Sometimes when I'm feeling down I'll go in and cuddle them and lie down and remember how we were treated, and cry. Nuns are supposed to be modest in their appearance, which can lead to them being quite critical of others who dont dress modestly. No goodbyes. She had worried about what had happened for years. Terrified, I remember holding out my hand thinking an adult would take it. To this day I cannot go into a loft or a small room and I sleep with the light on because of that. The punishment was being forced to stand in front of a nun's cell with the soiled linen on your head or being sat in the galvanized steel bath while two assistants poured buckets of cold water over your head. But in her collection of personal records, there is the evidence: a telegram adorned with top hats and lucky horseshoes, addressed to her at Aberdeen's Nazareth House on August 3, 1955, saying, "Happy Birthday Darling, from Mummy." He is never surprised by attempts to discredit people like himself. The one thing that I have found from talking to them and from past stories they have told me before they died was the Nuns of the Caotholic Missions were always mean and abusive to the children. Now, decades later, more than 500 former inmates are suing the nuns for damages. She started to tell me how wonderful it was working with the old people, but her hands were shaking. See more. "You couldn't talk to the nuns in a jokey or friendly way. It was a form of mental torture.". Orphans, abandoned babies and children deemed uncontrollable or accused of petty crimes were all put in the hands of the nuns who, to the outside world, epitomised kindness and compassion. But, back in the day, this is how nuns were taught, and its no wonder they turned out to be so cruel. Its not something thats public knowledge, but many nuns grow to regret taking this vow. Instead of fetching a doctor they kept me in bed and surrounded me with hot water bottles. Some of these reasons include the high expectations placed on them, the fact that theyre not allowed to express their feelings, and many of them come from abusive or neglectful families. So he wrote to God. For years after he left in 1967, he tried to put the place out of his mind. There were frequent visits by "children's officers, town councillors, inspectors, including doctors and psychologists from the home and health department". It was only later I realised that you didn't bruise so badly there. So theres hope in breaking this cycle completely, thus decreasing the cruelty that some nuns display. Think for example of other people in committed relationships. Only my opinion of course, but I'd blame it on a lack of physical and emotional shenanigans with members of the opposite sex. (9 Reasons Why), Why Are Customers So Rude? Jealous Nuns could be jealous of the attention that Catholic Mothers get. Iam writting a family book about our family from as far back as I can go. The. Archbishop Mario Conti, Scotland's most senior Catholic churchman, has accused the former Nazareth House inmates of being seekers not of justice but of "pots of gold". Many of those alleging physical, and to some extent sexual, abuse are now elderly people who say their entire lives have been affected by what they endured as children. One of its principal purposes was to provide an opportunity for persons who had suffered abuse in childhood in institutions to recount that abuse, but it also had extensive investigatory functions. We want them gone immediately, she said. "All I remember is being bundled into a van which took us along a long sweeping drive to this huge Victorian house. why doesn't vanderbilt have a volleyball team; kreslenie ceruzkou portrety. | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples "We were taken to the beach, it was so grey and wild and windy, we were frozen." Its not easy to grow up in an abusive or neglectful home, which can lead to trauma and emotional damage. There is still never a day when my sister does not fear being punished for something. "We were skivvies, basically. She has never consulted lawyers, nor sought compensation from the church. Today there are fewer than 4,000 nuns and their average age is over 80. The orphanage survivors' civil case must show that their complaints refer not just to rogue nuns but to a regime for which the order itself was responsible. That being said, they feel unhappy with their lives and they believe that someone else has to pay the consequences. Nuns with leather straps hanging from their waist beside their rosary beads. So, its no wonder nuns can be so cruel. It gives a good idea of the standard of care. No mass. Celibacy is NOT normal for humans. My mom told me that they had no life, could not leave the convent, no TV, no newspapers, so I think it was simple burn out, no way to get away from us brats. The strap was socially acceptable. "I approached a lawyer because I learned that it was being said that if there were problems in any Nazareth House homes it was only in Scotland. The allegations stretch back as far as 50 years and are as recent as the 1970s. After we pray, we shake hands, but one woman refused and said I was bringing the church down. My mother went to Catholic school as a child back in the 1950's. We've received your submission. i may have exaggerated a little. My Grandmother has told me many stories of the evil nuns. If you were lying on your side, you'd be yanked back. This can lead to nuns being quite resentful toward Mothers. The nuns were terrible.". You'd hear their footsteps but you didn't know who they were. They would use canes, sticks, the leather belts around their waists. For being late for prayer. Her big sister saw her being lifted out of the water, "all cut and bleeding. But there was worse to come. "I don't think I saw Sister Laurence ever smile. "I need answers, not just about Betsy but about the whole damned thing. Moisten two tablespoons of farina with a very little cold milk, and stir it into a cup of boiling water. She was overwhelmed by shame - ashamed of leaving other children behind, of failing to protect them from harm. I said no." "The nuns would take off the belt and just hit you with it. What is it that makes these Nuns so down right nasty mean? But the fact remains, why were nuns so cruel? NANCY WILLOUGHBY was taken into care by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth after her mother died when she was three. "You were thrashed about the feet, head and hands, you had your hair pulled and your head bounced off the walls. Every surface is wiped clean. "She broke all my front teeth, my face was a mashed mess, the other kids were all screaming." There is, in this context, an absence of any recognition that tenderness should be the norm in relations between adults and children.". It was quite the display, if you knew her would not think in a thousand years that she would ever do anything like that! (11 Reasons Why), Why Are Harleys So Expensive? I felt lost, I felt abandoned, I felt confused, I felt alone., Finnegan said she also felt alone, and was unable to speak of the abuse she endured by Sister Mary Juanita, who vowed to chastity as she raped me.. She was obsessed with me 24 hours a day, Finnegan, now 67, told The Post. These emotions can eventually turn into anger and resentment. She and her group are demanding the pope help victims of nun abuse and fire anyone who has covered up crimes by Catholic clergy. Nuns are often women who don't have much (if any) maternal instinct - To enter a life where you not only aren't supposed to have sex with anyone else but where you also cannot bear children of your own requires a person who has limited amounts of maternal instinct for them to be successful. Her own efforts to challenge the hierarchy of the church have been distressing and her association with the public campaign against the Sisters enraged other members of her congregation. The Nazareth House children face another difficulty: the time bar. Its no wonder nuns can be so cruel. Abuse is only broken when the cycle stops. The boy forswears spending his pocket money, bad language and playing at fire engines, but the letter begins with "No Dirt At All", the 'No' underlined many times. Her own fond family life with her husband and children was swamped by her fears: "What if I was in a crash with my husband and Sister Alphonso got my children? Bruises go away, but the horror stays in your mind. She fell, he was told. "When I left [the Cardiff home] at 18 I was just handed a suitcase with hardly anything in it and shown the door. You think your nuns were bad? 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. ", Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. This was their holiday. I telephoned Cardinal Winning, and asked him to do something about all the things that were coming to light about Nazareth House. our nuns would cut a finger off if you were late for class, some kids only had thumbs, we had to learn a new word every day if you couldn't pronounce it the nun would set about you with a baseball bat, on the day we had to learn Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ten kids got killed, we slept outside on the grass, in the winters we covered ourselves with cowpats (dung) to keep warm, we had turnips for breakfast lunch and dinner, but on sundays we had a real treat for dinner, the turnip was cooked, my aunt on visiting stalag sacred cross found the grave of the mother superior and dug her up, she then used her skull as a toilet, but she was a dirty cursing perverted old b**** herself. The measure, which had languished in Albany for more than a decade, allows a one-year window for alleged victims to file lawsuits against their attackers, no matter when the abuse occurred. FLOUR GRUEL. Money would never take away what happened - God's representatives on earth behaving in such an appalling manner." 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. My grandmother, aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles cousins ect ect, were mostly raised in the Cotholic Missions on different Indian Reservations. Sign up for a new account in our community. (11 Reasons Why), Why Are Vegans So Entitled? The violence in the orphanage didn't seem exceptional to her, just part of life. "Sister Alphonso didn't use leather straps, she used her fists, she had some strength." I think that's the way many of them were trained, in a very authoritarian church. gruel meaning: 1. a cheap simple food made, especially in the past, by boiling oats with water or milk 2. a cheap. well practise what you preach, "He who is without sin." you should know the rest, but then again i'm not to sure you do? "There were two slices of bread and dripping for breakfast, a ladle of soup at dinner and two more slices of bread and dripping in the evening. I am all right, I'm surviving. An aunt who came to visit was told I was confined with an infection. Sister Margaret McCurtain, a glinting Dominican scholar and one of Ireland's best-known Catholic reformers, suggests the "sexual oppression of nuns could emerge later in the form of cruelty". The only subject of conversation was who was for it next. Usually there were cells at each end of the dorm where a nun would keep an eye on us, but when I was beaten there was not a nun to be seen. Ya the pope is the boss speaking for god. Most people would flinch from having to torture another human being, mainly because when we inflict harm on others, we share some of that pain (Credit: Alamy) Everyday sadists get pleasure from . He knew the guy because he came to Nazareth House. Although nuns acting mean is mostly history, the stigma remains in many peoples minds. She also comments that the very notion of charity was "a virtue that never brought with it affectivity." This can lead to nuns being quite resentful toward Mothers. Victims now have until age 55 to file civil suits and can press for criminal charges until age 28. The papers showed a copy of a newspaper photograph of Aberdeen's Nazareth House. This woman wouldn't say sh** if she had a mouth full. This embarrassed both church and state in the 1940s. There was a constant atmosphere of fear, and beatings all the time. Violent discipline, he says, was not uncontested. 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