It has enriched the Irish Catholic Church to the extent that, even to this day, it is the wealthiest organisation in Ireland. Create your own unique website with customizable templates. 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 details of the patterns were kept so secret, in fact, that many of them were lost as the families either died or fled the poverty for other lands. Mrs Guerrier, who is now 73 and lives in Tottenham, north London, said: "The nuns were extremely harsh. At the residential home, he was given two sets of clothes, a number 217 and sent to his dormitory. This caused a huge strain on me.. And thats a good thing for everyone involved. Unkind. She became one of thousands of Roman Catholic women who were locked up in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s for being pregnant and unmarried, many in institutions run by fiercely unforgiving nuns . August 2021 Start your Independent Premium subscription today. "She especially hated me. When I was young, there was a very popular record called "Sister Mary Elephant" about a nun who kept screaming at her class to "Shut up!". 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. Only my opinion of course, but I'd blame it on a lack of physical and emotional shenanigans with members of the opposite sex. We went to the airport and we weren't allowed to see the coffin or go near it, so I had my suspicions all along. "Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst." Allegations of abuse by its nuns first surfaced in Scotland last year. I blame Nazareth House. He told me to take my clothes off and he would wash me down and then he started fondling me, before masturbating me, says William. June 2020 They left the unfortunate girls to their fate. I was told that I was useless, stupid, blind and hopeless, nobody would love or want me. I was constantly humiliated. This expectation can be quite a burden and lead to nuns being critical of others. They were not battleaxes or crones. 1. 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. Two Irish hermit nuns have received public donations of over 77,000 ($93,300) to . 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. Never has been and never will be. Catholic nuns, as decreed by Pope Francis, are not allowed to use smartphones or social media. Within them, however, nobody could escape the interlaced structure of these complex power relations. VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - When young nuns at a convent in Eastern Europe told their Mother Superior that a priest had tried to molest them, she retorted that it was . . 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. Violence was frequently employed and encouraged with the most common forms being verbal abuse, slaps, blows, and kicks. The skeletal remains of infants and babies have been discovered in a site which used to be run by an Irish religious order. Terrified, I remember holding out my hand thinking an adult would take it. Oberon Copeland is a graduate of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, with a degree in economics and HR. First off I'd change that to SOME nuns, not all. 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?' Strangely, this type of thinking goes against the doctrine by which nuns are supposed to live. We all knew it was going to be grim. You must remember that Catholic Ireland believed that the Religious-run Institutions were legitimate and acceptable places in which to put unmarried women and their children who were judged as being anti-social and ungodly. Nuns could be jealous of the attention that Catholic Mothers get. You are right nuns are human like you and everyone else. 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. "Twelve people . Run by the Bon Secours order of nuns, the Tuam home opened in 1925 and closed in 1961. March 2019 January 22, 2011 in Spirituality, Religion and Beliefs. 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. They were raised in abusive homes and grew up as abusive adults. The first reason is that they have the power to be cruel. Iona Institute Director. Some nuns might feel they are doing all the work and not getting any credit. February 2018 My sister was born and adopted in the US and her birth mom reported being treated badly by the Nuns at the place where she went while pregnant. November 2019 I was more in shock that the bitch assaulted me. Then, in March, a shocking report was published into allegations of abuse and brutality at one of the order's homes in Queensland, Australia, over a 90-year period ending only in 1976. Nuns indeed put in a lot of hard work. The proud wearing of the religious habit was a profound experience for the middle-class women, and the uniformity contributed to forging an esprit de corps, a feeling of pride and mutual loyalty even though it did not exclude hierarchies of rank and did not preclude friction within the group. In my school the nuns, well a few of them were mean. What is it that makes these Nuns so down right nasty mean? Boston College's O'Neill Library says there's even a word for fear of nuns, and it's scenisciphobia. 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. October 2021 Iam writting a family book about our family from as far back as I can go. Now, writes Jane Wheatley . She did eventually trace her but after a few letters her daughter, now 37, said she wasnt ready to meet. It was a known fact among the slave women and children that beating them was a way of compensating for the Nuns own incompetence and of imposing and demonstrating their authority. "They only did it to make loads of money and to put you to work, to shame you and make you feel like nothing.. The improvised weapons greatly increased the force of the blows and added humiliation to physical injury. At Christmas there was jam. 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. Thus, nuns act out their cruelty towards others. They justified their abuse of power by the cause their signed up to. . 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. Indeed, the twisting of limbs was a characteristically Christian torture method, as the shedding of blood was apparently discouraged by the Church. As a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Wednesday marked . Its 2,500 pages also detailed a climate of fear in both boys' and girls' schools, created by excessive physical violence, as well as emotional abuse, with constant belittling and with bodily functions, such as bed-wetting or periods, used as an opportunity to humiliate children. As you say the nuns were mostly from rural areas. as elsewhere, they became . FOR Vera Willshire, who is now 75, the year 1939 was one of the happiest of her life. Many people considered that childbirth made a woman unholy or unclean because it resulted from sexual activity; sexual abstinence and virginity being equated to holiness. The first stage of this cruelty was the men who walked away and left the women to be outcasts of society. Never has been and never will be. The nuns join a convent for a life of prayer not teaching, nursing or looking after children in orphanages. So, its no wonder nuns can be so cruel. So theres hope in breaking this cycle completely, thus decreasing the cruelty that some nuns display. They would just use anything that came to hand. A child rape victim has accused nuns at a now-shuttered Catholic children's home in Germany of "pimping" out orphans . Nuns Break COVID Rules to Attend Exorcism. "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. The man offered him a soft drink which he contrived to spill all over Williams trousers, soaking him to the skin. 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. What gives? I endured all their frustrations directly with violence, beatings, rapes, and mental trauma. The allegations stretch back as far as 50 years and are as recent as the 1970s. Respectability was everything for a family, no man would want to marry a women who had been with another man sexually not to mind a woman that had had a child with another man. It was work, work, work. Its not easy to live up to such high standards. She was wacked in the hand a lot with a ruler. This woman wouldn't say sh** if she had a mouth full. Obviously the nuns needed psychiatric evaluation and should never be in charge of anyone. A few days later, William was told his brother had died although he is now convinced this was untrue. For the barbarous Nuns who lived there and in other Institutions, they were a great place in which to eat, drink, work and play once you locked the slaves away at night as any competent slave trader and owner would do. March 2018 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. June 2019 I spent a lot of time scrubbing floors or cleaning shoes. It can also lead to nuns taking their frustration out on others. Thank God they chose the nuns. Vicious evil people.. Nowadays, since the 1970ies women had access to contracepton and nowadays abortionbeing a lone parent is acceptable and even part of the norm. This can lead to frustration and a feeling of being trapped. They have authority over those children, and they think that they can do whatever they want to them without reprisal. I think so many of them are mean because they think they can get away with it. Thankfully, those methods have changed, and nuns are now taught with more compassion. IN THE early Seventies, six-year-old Simon Taylor (not his real name) was admitted to Nazareth House in Middlesbrough after his mother had a nervous breakdown. A "religieuse" as she is called throughout the series, she also trained as an advocate of Irish law called the Brehon law system. However, she has become as cruel, petty and jealous as the rest of Garradrimna, and connives with the postmistress to sabotage Myles Shannon's chance at romance with an English girl, to get revenge on the Shannon family for rejecting her. October 2019 You cannot become a nun if you have been previously married. A passive Nun permitted and regulated the actions of the violent ones. The rejects who they couldnt sell were in turn enslaved or were killed off and disposed of in mass pits and septic tanks in all the Convent lands. By Philip Pullella. No matter what any "spiritual leader" might say. "My feet were so badly swollen I was kept off school for three days and two other girls had to join hands to carry me up and down the stairs. I wonder what makes them so mean? 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