'Climate of fear' shielded Irish abusers
Report finds Catholic-run schools at fault
LONDON - Boys and girls in Ireland were beaten, sexually abused and traumatized for decades in workhouse-style schools run by the Roman Catholic Church where a "culture of silence" protected victimizers rather than the children in their care, according to a long-awaited report.
For more than half a century, chronic, excessive and arbitrary punishment created "a climate of fear" in which students at schools administered by Catholic religious orders lived "with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from."
Through it all, the report said, government inspectors failed to stop what was going on. That neglect occurred despite attempts by some individuals to bring their abusers to account in an effort to lessen the trauma that victims suffered for years afterward - and that still haunts many today.
These are some of the findings of the controversial 2,600-page report unveiled in Dublin yesterday after a nine-year investigation by Ireland's Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. Drawing on the testimony of nearly 2,000 witnesses, men and women who attended more than 200 Catholic-run schools from the 1930s to the 1990s, the commission painted a damning picture of a church engaged too often in covering up misdeeds instead of rooting out perpetrators.
The panel found that sexual molestation was "endemic," committed by offenders who were often transferred to other institutions rather than dismissed or turned over to authorities.
The five-volume report is a major blow to a religious institution that continues to wield significant, albeit declining, influence over Irish society, especially on moral issues such as divorce and abortion.
Nonetheless, it wasn't tough enough for some of the victims. Many are angry that the report includes no names of alleged offenders, an omission that one of the religious orders under investigation fought for - and won - in court. Only pseudonyms are used, making slim the chances of criminal prosecution based on the report's findings.
"We expected that these people would be named and shamed and that some of them would be convicted," John Barrett, who testified before the commission, told an Irish radio station.
"At the end of the day, some of us won't sleep tonight. We're still nowhere near the truth," said Barrett, 55, who was sexually abused in the 1960s while at a school for boys with learning disabilities run by the Brothers of Charity in County Cork.
Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland's 4 million Catholics, offered an apology yesterday for the abuses found by the commission.
"I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions," Brady said, according to The Associated Press. "Children deserve better and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ."
Edmund Garvey, a spokesman for the Christian Brothers, whose 2004 lawsuit against the commission resulted in the shielding of names in the final report, told RTE Radio that the order was "deeply sorry, deeply regretful."
