being locked up 24/7 so would any normal human being. Philomenas mother, who died at 74, kept in touch with all her children throughout their times at the schools and enjoyed a good relationship with them as adults. If not you got another whacking. "My feet were so badly swollen I was kept off school for three days and two other girls had to join hands to carry me up and down the stairs. By Sue Lloyd Roberts. What is it that makes these Nuns so down right nasty mean? This definitely made it much worse. Coming from a guy who feel he has the right to condemn, criticise and berate the practice's of nearly two billion people, have you been given Carte Blanche on this board? The nuns told us to strip off and stand beside the the bed and they left us just standing there for ages, waiting for our punishment. Mother and Baby Homes, Industrial schools of Ireland told, the leather around... After all, slavery played a crucial role in the development and ongoing operation the..., but many nuns grow to regret taking this vow her main tormentor at the Nazareth House in,. That would be nice different ; however, we were in our nighties and were. The bitch assaulted me their religious vocation morning he had to wash and dress little... 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They were let go home on some weekends and hollidays until he died that! Day running of the Tuam home meant the infant and also hospitalized that would nice! When she was not quite two years old all of us survivors who went through the Redress Board following... Unrelentingly brutal and frightening you think that people expected nuns to be nicer, because of their vocation... Disobedience in line changing classes in Catholic school to leave the home Brecon! Bitch assaulted me Sister died, we were moved to Carlisle where it much... A powerful Order across the world, and nowhere more so than in America made. You and everyone else for weeks until she started to learn english point as. Indeed, the leather belts around their waists home meant the infant so mean and abusive would. Of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, with a steel ruler at 7 years..