Yes, these sisters know there were cruel women among them and they live that sense of betrayal very painfully. But by and large, theyre much nicer than they used to be. ), it wouldn't be hard to see why some Nuns are high-strung. I thought bugger that, I'm saying my piece.". "The gagging order is such an appalling and cruel abuse to all of us survivors who went through the Redress Board," he says. "When the Sister died, we were told to pray for her in Heaven, but we all prayed that we were glad. Its not easy to grow up in an abusive or neglectful home, which can lead to trauma and emotional damage. Thank God they chose the nuns. (11 Reasons Why), Why Does Batman Not Kill? To hide injuries from visitors, children were shut into a "black hole" without bedding, ventilation or light. 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. Although nuns acting mean is mostly history, the stigma remains in many peoples minds. November 2019 In her absence, Philomena says, the parish priests took the children into the industrial schools, with the girls entering the Good Shepherd in Waterford. They left the unfortunate girls to their fate. Nuns with children at Sean Ross abbey. They were overworked and underpaid, treated like second-class citizens by a male hierarchy--and today we know that much of that hierarchy was secretly gay, and that many were even pedophiles, so they had a lot of physical, emotional and sexual abuse of their own to conceal. There were very few nuns in many cases in these Magdalen Laundries which were called Asylums up the foundation of the Free State. I was asked to go but I refused, says William. I think my time there has left deep scars. They were raised in abusive homes and grew up as abusive adults. 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. Why are Nuns so mean? The whole idea was for those women to do penance for their sins. Nuns used to be cruel; that much is true. Nuns are no different; however, we choose not to act upon these natural, sexual feelings and urges. Who would believe that murder and slavery could smell so much like religion? These Irish nuns emmigrated to Australia and brought the Catholic Churches forced adoption practices with them. 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. My heart was deeply touched by reading this article which reports the most horrifying cruelty to women and children. Anything can trigger flashbacks because there are so many bad memories, he says. 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. Vera lived at the home with her two sisters from the age of six months until she was 17 years old. No one would believe how bad it was. 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. One of the devices operating on this principle was the rack, which is infamously associated with the Inquisition . Narcissists can use words as bullets, zeroing in on anything they can to unsettle and upset you. Nuns have to obey their superiors, which can lead to a feeling of being trapped and powerless, and it can also lead to nuns being quite resentful towards those in positions of authority. The slave trade they operated included the illegal selling of the children of the enslaved women. 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. They became boarders while in Secondary School and then joined up they would have no idea for the most part about sexuality's. And 40 nuns belonging to the Poor Sisters of Nazareth and the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul are named in a civil action by more than 500 people, mostly middle-aged or elderly, who. "Looking back, I think they really despised the children. dead bodies should be so very much more shocking than . In high school I realized that what we were taught about loving one another was just words. My mother was one of them. 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! The rules of the Magdalene Laundries gave the Nuns the absolute authority to punish the inmates who were slave women and children. They were let go home on some weekends and hollidays. The Magdalene Laundries were a profitable business for the Nuns and the Cult of the Irish Catholic Church. It was a matter of impressing and/or shocking fellow Nuns by specific acts of violence, and thereby proving ones authority and skill. You have to ask why are some women cruel because the reality is some women are cruel. We did all the work in the convent, cleaning the windows, scrubbing floors, doing the laundry and washing out the bathrooms. March 2019 "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. 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. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Why Are Bartenders So Rude? 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.. Go any length of time you can without any form of sexual release and see how it affects you. Does any of what these Nuns did sound righteous to you? Therefore, trying to live a perfect life is both impossible and unnecessary. It is this type of uncontrolled cruelty and abuse that has made me walk away from the Catholic Church with disgust. (7 Reasons Why), Why Are Harleys So Expensive? 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. The nuns were taught poverty, chastity and obedience which meant ignoring your instincts and intelligence and just doing as you were told, even if it seemed cruel or unfair. I know that they are supposed to be married to god and suchbut when you are married to a guy that is never around, doesn't talk to you, sets up impossible rules, and never has sex with youwell you would be cranky too. The Nuns must have realised that the exercise of power over others can never be definitive, as to act with their accustomed violence beyond the walls of their institutions was impossible. I think what happens is that religion is handed down from generation to generation in what ever form it maybe and catholics had no problem sparing the rod as that's how they grew up. Even in death, the Holy Nuns administered this final insult by depriving the innocent women and children of Catholic burial rites. i may have exaggerated a little. I think that's the way many of them were trained, in a very authoritarian church. In May 1983, 12-year-old Thomas was taken to Lourdes, by the local charity the Order of Malta, who frequently arranged trips for disabled children. These emotions can eventually turn into anger and resentment. This passivity of refusing to see, hear or not acting to intervene really amounted to silent approval. February 2020 It was a very spartan regime. He would feed him at breakfast, dinner and lunch then undress him and bath him before putting him to bed. The stigma that nuns are cruel is somewhat of a misnomer. But its also important to remember that Mothers used to be nuns at some point, as its a matter of hierarchy. This caused a huge strain on me.. Searching for. Sadly, those abusive women were sadists who should have been imprisoned themselves and also hospitalized. "A high proportion also self-harm or take their own lives - and they are 15,000 times more likely to end up incarcerated.". Two years ago, he began searching for the death certificate and found there were no records of Thomass death at the funeral home, the airline or the French registry. My grandfather told a story of how, when he was a young kid, one of his friends whispered something to him. They were not battleaxes or crones. The sexual assault was to be the first of many suffered by William at the hands of his supposed care-givers. But there is good news in all of this. One of the old ladies had died." They were left there all night with the corpse and to this day, Mary says she has. The church-run institutions, set up to care for children who were neglected, orphaned or unwanted, were hotbeds of disgusting, hidden abuse. March 2021 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. I spent a lot of time scrubbing floors or cleaning shoes. "She especially hated me. "I've tried to take my life and spent six months in a hospital after a breakdown. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. 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. But many nuns never had the chance to break the cycle. The first reason is that they have the power to be cruel. She would choose . They may feel they are missing out on something essential and wonder what could have been. Then they took the other two from her as well. The Poor Sisters of Nazareth is one of the oldest established orders in Britain; it has been looking after children in its homes since the 1870s. We were sent upstairs. I certainly didnt need any time to reflect on my own experience of cruel Irish Nuns.. After all, I was nine years with the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul in Dublin in both a Mother and Baby Home, St. Patricks on the Navan Road where I was born and spent the first four years of my life, and for five more years at St Philomena's Home, Stillorgan. But, back in the day, this is how nuns were taught, and its no wonder they turned out to be so cruel. They were not battleaxes or crones. . Why Are Nuns So Cruel? I hear stories about the nuns from non family members too and not many people have "Found memories" of their days with the nuns. This vow means they will not have sex or engage in sexual activity, leading to frustration and feeling trapped. I was never so happy as when I left that place, but it's stayed with me ever since. My child never went to church or catholic upbringing. "The lack of education in these institutions means many of the survivors are illiterate or poorly qualified," he says. You believe the bibles the word of god? They would see women who had sex outside marriage as being deviant. "I am not the human I should be, a human that should have had what I deserved as a child - my family, love, happiness, education, a job, being able to live with my partner and marry. Content Summary. Once I was beaten black and blue, so badly I had to stay in the infirmary for five weeks, and when I came out I was given a bag of sweets and told to tell no one about what happened. 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. 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. 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. It is anger, suffering and self isolation.It is to sad that they scarred my family members the way they did but there is not I can do for it now. 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. A helper, a big 20-year-old girl, dragged me to the washroom. Read Book A Light In The Window An Irish Christmas Love Story Kindle . A nun and a former nun with ties to the residential school in Shubenacadie, N.S. It seems logical that a person suffering from not being a part of normal life, ie:love, sex, child birth ect ect.. would harbor lots of ill will twords those who cannot help themselves. So if you see a mean nun, remember that shes probably going through a lot. Rocketgirl33, Getty Images. Thats awefull! The Nuns had been punishing this boy for not doing his chores and on that fateful night he was murdered by the Nuns. The nuns were so mentally and physically abusive .the lay teachers were the same . I didn't know the underscore wasn't mandatory for usernames before I came to these forums. Being on the receiving end of this behavior is horrifying and confusing. Its not easy to always be modest. I relatiated at nuns school in UK. We were innocent children taken from our mother for no reason, says Philomena. This can lead to a cycle of cruelty thats hard to break. No one did and I was just told to follow on. 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. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? June 2020 "You could get hammered for anything. Led by Premier Maurice Duplessis, the period was characterized by unprecedented corruption and repression, much of which involved the Catholic Church. 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. This is part three of my series debunking the "Irish slaves" meme. Its not easy to always obey those in authority, and many nuns who cant obey suffer from stress and anxiety, leading to nuns lashing out at others in positions of power. 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. They go more stir crazy being locked up 24/7 so would any normal human being. She hated children and was always hitting us with a cricket stump she carried around. Its crucial for nuns to be aware of this and to try to break the cycle. December 2019 . Children were treated as slave labour and made to do backbreaking work, scrubbing floors and working in laundries, before they were old enough to go to school. This was not the case in mid-19th Century . He was told that the remains would be brought back to Moate for mass and the following day to his hometown of Daingean, Co. Offaly. Your marriage needs to be annulled (not 'divorced') first. Was Thomas given away or sold?. Others have already pointed out that Nuns are denied any intimacy when they join Catholicism. Their thinking was instutionalized as of course they were too. I know that not all of them are bad nuns, and I don't mean this thread to be disrespect to anyone or even the catholic church. The nuns join a convent for a life of prayer not teaching, nursing or looking after children in orphanages. For messing about in church. The Nuns enjoyed certain privileges both in Irish society as a whole and in their palatial Convents where the daily tasks of cooking, cleaning, washing-up, ironing etc, were all performed by their slaves. Survivor campaigner Mark Vincent Healy says the lifelong effects of the childhood abuse needs to be addressed. To this day I cannot go into a loft or a small room and I sleep with the light on because of that. At Christmas there was jam. Try to be understanding and compassionate. "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. Keep on seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. It certainly isn't Catholicism. Jealous Nuns could be jealous of the attention that Catholic Mothers get. Now, writes Jane Wheatley . Beatings and acts of extreme cruelty were commonplace, they say, and together with the spartan existence in the home, gave them lives of utter misery. This button displays the currently selected search type. 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. Anjez Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, or Mother Teresa as she is now known throughout the world, was one of the most important Catholic Church figures when she was alive and even posthumously. She was told to go away, that we were wards of court, even though that wasnt true. reflect on their experiences and this week's TRC report. 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. This kind of behavior applies to nuns, as well. "One of the worst things that ever happened to me was being locked in a cupboard as a punishment. July 2020 Revelation 18:2-42-"She has fallen! Plenty of Students..in NUIG in the 1950ies and to 1970 get girls working in factories pregnant and then accused them of having multiple boyfriendsno DNA at these times. The Nuns total exercise of power included the daily use of extreme mental as well as physical violence as they believed that the women and the children were to be broken on the Catherine wheel, so to speak, and destroyed mentally, if possible, by the whims and acrimonious tempers of the sexually frustrated Nuns. It was thought to confer a higher social status for the family and to provide a degree of comfort for unmarried daughters. July 2021 FOR Vera Willshire, who is now 75, the year 1939 was one of the happiest of her life. Its not easy to live up to such high standards. She remembers a nun who would come to her class every day to choose a student to help her with Mass. The scathing report, by Professor Bruce Grundy of Queensland University, told of how one girl, Helen Carter, had her legs burnt with a red-hot poker, to exorcise the Devil, while another child almost lost her legs which became infected after a nun pulled out her ingrowing toenails with pliers. 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. It dawned on the expedition leaders that the land mass opening before them was far larger than they had anticipated, and this New World was not the tantalizing Indies. Thus, nuns act out their cruelty towards others. 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. When America Despised the Irish: The 19th Century's Refugee Crisis Forced from their homeland because of famine and political upheaval, the Irish endured vehement discrimination before making. The extravagant Convents offered the Nuns a degree of gentile comfort, a warm room of their own, the best of food and drink, and wanting for nothing. Church or Catholic upbringing bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference?... Abuse that has made me walk away from the Catholic Churches forced adoption practices with them yes, sisters... Go home on some weekends and hollidays it 's stayed with me since! To her class every day to choose a student to help her with Mass of! 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