Their accounts of life in the various homes have a common theme: of thrashings even for the most minor misdemeanour or failing, be it sneezing, wetting the bed, or forgetting the words of a hymn. Nobody wanted to hear about the Vestal Virgins back then, she said. Violent discipline, he says, was not uncontested. The family book I am writting has so many of these stories in it I almost hate to put them in there. Her father took the child to the local priest "to explain what he'd discovered and how angry he was for his children, but the priest never took it up". I hope your not suggesting any of my post isn't true? It gives a good idea of the standard of care. "I need answers, not just about Betsy but about the whole damned thing. Dad didn't want us, nobody loved us, no one took care of us." Dispenza, who spent 15 years in a habit before becoming an activist against the Catholic Church, is bracing for an onslaught of cases against nuns, who typically run schools and orphanages, and spend exponentially more time with children than priests do. This was their holiday. "We were taken to the beach, it was so grey and wild and windy, we were frozen." Cusiter became one of the former inmates whose evidence initiated the unprecedented criminal prosecution in Scotland in autumn 2000, when Sister Alphonso, appearing as Marie Docherty, was convicted of four charges of cruel and unnatural treatment. Never has been and never will be. by Kelly Many Guns , June 28, 2021. She was eight. Imagine trying to be perfect all the time. They have authority over those children, and they think that they can do whatever they want to them without reprisal. This may be qualified in cases of alleged institutional abuse because there is sometimes a chain of corroboration. Nuns took vows of chastity, renounced worldly goods and devoted themselves to prayer, religious studies and helping society's most needy. In my school the nuns, well a few of them were mean. Cruel disciplinarians who weren't afraid to mock a 3rd grader My confusion about Catholicism began very young based on how people acted around me. "I left when I was 13 with a terrible stammer that I am sure must have been because of living in fear of the nuns. For messing about in church. The Sisters of Mercy taught the girls at her high school; the boys were taught by the Christian Brothers. Her days and nights were haunted. Dr Abernathy denies the allegations of cruelty and abuse, and argues that for 130 years the Sisters of Nazareth "devoted their entire lives to the care of orphans, abandoned children, children from broken homes and in many cases children referred from the courts. Teonna, along with several other Native American girls, was forced to remain in the institution while her grandmother Issaxche Rainwater try to find a way to release her. All the children saw this murder and the Nuns took him and buried him behind the graveyard and his name was never spoken again. Why are Nuns so mean? 'Is it money you're after?' I've never found it easy forming relationships and had periods when I've had to go to hospital and had all sorts of problems.". Why are Nuns so mean? Rocketgirl33, Helen's younger brother grew up a distressed, drifting young man. He remembers Nazareth House as dour and cruel. This woman wouldn't say sh** if she had a mouth full. Gmail We saw her being brought out of the water. FLOUR GRUEL. "My sister and her friend Betsy Owens were playing with a beach ball. I am all right, I'm surviving. "I didn't want money. People can be cruel unintentional, they can say or do things unconsciously, but that is not an excuse for their actions. "Ruthless and sadistic madness on the part of least some of the nuns and a depthless depravity on the part of some of the men are the defining characteristics of at least some of those who ran the orphanage," wrote Professor Grundy. NANCY WILLOUGHBY was taken into care by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth after her mother died when she was three. The nun would roll her sleeves up, so she got a real good whack. ", Other inmates have similar memories. There is the cruel nun (The Magdalene Sisters), the anti-fun nun (Sound of Music) . She started to tell me how wonderful it was working with the old people, but her hands were shaking. It was voiced at the highest level last year when the reforming Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, claimed that many convictions of people accused of abusing children in institutional care were flawed and that the law was in need of review. "I remember being told repeatedly by the nuns that I had been put there because I was naughty and because my family did not want me. Thats awefull! The atmosphere was one of sheer terror. Despite the childhood rapes by the priest who was trusted by her family Dispenza decided to become a nun, only to be faced with similar abuse from a superior sister while she was a novitiate. When Finnegan finally summoned up the courage to confront Sister Mary Juanita in the early 1990s more than 20 years after graduating high school in 1969 she found herself tongue-tied. It makes perfect sense that some would take their emotions out on others. The mission had boys dorm and girls dorm and behind the dorms outside was a small creek that ran behind the buildings and through the woods. (7 Reasons Why), Why Are 911 Operators So Rude? Eoin O'Sullivan, the Irish historian of Catholic orphanages and schools, cites a very public challenge to the church by Father Flanagan, the priest whose humane childcare was the model for Spencer Tracy in the film, Men Of Boys Town. "When I left [the Cardiff home] at 18 I was just handed a suitcase with hardly anything in it and shown the door. These emotions can eventually turn into anger and resentment. What often makes detection of childhood abuse difficult for the police is that it's an adult's word against a child's, and there often isn't any surviving physical evidence (a sign, say the sceptics, that abuse didn't happen or that it didn't cause any harm). I believe it was that they treated indigenous people like savages that werent even worthy of owning their own land ..ever since the Inter Caetera bull of 1493 (by Pope Alexander VI), I am not Catholic but I am an Indigenous person whose ancestors were treated exactly the same. "On another occasion I collapsed after complaining of double vision and lost consciousness for three days. Boil until it thickens, add a cup of new milk, turn into a double boiler, and cook again for twenty or thirty minutes. I was up at 5am scrubbing floors, doing laundry. Some of her therapy was paid for by the Sisters of Mercy, Sister Mary Juanitas religious order that has its origins in 19th-century Ireland and now ministers to the poor around the world. They did so because they wanted to jealously safeguard the gold standard for all children, a stable home run by their mothers and fathers. The stories I have heard just make me cry. However, nuns arent the cruel teachers they used to be. My sister and I have tried unsuccessfully to follow this up. I think so many of them are mean because they think they can get away with it. It was only later I realised that you didn't bruise so badly there. Kathleen Batey's back is lined with a ladder of scars - they are the relics of her life at Nazareth House in Tyneside, received, she says, when nuns took off the belts buckled round their habits and beat her. Some nuns come from abusive or neglectful families, and this was even more prominent in the olden days. You'd hear their footsteps but you didn't know who they were. "I began wetting the bed and this was seen as a dreadful crime. When I couldn't make out what they were saying they thought I was being cheeky and I got slapped and punched a lot. She was overwhelmed by shame - ashamed of leaving other children behind, of failing to protect them from harm. She said she never told her father I was afraid of what he would do to the nun when he found out and only summoned up the courage to tell her mother of the trauma just before her death in 2002. One of them was my sister. Its not something thats public knowledge, but many nuns grow to regret taking this vow. When my grandma first went there she only spoke her native language, she spoke no english at all. A helper, a big 20-year-old girl, dragged me to the washroom. For being late for prayer. It was just the routine.". I felt the same way I felt as a child. Instead she decided to go to the police. So he wrote to God. NEW YORKAs a growing number of Roman Catholic dioceses across the United States investigate child sex-abuse claims against clergy and are releasing the names of priests accused of such crimes, another hidden problem has begun to surfacenuns who sexually abuse children. "The dormitory would sleep 12. On the other piece of paper he mapped all the features of the room behind that window, its pipes, floorboards, walls, doors, a cupboard. Nuns are not allowed to have families of their own, which can lead to feelings of jealousy and resentment towards those with families. But the fact remains, why were nuns so cruel? The group refused to put the issue on the agendas of their annual meetings, Dispenza told The Post. She and her sisters were in Nazareth House for just 18 months - they left when their father, who regularly made the long trek across the country to see his daughters, suddenly arrived in his work clothes to take them away. Every surface is wiped clean. The Mother Teressa took him to the creek behind the dorms and drug him through the cold water until he died. There were frequent visits by "children's officers, town councillors, inspectors, including doctors and psychologists from the home and health department". On the mantelpiece there is a fading photograph of him in a grey bow tie with the queen of the Eurovision Song Contest, Katie Boyle. This is the next big thing for the church the biggest untold secret, Mary Dispenza, a director at Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a St. Louis-based advocacy group. It blew into the sea and they went into retrieve it, a stupid plastic ball - of course, they wouldn't have dared do otherwise. She points out that "15 members of my group have taken their own lives. Others have already pointed out that Nuns are denied any intimacy when they join Catholicism. Currie had likened some of his childhood documents to a diary, but the archbishop insists, "only three sheets of paper were found, two containing aspirations Joseph had listed for himself and the other listing the timing of the Benny Hill show on TV". One of the nuns said: 'You watch you don't get blood on your dress or you'll catch it.' 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. Lets not forget that nuns take a vow of celibacy. After graduating high school in 1969, Finnegan struggled to deal with the abuse and tell her story, but her efforts fell on deaf ears. Currie was horrified and took himself to the police to tell them about his memories of the place he remembered as the "House of Hell". It can also lead to nuns taking their frustration out on others. "So I went to St Mary's Cathedral in Aberdeen and I said, 'There's this man comes to the home and plays with my private parts.' I wonder what makes them so mean? Vera lived at the home with her two sisters from the age of six months until she was 17 years old. Not a day went by without someone getting a battering. To this day, she doesn't know what had so alarmed him - all visits were patrolled by nuns who remained in the room, like sentries. Many youths vow to never be like their parents, only to grow up and mimic the very things they hated as children. He sent the envelope to Cameron Fyfe, a Scottish solicitor, with a note naming the boy with whom he had shared that room. Women Religious orders are very closed systems, more so than the priesthood. "I just want it out of my mind." Just because you are married doesn't mean you don't find another person attractive or have great chemistry with someone. Fyfe argues that the cultures of orphanages and schools tend to be specific and different - he also represents clients who were in the hands of the de la Salle monks in Britain, against whom there are more allegations of sexual abuse than there are against the Nazareth House nuns. Sex with children is a crime, but "reasonable chastisement is still a lawful reason for inflicting pain on children," explains David Spicer, a barrister and former chair of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. I said, 'Every bit.' Nothing. But the babies and children who died at the home were buried in these crypt-like chambers. Eight years ago, when a handful of victims of nun abuse came forward to SNAP, Dispenza urged the Chicago-based Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an association of the leaders of congregations of Catholic nuns, to address the issue and reach out to victims of nun abuse. This vow means they will not have sex or engage in sexual activity, leading to frustration and feeling trapped. Abuse is only broken when the cycle stops. We found nine reasons that may shock you. It is a Christian duty, for your greater glory, not theirs. Moisten two tablespoons of farina with a very little cold milk, and stir it into a cup of boiling water. Other times it's more that the nun's reason for having become one is less about being 'called' than a try at redemption or willing away some horrible trauma in the past . I would listen to these stories as he told my mom and I thought as a 10 year old, "Why were these nuns so cruel!". These people told you that you were the scum of the earth. An aunt who came to visit was told I was confined with an infection. I thought bugger that, I'm saying my piece.". Fred Aitken is 70 years old and still he is haunted by sounds - the racket of children "banging their heads against the walls of the dormitories". Or worse. "I held on tight but the waves kept dashing me against the wood and my leg was badly gashed. (11 Reasons Why), Why Are Vegans So Entitled? She, too, remembers children being force-fed, and also being required to work. But it didn't stop the man coming in." Learn more. He is a fast-talking, busy man, a retired postman, "a bit of a cheeky chap, straight to the point", he says of himself. I couldnt speak, I couldnt move.. I spent a lot of time scrubbing floors or cleaning shoes. The violence in the orphanage didn't seem exceptional to her, just part of life. That was when her main tormentor at the Nazareth House in Middlesbrough, Sister Laurence, died. No one would believe how bad it was. 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