'Endemic' abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, Cheit/Piper

describes crimes
'Endemic' rape and abuse of Irish children in Catholic care, inquiry finds - Beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children, Ryan report states - Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent - guardian.co.uk, 5/20/09 Rape and sexual molestation were "endemic" in Irish Catholic church-run industrial schools and orphanages, a report revealed today. The nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls in the Irish Republic, while government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rape and humiliation. The high court judge Sean Ryan today unveiled the 2,600-page final report of Ireland's commission into child abuse, which drew on testimony from thousands of former inmates and officials from more than 250 church-run institutions. Police were called to the news conference amid angry scenes as victims were prevented from attending. More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families - a category that often included unmarried mothers - were sent to Ireland's austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last facilities shut in the 1990s....The report found that molestation and rape were "endemic" in boys' facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but instead endured frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless....The report concluded that when confronted with evidence of sex abuse, religious authorities responded by transferring offenders to another location, where in many instances they were free to abuse again. "There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse," the report said. "The safety of children in general was not a consideration." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/irish-catholic-schools-child-abuse-claims

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse http://www.childabusecommission.ie/index.html

Executive Summary - Conclusions - 1. Physical and emotional abuse and neglect were features of the institutions. Sexual abuse occurred in many of them, particularly boys' institutions. Schools were run in a severe, regimented manner that imposed unreasonable and oppressive discipline on children and even on staff. http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/ExecSummary.php

Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse - Volume I - Volume V http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/

Abuse Tracker - http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/



Junk Skepticism and Recovered Memory: A Reply to Piper - Ross E. Cheit - Ethics and Behavior,9(4) 295-318 (1999) "Piper purports to challenges the facts in seven cases. As detailed later in virtually every instance his argument is undocumented and inaccurate." http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/pdf/piper.pdf

Ross Cheit Response to Critics (Replies to Piper and McNally) http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/critics.html