There are times when its hot outside, and the last thing you want to do is dress in heavy clothing. NANCY WILLOUGHBY was taken into care by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth after her mother died when she was three. See more. Dispenza, who spent 15 years in a habit before becoming an activist against the Catholic Church, is bracing for an onslaught of cases against nuns, who typically run schools and orphanages, and spend exponentially more time with children than priests do. 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. The priest to whom he made his confession, he says, was Father Conti. She was even too nervous to enter her office at a Long Island convent. Powered by Invision Community, Unexplained-Mysteries.com uses cookies. The Poor Sisters of Nazareth were founded in the mid-19th century in Hammersmith, London, to take care of the young and the old. She was three or four years old. There was real hate there. Archbishop Conti has strongly denied Currie's claims, indeed he denies that he ever, "either in the context of confessional or outside the confessional, received any complaint of any kind of abuse relating to the care of children in Nazareth House". The nuns were terrible.". I have not found many "nice" stories about nuns. "I started screaming. The Irish Examiner newspaper, which has investigated the finances of the religious orders involved in running the laundries, says they owned assets in 2012 of 1.5bn euros ($1.9bn, 1.2bn). Oberon Copeland is a graduate of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, with a degree in economics and HR. This is the next big thing for the church the biggest untold secret, Mary Dispenza, a director at Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a St. Louis-based advocacy group. I often. Nuns should strive to serve their Lord and Savior as best they can. 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. Dispenza, 78, has fought for more than two decades for justice for victims of clergy abuse and plans to take her fight to the Vatican on Monday. 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.. And then I just remember leaving. I felt terrible all over again.". They did so because they wanted to jealously safeguard the gold standard for all children, a stable home run by their mothers and fathers. The girls were told to change into their swimsuits while the nuns huddled together in a beach hut. The Mother Teressa took him to the creek behind the dorms and drug him through the cold water until he died. But there is good news in all of this. Thank God they chose the nuns. Now, 30 years on, he wanted the police and his solicitor to find those hidden documents because, he believed, they would confirm his recollections of his time at the orphanage. You could get beaten for nothing at all. 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. 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. It was born out of a fascination with the women who choose . This can lead to frustration and a feeling of being trapped. I felt she took relish out of that. She and her sisters were in Nazareth House for just 18 months - they left when their father, who regularly made the long trek across the country to see his daughters, suddenly arrived in his work clothes to take them away. Violent discipline, he says, was not uncontested. We did all the work in the convent, cleaning the windows, scrubbing floors, doing the laundry and washing out the bathrooms. They stood there like ghosts, covered in the wet sheets. Before pushing me in the nuns told me there was a mouse in there and I went totally hysterical. Its the line from Scripture that stayed with Cait Finnegan for nearly half a century as she tried to suppress the painful memories of the sexual abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her Catholic clergy educator. So I guess if someone can tell me why they are so mean and abusive that would be nice. 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". I said no." No one did and I was just told to follow on. FOR Vera Willshire, who is now 75, the year 1939 was one of the happiest of her life. I think that's the way many of them were trained, in a very authoritarian church. Another inmate, Helen Cusiter, returned to Nazareth House six or seven years ago, to visit a woman who was working there. Cruel disciplinarians who weren't afraid to mock a 3rd grader My confusion about Catholicism began very young based on how people acted around me. Kathleen Batey's back is lined with a ladder of scars - they are the relics of her life at Nazareth House in Tyneside, received, she says, when nuns took off the belts buckled round their habits and beat her. But the fact remains, why were nuns so cruel? If that fails, Fyfe intends to take the challenge to the European Court of Human Rights. This is not the work of an obsessive, he says, just typical of an orphan. This can lead to nuns being quite resentful toward Mothers. I went to a strict local school and the belt was used frequently, but nothing like on the same scale that the nuns used to beat us. My aunt said I never stammered before I went there. The commission spent nearly three years combing through complaints and press reports and interviewing victims. So we sat on the sheet to dry it - we were only children. Nuns are no different; however, we choose not to act upon these natural, sexual feelings and urges. I couldnt speak, I couldnt move.. So he wrote to God. All of these concern allegations of ill-treatment after 1964. Its a shame, as nuns should represent peace, kindness, and gentleness. Currie also told his priest about the "dirt" in confession, "but he was deaf and he would say 'speak up'. When Finnegan finally summoned up the courage to confront Sister Mary Juanita in the early 1990s more than 20 years after graduating high school in 1969 she found herself tongue-tied. I was up at 5am scrubbing floors, doing laundry. The nun would roll her sleeves up, so she got a real good whack. Joseph had been left alone in verminous conditions. ), it wouldn't be hard to see why some Nuns are high-strung. We found nine reasons that may shock you. Then there were all these flashbacks." He joined the RAF and although other young men lay in their beds weeping for their mothers, Aitken thrived: the military were "the first people who treated me as a human being. To learn more, you can also read our posts on why 911 operators are so rude, why judges are so rude, and why cops are so rude. For a minor misdemeanour, children had to kneel down and face the wall of the main corridor while nuns passed. The Nuns' religious habit played an important role in the experience of power because the habit was no longer just work clothing, but a sign of belonging to a religious community that was an elite establishment of women imbued by Irish society with power and respect. So we swapped our sheets for her, rinsed the wet one out and went to dry it on the radiator. 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. My grandmother was 3 years old when she was first brought to the mission. Rocketgirl33, For more than a hundred years, Nazareth Houses all over Britain were home to thousands of children. Jesus dies for their sins, as He lived a perfect life. Some people can be cruel for many reasons. "It's this unattended rage they live with. Grampian police advised her to get a lawyer and began to interview other residents, crosschecking dates and names to verify the growing archive of allegations against the order. At one time, the training nuns received was outdated and very harsh. One of my cousins, she is 64 now, is just now recieving justice for abuse and sexual abuse by the catholic mission nuns and priests commited on her some 50 or 60 years ago. (11 Reasons Why). ", In the pre- and post-war period, orphans were often sent to homes run by religious orders, such as the Sisters of Nazareth. They were raised in abusive homes and grew up as abusive adults. After all, we all have our own crosses to bear. The woman owned me.. No mass. To this day I cannot go into a loft or a small room and I sleep with the light on because of that. 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. I wonder what makes them so mean? If they see other nuns being cruel, they may think its okay to act the same way. Its no wonder nuns can be so cruel. First off I'd change that to SOME nuns, not all. Cusiter fled home from that meeting with the nun. Only my opinion of course, but I'd blame it on a lack of physical and emotional shenanigans with members of the opposite sex. That started from the moment I went in there. "Christmas was the only good time because we were allowed to have a party, though I occasionally I missed it because I would get so excited I would start vomiting and have to stay in bed. Golda Meir, One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain. The period covered by the work of the commission was initially from 1946 to 1999, but it was subsequently extended to cover the years from 1914 to 2000. Nuns took vows of chastity, renounced worldly goods and devoted themselves to prayer, religious studies and helping society's most needy. Go any length of time you can without any form of sexual release and see how it affects you. "After a real struggle, we have persuaded the legal aid board to support 11 test cases," says Fyfe. ", Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Its not easy to grow up in an abusive or neglectful home, which can lead to trauma and emotional damage. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. I remember when I met her I thought she was so smart and holy, oh yeah, and funny. Nothing. Well, the little girl in me wept because that kid had longed for Juanita to be a spiritual mother to me thats how I loved her, as a mother, she wrote. So far, the Poor Sisters of Nazareth have refused to comment, but it is believed that the allegations will be contested vigorously. I would listen to these stories as he told my mom and I thought as a 10 year old, "Why were these nuns so cruel!". He'd never told anyone. Many nuns produced religious literature and music, the most famous amongst these authors being the 12th century CE abbess Hildegard of Bingen. ". Kathleen Batey, a 47-year-old cleaner living near Newcastle United Football Club's mighty stadium, is not one of the campaigners seeking legal redress. He was brought up in Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. 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. Then you'd choke and the food would end up on your plate again and she would force-feed you your own vomit. As . She was there. "I had a panic attack - I thought I was having a heart attack. Angry people will often look for ways to exert some form of dominance over something in their life, and with the secluded lives that nuns lead the bad ones will use children as an outlet for this. He knew the guy because he came to Nazareth House. Dealing with those wounds and scars, and surviving through daily life is a challenge for many of us. He wasn't prepared to accept that it was the truth. 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. So, its no wonder nuns can be so cruel. 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". Cusiter was eight when her mother disappeared and she and her five brothers and sisters were taken from Glasgow to Aberdeen's Nazareth House. Think for example of other people in committed relationships. He ran away constantly, and in his early teens one of his older sisters, then living in one room, took him in and tried to take care of him. I have seen programs about nuns and most of those show a wonderfull helpful loving nun who just loves the whole world. - tuambabies.org A helper, a big 20-year-old girl, dragged me to the washroom. It was only 30 years later, when other Nazareth House survivors began to speak out about their experiences, that his childhood and its bleak effects could no longer be dismissed as his imaginings. When the child was taken to the dentist, he asked, "What's all this bruising?" It was only later I realised that you didn't bruise so badly there. Cameron Fyfe insists that similar stories have surfaced against the Sisters of Nazareth in Australia and Ireland, where their practices, such as the response to bed-wetting and the force-feeding, "were very similar and esoteric". There they found a disciplined regime which, they say, tipped over into violence. Money would never take away what happened - God's representatives on earth behaving in such an appalling manner." She remembers Nazareth the house as "spooky, horrible". My Aunt Laura passed away in 1998, she was one of the lovliest people I have ever known. I don't think my grandma knew exactly what he was sick with but she told me that the Nuns had NO empathy for a sick child. But, back in the day, this is how nuns were taught, and its no wonder they turned out to be so cruel. "Holidays were spent at other Nazareth House homes. Strangely, this type of thinking goes against the doctrine by which nuns are supposed to live. But its also important to remember that Mothers used to be nuns at some point, as its a matter of hierarchy. "One cold winter's morning at about 6.30, when I was about 11, I was kneeling in church saying my prayers when I sneezed. 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