NEW YORK BOSTON |#Popular: Irish Celebrity Gossip Irish in US Politics Irish Festivals Irish Roots Irish Entertainment Offbeat Irish

Home Page > News > Irish Christian Brothers convinced abuse crisis will destroy them

Irish Christian Brothers convinced abuse crisis will destroy them

Financial burden means future in question

ANTOINETTE KELLY,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 8:51 AM

Updated Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 8:51 AM

Larger Text

E-mail

36 Comments

The financial burden imposed by child abuse cases has left the future of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers in question

The financial burden imposed by child abuse cases has left the future of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers in question, the order's head told the Catholic Herald this week.

Brother Philip Pinto said that the congregation of 1,200 members "just doesn’t have the money any longer." The majority of claims relate to the order’s schools in the Seattle area and Newfoundland in Canada.

Pinto said the order’s is seeking bankruptcy protection in New York to try to ensure that people who have been abused are the ones who get the money, not the lawyers, he told the Herald during a conference on religious life sponsored by the Conference of Religious of Ireland.

"In most of the developed world, we are paying for the sins of the past," he said. "Our brothers are aging, our reputation is in tatters, and the future looks bleak, even hopeless. So many of my brothers hide in their monasteries, afraid of drawing attention to themselves."

During the interview the Indian-born brother who has been congregational leader of the order since 2002 blamed what he called an institutional culture in which "religious in Ireland were abused by the system."

Another conference speaker, Nuala O’Loan, the former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, told attendees that it wasn’t just the religious congregations who were responsible for abuse in institutions and schools operated by religious congregations. O'Loan suggested that the "congregations have been made the scapegoats for the failures of all"

O'Loan also criticized "successive Irish governments" who "allowed the children under their care to be deprived of their safety and security and permitted children to be held in institutions in which terrible things happened."

Nster.com

E-mail

36 Comments

15 - 36 | See all comments

briano127 | May 22, 2011, 01:25 PM EDT

finally the truth is breaking out.in usa they ,irish christian brothers,should be charged under the statute of criminal RICCO ACT, racketeering laws used to break oranized criminal syndicates=mafia type organizations, and individual cell type groups that disclaim knowledge of crimes that the group members engage in.crimes against children,of sexual perversions,floggings beatings,and food deprevations deserve the full punishment of our courts. if found gulty,like all criminal enterprizes the irish christian brothers should be outlawed,disbanded,and its hidden off-shore wealth given to charity and to its victims.shakespeare;; the evil that men do lives after them//

Report abuse

Scarlettkp | May 19, 2011, 02:32 PM EDT

To me a lot of the delay at fixing the crises seems to blow around swirling stories of "outsiders" trying to "get" the Priests. I've seen nothing but war-like propaganda in the church. All spin no good "works" Do I think there's no hope-No! But the church needs to grow up. That may mean admitting some embarrassing lack of many things but the other option of lying, cover ups, making excuses, denial, and just lack of care for other humans is just delaying what will happen anyhow which is -responsibility.In the end, the church by their poor actions did not empower themselves more but less. They've lost respect and frankly have embarrassed not only themselves but everyone connected to them. Classic poor management. I'll always care about the Priests who are kind, loving, hard working souls but the dead weight....cut them off. I wonder to myself how long will the excuses continue? It's simple-do what's right. In the end doing what's right always results in good fruit. I really don't think they will do it though, anytime soon. They are too busy creating a cloud of confusion to hid their sins rather than facing the inevitable price of their sin. You can't love life then not protect children ...it makes zero sense! Look, the church laid the ground work for many years of a reputation of abuse hidden as "strictness" ie)ruler hitting teachers etc and it brought more serious abuse later. Things like this don't just appear they come after years of poor soil. Where would you go as a abuser?..to a church who tolerates abuse and is used to it..a church where there's denial...The church can turn around if the good Priests step it up- finally.

Report abuse

lookood | May 14, 2011, 10:46 AM EDT

It's their unwillingness to come clean, to admit their crimes, to hand over those who have harmed children, to make appropriate reparations to Survivors and to ditch their systemic indoctrination of children that is destroying them. It's self inflicted, and worst of all, blatant spiritual and temporal cowardice.

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 02:27 PM EDT

Postscript . . on a personal note, I might add the intense soul searching so plainly in view in Mr. Doyle's autobiographical notes from which I have drawn excerpts in my prior two posts is a very common precursor to those who break their bonds with Rome. Doyle gives all the signs of one who has been liberated from the tyrannical and authoritarian rule of ROME and emancipated from a lifetime of programming to which he was subjected by his Roman Catholic minders! I speak from personal experience! Many of the “formerly faithful” are no longer guided by their blind faith and unquestioned loyalty to “mother church” . . no longer taken in by the feigned words and smooth talk of her Bishops and Cardinals . . no longer in the grips of fear of those who presume to have power over the souls of men . . no longer moved by those who threaten them with excommunication or eternal damnation . . no longer subject to the authoritarian and unscriptural structure of a church contrived by her Bishops and Cardinals who desperately cleave to power and have failed to practice what they preach. A religious institution that has consistently been proven to place its' corporate image and the reputation of her priests above the welfare of children provides compelling reasons to opt out. *** JA . . a Christian, by God's grace & former Roman Catholic

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 02:12 PM EDT

More Timely Comments of Thomas Patrick Doyle, RC Dominican priest & Victims' Advocate***“My serious questioning started when I found myself on the inside looking out as the clergy sex abuse scandal started to unfold back in 1984. As I saw first-hand the duplicity and institutionalized lying of the self-proclaimed "successors of the Apostles" I slowly began to wonder if the apostles weren't actually a cabal of anti-Christian dolts or on the other hand, I wondered if the infallible connection between the popes, bishops and church monarchy was neither infallible nor divinely willed. It was not exactly a pleasant or secure feeling as my not-quite-paralyzed brain began to ask the inevitable question: "If they can easily lie about raping innocent little children, can they just as easily lie about everything else?" The next stop on the journey was actually the first stop: taking the risk of asking myself what was and was not true and viable about everything else I had been told to believe. I finally paused long enough to let soak in the reality of this deeply embedded dynamic: I (all of us actually) had been consistently told what I must believe. I had never been asked to believe or offered the option of figuring the basics out for myself. " This no longer worked for me.”***SOURCE: RichardSipe.com / CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BIBLIOGRAPHY / by Thomas P. Doyle / Revised May 20, 2010

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 02:10 PM EDT

Timely Comments of Thomas Patrick Doyle, RC Dominican priest & Victims' Advocate*** Many of those directly or even indirectly involved with this whole complex phenomenon have found themselves in a growing quandary with their belief systems. I am one of them. For years my belief system and the objects of my faith were gradually shifting, often in ways I did not even notice. Most of what I had been taught about Faith, about Beliefs, about Trust in the human or earthly dimensions of the community of believers, the institutional Church, came under assault. I had believed what the official church had told me without much questioning. I accepted that the Church was what it was and I bought into all of the standard explanations for the historical departures of the institutional Church and its leaders from basic Christian decency and certainly from honesty...like the inquisition, the crusades, the approval of slavery, the colonization of the new world and the Vatican's diplomatic ties to Hitler and Mussolini.”*** SOURCE: Richard Sipe.com / CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE BIBLIOGRAPHY / by Thomas P. Doyle / Revised May 20, 2010

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 01:20 PM EDT

Article: 'Diarmuid Martin's Admission: No Remorse on Part of Most Abusers'**Source: America Magazine online // April 06, 2011 / by: James Martin, S.J.*** EXCERPT: In a blunt lecture on Monday at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin made what to my mind is a stunning admission about the sexual abuse crisis in the church: With perhaps "two exceptions" he has "not encountered a real and unconditional admission of guilt and responsibility on the part of priest offenders" in his diocese. That is, the abusive priests in his diocese, with only a few exceptions, do not seem remorseful."** God's Word as it is found in James 2:13 "For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment."

Report abuse

snakehips | May 12, 2011, 12:13 PM EDT

I was taught by the Christian Brothers of Ireland in the US. Most of these men were the best in character and integrity. It breaks my heart to see what has happened to this religious community. I pray for those among them who did the right things for children during their religious vocation.

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 11:57 AM EDT

MORE on the STORY *** Source: The Spectator / Seattle, WA / Article: Christian Bros. bankrupt after sex abuse settlement / Published: Wednesday, May 11, 2011***The order of the Christian Brothers runs O'Dea High School as well as several other schools across the country. Last week the Brothers filed for bankruptcy due to the $25.6 million owed from nearly 50 settlement cases of sexual abuse.“Most of the abuses occurred with the most vulnerable children who had nowhere to turn and no one to tell," said Michael Pfau, a Seattle attorney who has represented numerous victims of sexual abuse, in a recent Seattle Times article."The Christian Brothers came to New York at the turn of the last century and they slowly moved west," said Pfau in an article on the attorney's website. "They operated schools in many states, including New York, Chicago, Montana, Washington, California, and Hawaii. Given the severity of sexual abuse we have seen in their internal documents, and their cover-up of that abuse, it is difficult to imagine how many children were likely abused at their schools."

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 10:51 AM EDT

CaptainCon said “Need to watch these liars.” You are so right, except they don't call it lying; they call it “mental reservation”***Richard Sipe states: 37. Cardinals make a vow to the Pope to keep secret anything confided to them that if revealed would cause harm or dishonor to the church. ["I vow…not to reveal to anyone what is confided to me in secret, nor to divulge what may bring harm or dishonor to Holy Church"] That promise of secrecy forms a template within the clerical system to keep internal scandalous behavior under wraps, "for the good of the Church." Another moral teaching of Catholic theology is “Mental Reservation.” Father B. U. Gormless, S.J., defines mental reservation as “an unspoken intention to limit one’s compliance with a contract one is overtly entering into.” This moral doctrine has also been employed to “deny the whole truth” to those who have no right to it or to avoid “greater harm.” ***Source: RichardSipe.com***Article: AN OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND ABUSE WITHIN THE CLERICAL CULTURE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE USA

Report abuse

JuneAnnette | May 12, 2011, 10:35 AM EDT

Remember the VICTIMS are those who were abused by PREDATOR PRIESTS, whose CRIMES were covered up by their BISHOPS***Richard Sipe, former R.C. Priest, who has served as a consultant or expert witness in 173 cases of sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clergy, usually on behalf of plaintiffs states:***62 When personal sexual betrayal is coupled with institutional neglect, denial, attack, conspiracy to hide abuse, protection of the abuser, and self justification, immeasurable harm is inflicted on the victims, their families, the church community and society at large. That damage is almost irreparable.***25. As recently as May 20, 2002 a judge on the Roman Rota (highest Vatican court) wrote in a Vatican approved periodical that bishops should not report sexual violations to civil authorities lest the image and authority of the Church be compromised and victims harmed instead of being protected. (P. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, S.J.)***26. Equally demonstrable is the practice of transferring an offending priest from one parish to another, to another diocese or to a foreign country. I have been a consultant in dioceses where each of these activities is recorded. I have reviewed correspondence between bishops who exchanged offending priests, and I have seen other documents that make clear the acceptability and frequency of this practice among bishops.***Source: RichardSipe.com / Article: AN OVERVIEW OF THE SYSTEM OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY AND ABUSE WITHIN THE CLERICAL CULTURE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE USA

Report abuse

CaptainCon | May 12, 2011, 02:08 AM EDT

Need to watch these liars. In Ireland they shifted property assets to the new Edmund Rice Schools Trust and there is something of a valuation gap (90million euro to 400million euro) appearing in their statements on their assets. When we talk about blame who fomented the culture in Ireland which saw social policy in the state dictated by religious groups in the first place? Ireland wasn't a socially stunted island afraid of the catholic church without being trained that way.Anyone who tried to challenge the power of the church very quickly came up against the church's agents in the civil service.

Report abuse

Collette2 | May 11, 2011, 10:33 PM EDT

jacersagain, weren't you fortunate you didn't fit their criteria. Look up what they did to the boy's in Tardun Western Australia.

Report abuse

tundish45 | May 11, 2011, 10:02 PM EDT

Let's not be splitting up the blame as suggested by Nuala O"Loan, quoted in the article. The blame is of an odd sort. It isn't 100% shared among the Church and the Government and the individuals who knew/suspected but did not act. Rather, each of them is 100% guilty for their utter failure to protect the innocent.

Report abuse

barneyjo | May 11, 2011, 08:03 PM EDT

@anybody - can I humbly recommend the Anthony Quinn Film "The Shoes of the Fisherman" to all. The closing scene is quite profound in relation to the discussion underway in the posts here!!

Report abuse