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. It is one that most Irish people think they know, but a vague awareness of the cruelty meted out to vulnerable, scared children is nothing compared to having to live with it. Nuns used to be cruel; that much is true. So theres hope in breaking this cycle completely, thus decreasing the cruelty that some nuns display. You believe the bibles the word of god? "I've tried to take my life and spent six months in a hospital after a breakdown. Following the redress process a further 110million (100million) was set aside for a hardship fund named Caranua - which ironically translates as 'new friend'. My mother was one of them. Once the other boys were lined up and I was beaten with a wooden sandal on my knees and elbows. The Mother Teressa took him to the creek behind the dorms and drug him through the cold water until he died. I was sent to clean her office and if she decided I didn't clean it properly she would start banging my head against the wall. "It could happen for any thing, any time of the night or day. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. . Catholic nuns, as decreed by Pope Francis, are not allowed to use smartphones or social media. The Nuns believed they had the right to use violence on them arbitrarily, including, if necessary, killing them. 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 dead bodies should be so very much more shocking than . On one occasion, when she seven, Philomena and some of the other girls were asked to find flowers for the nature table, which she picked from someones garden. "But girls were beaten every day. All the children saw this murder and the Nuns took him and buried him behind the graveyard and his name was never spoken again. She was looking for a victim."I was 11 and looked 9. The Nuns exercised absolute power over the enslaved women and children in the Gulags that were the Magdalene Laundries and other Institutions they ran in Ireland. In fact, one priest was a child molester at our high school. They were not battleaxes or crones. The nuns were terrible.". There are undoubtedly some nuns today who arent the nicest people in the world. Before pushing me in the nuns told me there was a mouse in there and I went totally hysterical. After being forced to leave the school at 16, Philomena fell pregnant and went into one of Irelands notorious mother and baby homes, where her baby girl was taken away and given up for adoption against her will. Some 216,000 children - mostly boys - have been sexually abused by clergy in the French Catholic Church since 1950, a damning new inquiry has found. The improvised weapons greatly increased the force of the blows and added humiliation to physical injury. Professor Grundy reserved his most scathing words for the police forces and bureaucrats, who he said may have known what was going on but did nothing to stop it. William, then aged 10, was just one of 30,000 children placed in 50 of the schools throughout Ireland between 1936 and 1990. Allegations of abuse by its nuns first surfaced in Scotland last year. In my school the nuns, well a few of them were mean. It makes perfect sense that some would take their emotions out on others. "Looking back, I think they really despised the children. The recipients often turn . Nuns have hectic schedules, and the busyness doesnt leave much time to express emotions, thus leading to a lot of bottled-up emotions. 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. Nuns indeed put in a lot of hard work. The first stage of this cruelty was the men who walked away and left the women to be outcasts of society. All the female Religious Orders that ran the Magdalene Laundries and other Institutions in Ireland believed that power and violence were inseparable. April 2020 Though it was three miles away and there was a school bus, we were only given enough money to make the journey once a day, so depending on the weather we'd take it in the morning or afternoon. But by and large, theyre much nicer than they used to be. Beatings were a daily occurrence. Create your own unique website with customizable templates. The commission spent nearly three years combing through complaints and press reports and interviewing victims . The Nuns religious habit played an important role in the experience of power because the habitwas no longer just work clothing, but a sign of belonging to a religious community that was an elite establishment of women imbued by Irish society with power and respect. Abuse is only broken when the cycle stops. One of the devices operating on this principle was the rack, which is infamously associated with the Inquisition . . The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration are a. They would see women who had sex outside marriage as being deviant. Why? The Nuns carried out their daily tasks of interplay of the inmates bloodily and with great relish, and the slaves everyday experienced these practices through their interactions with the frustrated Nuns. Consequently there were always a few of the new, younger Nuns who early on began to display divine signs of having no scruples and, encouraged as they were by the fanatical Cult, were quick to adapt to the bleak life and rules of the living and working reality of their new socio-cultural environment. The act of forgiveness is powerful. The children were beaten regularly and the nuns were never really nice to them. 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. My mother went to Catholic school as a child back in the 1950's. Are just some of them mean? It can also lead to nuns lashing out at others due to their discomfort. ), it wouldn't be hard to, Couple a sadistic personality and a whole lot of pent up sexual frustration.yeah anybody would go psycho. He did that to each of us in turn.. Only my opinion of course, but I'd blame it on a lack of physical and emotional shenanigans with members of the opposite sex. Dozens of former residents of homes in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Midlothian and Kilmarnock claimed they had suffered vicious beatings and sexual abuse. But . You are right nuns are human like you and everyone else. I talk to people today who are living there and they say the nuns are just as aweful as they were 50 years ago! I was made to kneel on one of the blocks in front of the bath while she belted the soles of my feet 20 times with a wooden hairbrush, saying 'Spit in church, would you?' November 2020 I was slapped across the face hard for talking during a movie in 8th grade. Today she attributes her deafness and chronic asthma to the batterings and cruelty she says she suffered there, and still cannot talk about her experiences without breaking down. Violence was frequently employed and encouraged with the most common forms being verbal abuse, slaps, blows, and kicks. Eleven nuns were among the 12 people who were arrested and charged on Thursday for years of alleged physical and sexual abuse against children at a Catholic orphanage in Scotland. "She especially hated me. "When the Sister died, we were told to pray for her in Heaven, but we all prayed that we were glad. This woman wouldn't say sh** if she had a mouth full. Thus, nuns act out their cruelty towards others. I was in bed by 7pm and they used to check you were asleep with your hands across your chest. Shortly afterwards, another trainee staff member took him around to the back of the convent, behind the bicycle shed, pulled his trousers down and raped him. At least 20,000 Irish nuns served outside Ireland between 1800 and 1960. "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." A Nuns wooden rosary beads was used to beat me after she had stripped me naked leaving me to suffer painful welts and bruises all over my body for months. My son was stolen by an Irish nun, Sister Euphrasia Nihil , Head nun at St. John of God Hospital in Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia on 12th October 1982. My grandmother was 3 years old when she was first brought to the mission. June 2019 Eventually, the crochet schools established by the nuns in the 1850s and 1860s disappeared as fashions changed and the demand for Irish lace declined. I hope your not suggesting any of my post isn't true? There was a constant atmosphere of fear, and beatings all the time. The man offered him a soft drink which he contrived to spill all over Williams trousers, soaking him to the skin. It is also a powerful order across the world, and its published accounts show it is worth pounds 154m. The first reason is that they have the power to be cruel. "The dormitory would sleep 12. Nuns could be jealous of the attention that Catholic Mothers get. Lets not forget that nuns take a vow of celibacy. Some nuns come from abusive or neglectful families, and this was even more prominent in the olden days. I wonder what makes them so mean? I carry and wear it every day and I believe many others do the same thing.. This can lead to nuns being quite resentful toward Mothers. But its also important to remember that Mothers used to be nuns at some point, as its a matter of hierarchy. The group has heard from 35 people in the last several days who claim they were physically and sexually abused by nuns, said Dispenza, a former nun who claims she was abused as a young girl. For decades, "bad" Irish girls were sent away to convent-run laundries, where they worked for no pay in awful conditions for years on end. I think it's called how to exagerate for comic effect, like the old Monty Python skit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13JK5kChbRw, You need to be a member in order to leave a comment. But there is good news in all of this. October 2021 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. "You were thrashed about the feet, head and hands, you had your hair pulled and your head bounced off the walls. "The only thing I learned to do there was fight, and when I come across a nun today I avoid them because I cannot be civil. Some Nuns systematically accelerated and intensified their violent acts in the presence of another Nun, and considered it better still if she was an incoming novice. You could be hit for talking in church. Many were young and pretty, and though maybe they were kind in their first few weeks, they soon became much the same as the rest. 3-For because of the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality, all the nations have fallen victim, and the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth became rich owing to the power of her shameless luxury." They are not interested in children which was obvious at Tuam .Orphanage, in Ireland plus others.. 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. This can lead to frustration and a feeling of being trapped. The savage, merciless and more seasoned of the Nuns in the Magdalene Laundries and other female Religious-run institutions encouraged and taught brutal Catholic Cult reality to the simple, well-meaning and middle-class rural women who were now Holy Nuns. They justified their abuse of power by the cause their signed up to. Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others By David Livingstone Smith Hardcover, 336 pages St. Martin's Press List price: $24.99 Read An Excerpt When the Nazis described Jews. 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. (9 Reasons Why), Why Are Contractors So Unreliable? ", Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. They go more stir crazy being locked up 24/7 so would any normal human being. This kind of behavior applies to nuns, as well. Here I target one of the most racist aspects of the meme which claims that female Irish servants were "forced to breed" with enslaved African men in British American colonies. . 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!" As National Indigenous Peoples Day draws closer and the news that 215 Indian children's graves have been discovered at the Kamloops Indian Reservation School, all those memories of my dad's and mom's stories come back. She hated children and was always hitting us with a cricket stump she carried around. This leads to jealousy towards those who can experience intimacy and love within a family. She would choose . The religious habit was a distinctive set of clothing worn by members of a religious Order with the style and colour differentiating each Order. But the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland published last week after five years of work was worse . I didn't know the underscore wasn't mandatory for usernames before I came to these forums. Others have already pointed out that Nuns are denied any intimacy when they join Catholicism. Getty Images. The victim lies prostrate on the ground, at the Nuns feet. 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why were irish nuns so cruel