In a horrifying report, detailed in the "New York Times" today, we learned that tens of thousands of poor Irish children, taken into the care of religious institutions, were sexually, physically and emotionally abused by priests, nuns and other care-takers. As a baptized Catholic, who thinks the Church has much to offer in humanitarian causes, I've found it hard to support its efforts while it condones such behavior in its own institutions.
The study, undertaken by a state-appointed commission, looked at 60 years of church-run residential schools that were given charge of more than 30,000 children--many of whom were sent away because their parents couldn't afford them, couldn't care for them, or because they themselves had committed petty crimes. How can the church take such an unbending stance on abortion and birth control then subject unwanted children to such horror?
Many of these children were sent away from loving people because of social pressure if the child was born out of wedlock, or a result of adultery. If the church is going to impose strict moral standards on procreation and divorce, it has a responsibility to ably care for the children who are products of constituency that has no choice in preventing their birth. Instead the Catholic Church has systematically and institutionally abused children in the basest of ways for as long as we can remember.
This study reveals that Irish boys were subjected to:
"Punching, flogging, assault and bodily attacks, kicking, head shaving, beating on the soles of the feet, burning, scalding, stabbing, being made to kneel and stand in fixed positions for lengthy periods, hosed down with cold water before being beaten, beaten while hanging from hooks on the wall, being set upon by dogs, being restrained in order to be beaten, physical assaults by more than one person, and having objects thrown at them."
The Irish girls did not get off any easier. They were treated as slaves, laboring up to 7 hours a day. They were routinely sexually abused, often by more than one person at a time.
The sexual abuse that we hear about at home and abroad is the most sickening, not only because these children will be forever scarred by it, but because of the inexcusable hypocrisy of it all. The fact that the Catholic Church makes ad hoc rules assuming people can fight nature and live chaste lives of "perfection" while covering up the sexual crimes of its members.
If the Catholic Church hopes to survive the next century there are several things it should put into action right away, the first being a system of review outside of its own hierarchy. The religious group that ran these schools fought to keep the names of the abusers out of the report, so they couldn't be prosecuted. They succeeded, both in letting criminals remain at large and at further demoralizing the world view of its leaders. All powerful institutions need checks and balances, especially this one. It should work with governments (which are often complicit as the Irish one was in these crimes) to weed out pedophiles, and other criminals from its ranks.
The Church should make it clear that it's anti-abortion because it's pro-life in every way. Not just birth, but life, the sanctity of children should be protected not systematically removed and abused. That's the only way it can ever regain its standing.