Spiritan abuse survivors urged to come forward as independent process to begin

Were the school run by a religious order at the time or just under religious patronage?

Shocked, angry, and sick to my stomach to read the full list of schools and the number of abusers in the report, they are all over the country. This was widespread and the number of different religious orders involved is mind-boggling, they are all toxic and rotten to the core. I dont believe for a minute that the senior management in those orders didn't know or suspect what was going on, yet it was covered up for decades. Any adult who hurts young children or facilitates it, is the dregs of society imo.

The nauseating thing is that the RC set itself up as the moral authority in this country, indoctrinated our citizens into a belief that nearly everything was sinful, and then they let paedophiles and psychopaths loose on the most vulnerable members of our society - children, pregnant single women, people with special needs. It is obscene.

A corrupt organisation should have no control over any service providing education, healthcare, or services for people with any kind of special needs be it old age, mental health issues, disabilities etc. The state needs to ensure our laws protect our citizens instead of outsourcing responsibility to different sectors of an unaccountable organisation that hides behind canon law.

My heart goes out to every person who suffered at the hands of those evil despicable monsters. I hope they get all the support, counselling and help they need.

Why aren’t we marching on the streets to rid this dangerous cult from our schools and hospitals? How are these scumbags allowed to decide the “ethos” of our school system?

Have we all got Stockholm Syndrome?

It's like walking around in a snazzy black uniform styled by Hugo Boss about 80 years ago, if you don't want to suffer the associations of wearing it then don't wear it, and ideally leave any organisation which does, especially when that organisation has been proven to be entirely sociopathic and amoral.

Didn't have to search too hard for my former primary - one of the highest non-fee-paying schools in the country on the list. Plenty of violence there in my time (late 70s on) but never heard a peep about sexual abuse then or since.

Heard some stories about absolute psychopath CBs there in the 1960s, I can well imagine that an atmosphere which tolerated that tolerated known sexual abusers also.

That school only had boys and only from 2nd-6th class, before that we were in the convent school across the road, the parish priest in the mid 70s was well known for visiting that school and selecting both boys and girls for "lifts" in his car and abusing them. He was moved…

Can't imagine how these men are feeling today, I really truly hope they are finally finding peace and healing.

Thought you were talking about the (non-abusing) priests there. They can always leave it if they don't like how their organisation is now, justly, regarded…

You were talking about the victims. Sorry about that.

Yes, that's undoubtedly the important issue we should be focusing on in all of this.

So you addressed this problem by taking an opportunity to gloat over it to settle some petty old scores yourself?

I can only imagine how incredibly droll you thought you were when sending that

Almost as smug as your damsel in distress Roisin was in her horrible article gloating over children that teased her being raped

Again I don’t know why you’d take issue with someone criticising her disgusting article in a thread entirely germane to the topic

Yeah, I remember it well. I didn't experience any abuse, but I can see exactly how it could have flourished. I went to several schools, so I know there are big differences in atmosphere. That's why I always find when people tend to critique schools here you always get someone going on about how lovely their school was, but Irish schools are not homogenous. A lot depends on the particular management and the culture and ethos that builds up.

We'd a lot of bullying, most of which came directly from a group of core staff. They'd humiliate, participate in bullying and so on. I was in school more so in the 1990s.

They created an atmosphere where you didn't squeal, didn't rat anyone out. It was rather like a rather screwed up version of the worst of military boot camp culture, or even prison culture in many ways. That's the kind of environment where bullying and abuse can survive and proposer.

I'm not sure why anyone thought that this was a good environment to bring kids up in. It just seemed to be all about aggression and being constantly told to shut up and never express yourself. I mean, what careers were they actually envisaging we'd all work in? 19th century factory workers or something, doffing the cap to authority at all times?

I don't really think I ever 'enjoyed' school. It was more a case of enduring it.

Anyway, I don't want to go on about me, as I didn't have any experiences of the kind of abuse being discussed, but I think there was a lot wrong with the kinds of places we were educated and there's a terrible unwillingness to critique them.

Okay so you admit you’ve no idea what you’re talking about, just couldn't pass up an opportunity to be a smartarse - maybe go and have a look for yourself first in future before wading in without a clue

I’m reminding people of the horrible article she wrote on exactly this topic when the story first broke.
Seen as she didn’t see fit to retract it or issue an apology over it why should she get off with people forgetting about it when the story has returned to the news.

It's still untouchable.

Little or no appetite to prosecute those abusers still left alive. No accountability whatsoever for those in positions of power who covered up for them - not one ever even brought in for questioning.

The orders promised to pay a pathetically small amount of money leaving the lion's share of abuse compensation to the taxpayer. But they haven't even paid that and no government has had the guts to pursue them.

RCC retains control of about half of secondary schools and nearly 90% of primary schools, even though taxes pay for the building, staffing and running of these schools. They are putting lay trusts in place to protect their financial assets and ensure religious control remains after all the priests, nuns, "brothers" (ugh, what a vile bunch) are gone.

Orders like the CBs are giving two fingers to the courts when victims bring civil cases, forcing the victims to sue them individually rather than collectively.

All of this is amazing really but not all that surprising when you remember that a huge proportion of government ministers ever since the foundation of the State and to this very day were educated in the most elitist, fee-charging religious order schools.

Ah right the article has no factual errors, you’ve no opinions on matters relating to taste where the article is concerned?

There’s nothing strange about discussing the coverage of a national story in the relevant thread, it’s very common across the site.
Are we not allowed discuss coverage, particularly coverage so out of pace with all other coverage on such harrowing and saddening news? I expect never to see you taking issue with a journalists take on any given topic in future so

Oh it’s “interesting” is it, go on then what’s so “interesting”, don’t just beg the question, would love to hear it.

Yet people will still send their kids to a church to make their communion and confirmation this year and celebrate it with a big day out??

All church/religious land should be seized for housing,a redress scheme for all victims funded by the religious orders should also be set up.

Never came across any pedo teachers in my time at school but I remember one "brother" who got off by hitting you with a teak stick on both hands, I remember the pain was unbelievable, he would be frothing at the mouth with the effort he put into inflicting pain.he had just returned from the missions in Africa,God knows what damage he did out there.Prick.

A school closed to me had "5 accusers and 5 accused". That means that each boy was abused by one priest or the 5 were abused by a multiple of the 5 if taken at face value.

Absolutely not a hope in hell that 5 abusers only have 5 victims in a situation like this so the real figure surely goes way beyond 5.

I’ve been cynical about that for years now- a lot of it is just about the social occasion and not wanting your child left out but also it’s about ensuring your child has the best chance to get into their preferred secondary school when it’s a Catholic run institution

That nonsense doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s time we all took anaction instead of tut tut on social media.

Your kids will ask you in 20 years what were you thinking bringing us to the church when you all KNEW what they had done…

What example are we setting for future generations??

We talk about accountability in this country yet people are still happy to let their kids be ordained by priests and go to confession etc.

For those around at the time , anyone surprised at the number of abusers listed? I knew of 3 but there were I think 12 or 13 listed - I’m thinking they may have been before my time, sometime in the 60s or 70s

I sadly feel that adults are always going to abuse children. Who are people going to abuse. They will abuse the weakest in society.

There needs to be much more safeguarding. An adult should never be left alone with children. In schools now, there should be two adults in every class, not one.

And yes that is possible as they could hire more teaching assistants

Seizing church lands for redress has been on the cards decades now- I think the government are still waiting on some religious orders to “donate” previously promised lands and buildings - but even then what was agreed at the time was a derisory amount - if I remember it was like a few % of the total cost that redress to victims was estimated to be .

Also the legal set up of some religious orders makes it near impossible to squeeze funds out of them - if a citizen wishes to sue say the Christian brothers for past abuse, the way this “society” or whatever is set up , you have to sue each and every brother or list them all unless a volunteer brother steps forward (which they haven’t) or something very similar to that - you can’t just write “Christian Brothers HQ” on the legal documentation - I’m explaining it badly but in essence, it’s a legal nightmare

Oh I know, that wasn’t aimed at you.

God humans can be disgusting

I just think how could they do that to a child, knowing it will ruin the rest of their life.

I suppose they don't care . The power and abuse and destruction of another human being is the thrill of it.

There are so many things that need to be implemented in schools to keep children safer