ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Philip Ryan
Published 10/06/2014

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has called the treatment of mothers and babies in church run homes an “abomination”.

Mr Kenny was speaking in the Dail following the announcement of a Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes run by religious orders.

The move follows weeks of controversy after the discovery of an alleged mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in Tuam, Co Galway.

Mr Kenny said he felt a “sense of sadness” when the shocking details emerged but said he had a duty to resolve the issues.

The Taoiseach said young women were “banished” from areas of the country or forced to face “shame and suppression” when they became pregnant outside of marriage.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE CHILDREN’S MINISTER has said he is anxious that the Bethany Home in Rathgar is included as part of the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes in Ireland.

Charlie Flanagan said today that he was conscious of the grievances felt by those connected to the Bethany Home, a protestant-run home on Dublin’s Orwell Road, where young unmarried mothers lived with their young children.

Many of the children were subsequently adopted, and survivors say they suffered neglect as children.

Over 200 children died while in the care of Bethany Home. A monument to them was recently unveiled.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

By Sarah Bardon

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan confirms probe will take place after Cabinet meeting this morning

The Government today confirmed a Commission of Investigation will be set up to probe the horrific revelations at mother and baby homes across the country.

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan revealed the inquiry will have the power to compel witnesses and documents.

He said it will examine forced adoptions, burials and clinical trials on young children in an attempt to shine a light on “these dark periods”.

Mr Flanagan said: “It is my hope and determination to ensure that all of these issues are dealt with in a way that is comprehensive.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

By Kevin Palmer

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has admitted that babies of unmarried parents were treated as “an inferior sub-species” for decades in Ireland, in shocking comments that will resonate across the country.

A special commission of investigation will examine the high mortality rates at the so-called mother and baby homes for much of the 20th century, with the burial practices at these sites and also secret and illegal adoptions and vaccine trials on children on the agenda of investigation.

It is thought about 35,000 unmarried mothers spent time in 10 homes run by religious orders in Ireland.

The inquiry has been ordered after massive national and international focus on the story of one home, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, Co Galway, where the remains of 796 infants are believed to be buried.

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MINNESOTA
CBS St. Louis

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMOX)

That’s how many times St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson answered questions with some form of the phrase “I don’t remember” during a deposition last month regarding how he handled allegations of abuse against a Minnesota priest when he was there in the 1980s.

Transcripts of the deposition were released on Monday.

This case happened in 1984, when Carlson was an Auxiliary Bishop in the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese. The plaintiff’s attorney asked Archbishop Carlson if he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Archbishop Carlson responded. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Maureen Fiedler | Jun. 10, 2014 NCR Today

I just finished reading the NCR report on the upcoming meeting of U.S. bishops in New Orleans, scheduled for Wednesday through Friday.

I am glad they will continue to grapple with the ongoing issue of sex abuse and search for ways to reach out to typhoon victims. I assume the conversations on the family will include a discussion of divorced and remarried people being able to receive Communion, since this is part of the upcoming Synod of Bishops in Rome and Pope Francis is clearly interested in making this change.

But as I read the agenda, a lot is missing. Not surprisingly, I have some suggestions that do not appear in the pre-meeting report.

If the bishops are going to discuss family issues, which women are speaking or being consulted? Last I checked, women are 50 percent of heterosexual marriages. And those who bear children might have a lot to say about that “contraception mandate” in the Affordable Care Act. Many would not agree with the bishops’ position on this.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

[with video]

By Ray Downs Tue., Jun. 10 2014

St. Louis’ “Most Reverend” cloaked man says that back in the wild and crazy ’80s, he didn’t know sexually abusing a child was against the law.

The comments came during a deposition for a lawsuit against Thomas Adamson, a former priest who is accused of molesting more than a dozen kids in the Minnesota area during the 1980s. Carlson was the chancellor of the Minnesota archdiocese during those years, and attorneys representing the plaintiffs called upon him to comment about what he knew.

And Carlson basically said he knew so little, that he didn’t even know raping kids was a crime.

See also: Fr. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang: Archbishop Robert Carlson Subpoenaed in Priest Sex Abuse Case

The deposition was made in May but not released until Monday by attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents the plaintiff in Minnesota. Anderson also released video of the deposition in which Carlson repeatedly denies knowing whether or not sexually abusing a child was a crime back in the 1970s and ’80s. Here’s the video:
Anderson: “Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid.”
Carlson: “I’m not sure I knew whether it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

Anderson: “When did you first discern it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?”

Carlson: “I don’t remember.”

Anderson: “When did you first discern that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a kid who he had under his control?”

Carlson: “I don’t remember that either.”

Anderson: “Do you have any doubt in your mind that you knew that in the ’70s?”

Carlson: “I don’t remember if I did or didn’t.”

Anderson: “In 1984, you are a bishop, an auxiliary bishop in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. You knew it was a crime then, right?”

Carlson: “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Josephine McKenna | Jun 10, 2014

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis canceled a second day of private audiences and his morning Mass on Tuesday (June 10) because of a minor illness, but Vatican officials downplayed speculation about ill health.

The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope had postponed several appointments and was resting.

“There is nothing to worry about,” Lombardi said. “His life has been very intense in the past few weeks. It is totally normal for the pope to rest.”

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BELGIE
Katholiek Nieusblad

De 57-jarige diaken en verpleegkundige Ivo Poppe uit Wevelgem is aangehouden op verdenking van veelvoudige moord.

Dit meldt de Vlaamse krant Het Nieuwsblad. Volgens het parket van Kortrijk heeft de man meer dan tien patiënten in het Heilig Hart-ziekenhuis van Menen (ondertussen AZ Delta) onwettig geëuthanaseerd. Hoeveel slachtoffers de man precies maakte, is nog onduidelijk. Wel zeker is dat hij bekentenissen afgelegd heeft. “Mijn cliënt handelde uit medelijden met mensen in een uitzichtloze situatie”, zegt Filip De Reuse, de raadsman van de verdachte. “Mijn cliënt is altijd een graag geziene man geweest in Wevelgem.”

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BELGIUM
UCA News

Catholic Ireland Belgium June 10, 2014

A deacon serving in the Catholic Church in Belgium has been arrested and charged over the deaths of at least 40 patients in a Catholic hospital.

57-year-old Deacon Ivo Poppe reportedly kept records of patients whom he smothered or to whom he gave a lethal dose of insulin at Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur Menin.

The married father of three adult children worked at the hospital as a nurse from 1980 until 2002 when he was ordained as a deacon.

He continued to visit the hospital as a part-time pastoral assistant until he began working full-time as a deacon in 2011.

According to his lawyers, Poppe said he was acting out of compassion when he felt the patients’ suffering was excessive.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Carl O’Brien

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

Until recent decades, the landscape was dotted with institutions where unmarried women were consigned to give birth in conditions of shame, secrecy and hardship.

But even though we feel we know all about this dark chapter of Ireland’s social history, we have few details on the precise nature of women’s and children’s experiences inside these homes, or the power structures used by society to confine them.

There have been four statutory reports into the abuses of children, and a Government inquiry into the Magdalene laundries, but no investigation into mother and baby homes.

We have some fragments, courtesy of valuable work by historians, journalists and the memoirs of those consigned to these institutions.

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IRELAND
Newser

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff
Posted Jun 10, 2014

(NEWSER) – The story went that the remains of 800 babies were found in an Irish septic tank—but it’s becoming increasingly clear that things are more complicated. Yes, 796 babies died at St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home in Ireland between 1925 and 1961. But “some of the headlines that went abroad internationally were quite horrendous and gave a very mistaken impression of what actually happened,” says Irish education minister Ruairi Quinn. Indeed, historian Catherine Corless now tells the Irish Times she “never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank.” But she “still believe(s) those bodies are there in that general area.”

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IRELAND
Reuters

In the leafy grounds of a center for the disabled in rural central Ireland, a small tombstone hints at the building’s previous role as a “mother-and-baby home”. It reads: “In Memory of God’s Special Angels”.

No names, no dates, just an acknowledgement that buried in the garden of the Manor House in Castlepollard are children born to unwed mothers at the Church-run institutions that dotted Ireland half a century ago.

The discovery of a mass grave at a similar home, two hours drive to the west in the small town of Tuam, has prompted the Irish to ask why so many babies died, anonymously, in the care of the Catholic Church that was once a pillar of respectability.

“If something happened in Tuam, it probably happened in other mother-and-baby homes around the country,” said Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who has seen the Church’s authority shattered by revelations of sex abuse by priests and cruelty at so-called Magdalene laundries where “fallen women” were forced to work in harsh conditions.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

A statutory inquiry is to be set up by the Irish Government into state sanctioned, religious-run institutions used to house pregnant mothers.

The special commission of investigation will examine the high mortality rates at Mother and Baby homes across several decades of the 20th century, the burial practices at these sites and also secret and illegal adoptions and vaccine trials on children.

It is thought about 35,000 unmarried mothers spent time in one of 10 homes run by religious orders in Ireland.

The inquiry has been ordered after massive national and international focus on the story of one home, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, Co Galway, where the remains of 796 infants are believed to be buried. Some lie in the remnants of what was once a concrete septic tank on the grounds of the home.

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IERLAND
KerkNet

BRUSSEL (KerkNet/Irish Times/RTE) – De Ierse minister voor Onderwijs Ruairí Quinn en de historica Catherine Corless distantiëren zich van de sensationele berichtgeving over de kinderlijkjes in een voormalig weeshuis van zusters. Het onderzoek van Catherine Corless legde de basis voor een verhaal dat wereldwijd het nieuws haalde. Haar onderzoek maakte duidelijk dat 796 kinderen, veelal zuigelingen, tussen 1925 en 1961 de dood vonden in het tehuis van de zusters in Tuam. Corless verzamelde de overlijdensakten van elk kind, waarin ook telkens de naam, de leeftijd, de plaats van geboorte en de doodsoorzaak worden vermeld. Dat maakt duidelijk dat baby’s en kinderen overleden aan de gevolgen van tuberculose, krampen, mazelen, kinkhoest, griep, bronchitis, hersenvliesontsteking en andere ziekten. Zij stierven in een periode dat kinderen veel sneller de dood vonden en infecties zich, vooral in instellingen, snel konden verspreiden. Maar de Ierse historica uit Tuam benadrukt dat zij nooit heeft beweerd dat 800 kinderlijkjes in een beerput werden gedumpt. Zij stelde vast dat vele kinderen werden begraven in een onofficieel kerkhofje achter het tehuis, waar de plaatselijke bevolking rozen legt en waar een Mariagrot werd gebouwd.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Jane Walsh @irishcentral June 10,2014

A woman who was taken and put up for adoption by Irish nuns spent 44 years trying to track down her birth mother.

She was born in the notorious Bessborough home in County Cork where protests were held this weekend and calls were made to remember all the unmarried mothers and children who passed through there.

Catherine Deasy was separated from her mother by the nuns of the Bessborough Sacred Heart Convent in Cork as soon as she was born. Her mother, Johanna Sheehy, had been declared an unfit mother and was warned to keep away from her child.

One night in 1954, Johanna was caught trying to sneak into the nursery to deliver a tiny pair of crocheted booties to her daughter and was transferred to another convent miles away as punishment.

Four years later, she received a photo of her daughter with a devastating message.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

[video – TV3]

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

A former mother superior at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home has said its adoptions were not forced, that mothers were well-fed, and that its high historic death rates could be explained by lack of access to antibiotics.

Sr Sarto also denied claims that parental consent was not sought by the nuns when vaccine trials were carried out on children.

But according to research revealed by the Irish Examiner last week, death rates at Bessborough in Cork, Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary, and Castlepollard in Westmeath, ranged from 30% to 50% between 1930 and 1945.

And memoirs by the former chief medical officer, Dr James Deeny, and by former midwife, June Goulding, also referred to a culture of neglect at Bessborough in the 1950s.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 10 June 2014)

Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission has begun examning how Catholic Church authorities ignored the crimes of Marist Brother Gregory Joseph Sutton, who was inflicted on Australian Catholic schoolchildren for 20 years. Originally, the Commisson had considered giving Sutton a code-name, “Z.A.”, but on 10 June 2014 the Commission decided to allow publication of his real name – Gregory Sutton.

Brother Sutton worked as a primary teacher, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, in various Catholic schools including (this is not a complete list):

* a parish school in North Queensland (under Queensland law, the name of this school cannot be published);
* a parish school at Lismore, northern New South Wales; and
* Marist College, Canberra.

On 10 June 2014, the Royal Commission began holding a week or more of public hearings (Case Study 13) which will include the question of how the Marist Brothers administration responded (or failed to respond) to the crimes of “Brother ZA” [Brother Grregory Sutton], plus another Marist (Brother John “Kostka” Chute).

When the public hearing began (chaired by Justice Jennifer Coate), Sutton’s lawyer (Greg Walsh) applied to have his client’s identity kept secret on the basis that publicity could cause “psychological damage” to Sutton as well as putting Sutton at risk of physical harm. Commissioner Coate ruled against the application. Thus, for the first time since 1996, the media is now able to publish Sutton’s name.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 9 June 2014)

Broken Rites has researched the background of Marist Brother Gregory Sutton, who fled from Australia to the United States. He was eventually extradited back to Australia, where he was jailed for child-sex crimes committed in Catholic schools in New South Wales. Sutton also taught primary-school classes in Queensland and Canberra but the criminal charges were confined to his New South Wales crimes. In 2014, the Sutton case is being examined by Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission.

Broken Rites has ascertained that Brother Gregory Joseph Sutton was born in Australia on 19 March 1951. After his schooling, he became a trainee Marist Brother, living in a Marist residential centre with other Marist trainees, absorbing the Marist culture. It is believed that a second son from the same family also became a Marist Brother.

Until around that time, each new Marist Brother normally discarded his birth-name and adopted a “religious” forename (for example, Fred Smith might become “Brother Alphonsus”). From around Gregory Sutton’s time, the younger Marists started using their birth name (in Sutton’s case, he became “Brother Greg”).

The Marists in Australia were divided into two provinces. Sutton belonged to the Sydney-based province, which supplied Marist Brothers to schools in New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. A Melbourne-based province covered Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Statement by Frank Meuers of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 952-334-5180, frankameuers@gmail.com )

Recently released Catholic records show that Twin Cites archdiocese officials helped a predator priest become a therapist and have continued access to kids. In light of this, Archbishop John Nienstedt should disclose which other perpetrator priests;

— he may be helping get another job around children and/or

— his predecessor helped get second careers around innocent kids & vulnerable adults.

And officials from the University of St. Thomas – where the predator also worked – should write to thousands of alums, aggressively seeking other possible victims of this predator and urging them to call law enforcement.

[Star Tribune]

Fr. Timothy McCarthy was a popular St. Paul area priest who, according to church memos, abused two boys early in his career. A psychologist told church officials Fr. McCarthy’s behavior was borderline criminal. And yet apparently, no church officials called police. Instead they helped him gain credentials to counsel teenagers and young adults at the University of St. Thomas.

Finally, adding insult to injury, Fr. McCarthy is still a priest today. According to Bishop Andrew Cozzens (who’s still on the job today) McCarthy “has denied abuse allegations — a factor in Archbishop John Nienstedt’s decision not to push for his involuntary removal from the priesthood.”

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IRELAND
Journal

FIANNA FÁIL ARE expected to back a Sinn Féín motion being tabled in the Dáil this evening calling for a fully independent judicial inquiry into all mother-and-baby homes that operated in the country.

The motion, which will be voted on tomorrow evening, calls for the enquiry to be set-up as soon as possible.

The issue was also discussed at Cabinet this morning, with Taoiseach Enda Kenny telling reporters on the way in that the Government were treating the recent controversy over the mass grave at Tuam as a much wider issue.

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan was due to present his inter-departmental review during this morning’s meeting. Kenny said that the Government would decide on “the best way to proceed” once that took place.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan has announced a statutory Commission of Investigation into mother-and-baby-homes across the State.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Mr Flanagan said that it is too early to say who will lead the commission, but that he has some names in mind.

He said that the Government will receive an initial report from a cross-departmental investigation by 30 June.

Mr Flanagan said its work will inform the Government on the terms of reference and composition of the Commission of Investigation.

He said it is important that a light be shone on “these dark periods”.

Mr Flanagan said he hopes the inquiry will examine all issues, including the high mortality rates, the burial practices following these deaths, the legal circumstances around adoptions and the question of conducting of clinical trials.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Irish Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan has announced a statutory Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes in Ireland.

The cabinet has been discussing the deaths of almost 800 children at a convent-run mother and baby home.

The remains of some children were found in a concrete tank in County Galway.

The grave in Tuam was initially thought to date to the 1850s when discovered 40 years ago. The children, one as old as nine, died between 1925 and 1961.

Ministers have been receiving a progress report from an inter-departmental group, which was set up by the government to examine the matter.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE CHILDREN’S MINISTER has announced a statutory Commission of Investigation to investigate mother and baby homes.

Charlie Flanagan told RTÉ’s News at One that the commission will have full statutory powers and will “not be interfered with by government”.

Flanagan said that “we need to establish the truth of this matter”.

He said that now was a “time for sensitivity, not speculation”.

“That is why this morning, the government has decided to establish a Commission of Investigation with full statutory powers to examine all matters pertaining to mother and baby homes throughout the state.”

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IRELAND
Journal

THIS AFTERNOON’S ANNOUNCEMENT that the Government is to set up a full Commission of Investigation into the operation of mother-and-baby homes has been welcomed by the Adoption Rights Alliance, which campaigns on behalf of women who were formerly resident in the institutions.

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan confirmed today that the commission will have full statutory powers and will “not be interfered with by government”.

It follows a Cabinet meeting this morning, at which ministers were briefed on the issue by the Minister.

Susan Lohan of the Adoption Rights Alliance said that Flanagan’s announcement appeared to “answer everything we were calling for”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Harry McGee, Rachel Flaherty, Mary Minihan

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

A statutory commission of investigation is to be set up by the Government into issues in religious-run mother and baby homes across the State.

The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting this morning.

The special commission of investigation will examine the high mortality rates at Mother and Baby homes across several decades of the 20th century, the burial practices at these sites and also secret and illegal adoptions and vaccine trials on children, Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan said.

“My determination is to ensure all of the issues are dealt with in a way which is comprehensive,” said Mr Flanagan.

He added that it was essential the facts were established and a “light was shone on this dark period”.

Mr Flanagan said it was too early to say who will lead the commission, but added he had some names in mind.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

The government has announced a full Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes. It will have full statutory powers to seek documents and compel witnesses.

The wide-ranging inquiry will examine all aspects of the running of the homes and will not just be confined to the revelations concerning the former Bon Secours home in Tuam.

The terms of reference for the Commission will be decided when a final report comes from a high-level departmental group.

That report, from nine government departments, is due to be finished by June 30th.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Children’s Minister announces Commission of Inquiry with full statutory powers into all mother and baby homes

MINISTER for Children Charlie Flanagan has announced a Commission of Inquiry with full statutory powers into all mother and baby homes.

Minister Flanagan said the investigation would establish the truth about what happened in all mother and baby homes across the country.

He hoped the inquiry would also investigate allegations of forced adoption and controversial vaccine trials carried out on children without their mother’s permission.

“It is my hope and determination that all these issues are dealt with in a way that is comprehensive,” he said.

The move follows weeks of controversy after the discovery of an alleged mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in Tuam, Co Galway.

Mr Flanagan said he was hoping the commission would have cross-party support.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

A statutory inquiry is to be set up by the Government into state sanctioned, religious-run institutions used to house pregnant mothers.

The special commission of investigation will examine the high mortality rates at mother and baby homes across several decades of the 20th century, the burial practices at these sites and also secret and illegal adoptions and vaccine trials on children.

It is thought about 35,000 unmarried mothers spent time in one of 10 homes run by religious orders in Ireland.

The inquiry has been ordered after massive national and international focus on the story of one home, run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, Co Galway, where the remains of 796 infants are believed to be buried. Some lie in the remnants of what was once a concrete septic tank on the grounds of the home.

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan said it was time to shed light on another dark period in Irish history.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Newstalk has reported that experimental drug trials were conducted on at least 290 children across 10 mother-and-baby homes in the 1960s and 70s.

The trials were said to be conducted at homes at Bessborough in Cork, St Peters in Westmeath, St Clare’s in Stamullen, The Good Shepard in Dunboyne as well as six Dublin Homes.

In one of the trials, 80 children allegedly became unwell after they were given a vaccine intended for cattle in a trial at five care homes and orphanages in Dublin in the mid 70s.

The information is contained in a report from the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health’s report to the Oireachtas in the year 2000, obtained by Newstalk.

Susan Lohan, co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance, says that any claims that the parents of the children gave permission for the trials to take place are “not credible”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The order which ran the mother-and-baby home in Bessborough in Cork initially refused to transfer files relating to controversial vaccine trials to the HSE.

The Irish Examiner revealed in 2011 that, as the former adoption agency operated by the Sacred Heart Sisters had not applied for accreditation, and was not compelled to do so under the Adoption Act, its files would remain the private property of the order and could not be inspected by the Adoption Authority.

While the order did later agree to transfer around 25,000 files to the HSE, in a letter sent to one of the victims of the trials, Maureen Downey Hickey, who was later adopted to the US, the HSE stated it had “been advised that immunisation records will continue to be the responsibility of the order”.

More than 210 infants and babies, some 123 of whom were in the care of the State, took part in three confirmed trials to test vaccines between 1960 and 1973.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 10, 2014 06:00 By Alana Fearon

Marian Kelly reveals how her son was forcibly taken from her just hours after birth and illegally given up for adoption at Cork mother and baby home

A heartbroken mum whose baby son was taken from her hours after birth, has revealed how heartless nuns told her: “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t feel.”

The growing outrage over the treatment of children in State religious homes intensified yesterday as it emerged vaccines meant for cattle were tested on kids.

Marian Kelly was just 18 when she gave birth to her son Anthony in 1974 and was taken to the Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Co Cork.

Choking back tears, she opened up about how she was allowed to hold her baby for just a few short minutes before he was taken from her by the Sacred Heart sisters who ran the home.

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IRELAND
The New York Times

By DOUGLAS DALBY
JUNE 9, 2014

TUAM, Ireland — That 796 children, mainly babies, died at St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home between 1925 and its closing in 1961 is not disputed. A local historian, Catherine Corless, says she researched the death certificates. What troubled her was that she could find burial records for only one child and wanted a plaque to commemorate the lives of the others.

Ms. Corless surmised that the children’s bodies were interred in a septic tank behind the home, and she then met a local man who said he had seen bones there while playing as a child. While even she acknowledges that the conclusion was a circumstantial leap, once it was picked up in the local press, it was sensational enough to rocket around the globe, becoming a story of a disused septic tank brimming with bones.

Since the news broke last week, however, some of the assumptions that led Ms. Corless to her conclusion have been challenged, not least by the man she cited, Barry Sweeney, now 48, who was questioned by detectives about what he saw when he was 10 years old. “People are making out we saw a mass grave,” he said he had told the detectives. “But we can only say what we seen: maybe 15 to 20 small skeletons.”

Where and how the bodies of the children were actually disposed of remains a mystery — and a scandal in tiny Tuam, population 8,200, that has for the moment revealed more about the ways local lore and small-town sleuthing can be distorted in the news media juggernaut than about what actually went on decades ago at the state-funded home for unmarried pregnant women run by the Bon Secours Sisters, a Roman Catholic order.

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MINNESOTA
The Raw Story

By Travis Gettys
Tuesday, June 10, 2014

St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson testified last month that he wasn’t sure whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children while he served as chancellor of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese.

The former chancellor gave a deposition last month in a lawsuit that claims the Minnesota archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret, reported Minnesota Public Radio.

The 69-year-old Carlson also faces a massive clergy abuse lawsuit in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where he’s served as archbishop since 2009.

One document made public in that case shows more than 100 priests and church employees have been accused of sexual abuse, and the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the archdiocese to turn over their names under seal.

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IRLAND
kathweb

Dublin, 09.06.2014 (KAP) Der katholische Erzbischof von Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, hat eine “vollständige Untersuchung” von Heimen für ledige Mütter und deren uneheliche Kinder in Irland gefordert. “Wenn in Tuam etwas passiert ist, dann ist es wahrscheinlich auch in anderen Mutter-und-Baby-Heimen im Land passiert”, sagte der Erzbischof in einem Interview mit dem irischen Nachrichtensender RTE. In Tuam in der Grafschaft Galway war vor kurzem bekanntgeworden, dass 800 Kinderleichen aus einem Massengrab aus einem Mutter-Kind-Heim stammten, das von katholischen Ordensfrauen geleitet worden war.

Man müsse die “gesamte Kultur der Mutter-und-Baby-Heime” erfassen, so Erzbischof Martin weiter. Auch die Adoptionspolitik der Heime und Angaben über medizinische Experimente müssten genau untersucht werden, forderte der Bischof. Es handle sich um eine “sehr komplizierte und sehr sensible Angelegenheit”, doch der einzige Weg, diesen Teil der Geschichte zu verarbeiten, sei das “Finden der Wahrheit”.

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IRLAND
Mittelbayerische

VON TERESA DAPP, DPA

DUBLIN. Missbrauchte Kinder in Schulen und Heimen, ausgebeutete Frauen in Arbeitshäusern, und nun auch noch Massengräber voller Kinderknochen: Irland steht ein weiteres Kapitel schwieriger Vergangenheitsbewältigung bevor. Diesmal geht es um Heime für unverheiratete Mütter und die dort geborenen Babys. „Die Kinder-Sterberate lag dort bei über 50 Prozent“, sagt Susan Lohan von der Initiative „Adoption Rights Alliance“. Zu Tausenden wurden die kleinen Leichen anonym verscharrt. Der Fall, der derzeit Schlagzeilen macht, ist besonders grausam. Fast 800 Skelette liegen in einer Jauchegrube in Tuam, einem Örtchen im Westen des Landes.

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IRLAND
Tiroler Tageszeitung

Dublin (APA) – Der katholische Erzbischof von Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, hat eine „vollständige Untersuchung“ von Heimen für ledige Mütter und deren uneheliche Kinder in Irland gefordert. „Wenn in Tuam etwas passiert ist, dann ist es wahrscheinlich auch in anderen Mutter-und-Baby-Heimen im Land passiert“, sagte der Erzbischof laut Kathpress in einem Interview mit dem irischen Nachrichtensender RTE.

In Tuam in der Grafschaft Galway war vor kurzem bekanntgeworden, dass 800 Kinderleichen aus einem Massengrab aus einem Mutter-Kind-Heim stammten, das von katholischen Ordensfrauen geleitet worden war.

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IRLAND
Radio Vatican

Politiker und Kirchenvertreter in Irland wollen die Geschichte der Heime für ledige Mütter und deren uneheliche Kinder durch eine unabhängige Kommission aufarbeiten lassen. Anlass für den Vorstoß sind jüngste Erkenntnisse zu einem Grab mit 800 Kinderleichen in der zur Grafschaft Galway gehörenden Stadt Tuma. Sie sollen aus einem Mutter-Kind-Heim stammen, das von katholischen Ordensfrauen geführt wurde. Das Massengrab war bereits in den 70er Jahren entdeckt worden. Lange Zeit hieß es, bei den Leichen handle es sich um Opfer der irischen Hungersnot im 19. Jahrhundert. Eine Historikerin deckte dagegen auf, dass es sich bei den Toten aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach um die sterblichen Überreste von jungen Heimbewohnern handelt, die zwischen 1925 und 1961 ums Leben kamen. Der Erzbischof von Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, sagte im RTE-Radio:

„Die Indizien sagen doch: Wenn das in Tuma passieren konnte, dann ist es vielleicht auch in anderen Mutter-und-Baby-Heimen anderswo im Land passiert. Darum glaube ich, dass wir eine umfassende Untersuchung brauchen. Es bringt nichts, nur das Geschehen in Tuma zu untersuchen und nächstes Jahr dann noch anderes herauszufinden – wir müssen die ganze Kultur der Mutter-und-Baby-Heime durchleuchten.“

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IRLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

09.06.2014, von JOCHEN BUCHSTEINER

Pater Brian D’Arcy, einer der bekanntesten Katholiken Irlands, traf vermutlich eine verbreitete Stimmung, als er von einer „Greueltat“ sprach, „die in einem anderen Land passiert sein muss“. Aber es ist Irland, seine Heimat, in dem ein Massengrab mit fast 800 Kinderskeletten entdeckt wurde. „Ich konnte gar nicht glauben, dass dies in meiner Lebenszeit passiert ist, in meinem Land und unter der Religion, zu der ich gehöre und der ich mein Leben gewidmet habe“, sagte der fassungslose Pater am Freitag dem irischen Fernsehen.

Die Öffentlichkeit steht kopf, seit die Forschungsergebnisse der Heimathistorikern Catherine Corless zur Gewissheit machen, was zuvor nur in einigen Regionen des Landes als Gerücht kursierte: dass Babys und Kinder „gefallener Mädchen“ in katholischen Heimen unmenschlich behandelt und nach ihrem Tod wie Abfall weggeworfen wurden

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IRLAND
taz

DUBLIN taz | Tuam ist eine wenig bemerkenswerte Ortschaft in der westirischen Grafschaft Galway. Sie hat ein wenig Bekanntheit erlangt, weil die lokale Folkrockgruppe Saw Doctors der Nationalstraße 17, die durch Tuam führt, ein Lied gewidmet hat. Außerdem wurde die Bahnstrecke um Tuam für Filmaufnahmen für „Der Ausgestoßene“ mit John Wayne benutzt. Die Strecke wurde jedoch 1978 geschlossen, der Bahnhof von Tuam steht leer.

Der Name des Orts stammt vom lateinischen „Tumulus“ ab – Grabhügel. 1875 hat man in Tuam eine Urne aus der Zeit um 1500 vor unserer Zeitrechnung gefunden. Einen weitaus grausigeren Fund machte die Historikerin Catherine Corless. Sie hat herausgefunden, dass zwischen 1925 und 1961 fast 800 Kinderleichen in einem Abwassertank auf dem Gelände eines Heims für „gefallene Mädchen“ – also ledige Mütter – abgelegt worden sind.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Spiritual Sounding Board

Six North Carolina brothers were arrested last week for allegedly sexually molesting their younger sister for over a decade, beginning when she was 4 years old until she was 14 years old. The names of the brothers are Eric Jackson, 27, Jon, 25, Matthew, 23, Nathaniel, 21, Benjamin, 19, and Aaron, 18. The charges include statutory rape, sexual assault, and rape. The young girl is currently 16 years old. The young men belong to a homeschool family with 11 children. At the time of the alleged abuse, they were living in North Carolina and two of the brothers were reportedly members of Scott Brown’s church, Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

The men’s parents – John Jackson, 65, and Nita Jackson, 54 – also were charged with felony child abuse and released after posting a $15,000 secured bond. Tilley said they were charged because they were aware of the abuse and failed to take action. (http://hamptonroads.com/2014/05/six-nc-brothers-accused-abusing-girl-over-decade)

Scott Brown has had very close ties with the now defunct Vision Forum Ministries and recently fallen Christian Patriarchal leader, Doug Phillips. Brown also heads up National Centers for Family -Integrated Churches which was originally connected with Vision Forum’s ministry. Church Elder Dan Horn also has similar connections with Vision Forum Ministries.

The church elder said he took Eric in December 2012 to speak with detectives and added he would have contacted investigators if Eric hadn’t agreed to do it.

“We believe their repentance is genuine,” Horn said.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com

A former Twin Cities bishop who now leads the Archdiocese of St. Louis responded 193 times in a court-ordered deposition that he could not remember details about priest child sexual abuse during his tenure.

Archbishop Robert James Carlson served from 1979 to 1994 as a top handler of priest abuse cases in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, attorney Jeffrey Anderson said.

Anderson represents victims of childhood sexual abuse, including a man who sued in May 2013 alleging he was molested by former priest Thomas Adamson while he served in St. Paul Park.

“He doesn’t remember anything about what he did,” Anderson said about Carlson at a Monday news conference in St. Paul.

“The sad and sorrowful thing is the victims of these abuses that had been concealed for so long by so many trusted figures have to remember.”

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CANADA
Net News Ledger

Posted 9 June 2014 by James Murray

THUNDER BAY – NEWS – A June 4 decision by Manitoba Justice Perry Schulman in Fontaine et al. v. Canada (Attorney General) found that so-called form-fillers acted in an “unconscionable” fashion with “unequal bargaining power” while coercing Residential School survivors to sign payment agreements that deprived as many as 1,000 former students the full amount of their claims awarded under the IRS.

Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) and Grand Council Treaty #3 (GCT#3), two of the largest political organizations representing First Nations in Ontario and Manitoba, are raising awareness among former Indian Residential School (IRS) students as financial arrangements made by legal firms and other agencies for assisting with compensation claims are under investigation.

“Within the Treaty 3 territory we had the highest number of Indian Residential schools in comparison with any other part of Canada and as such for generations our communities, families and individuals have been severely impacted by the abuses and trauma, including misguided nutritional experiments on our relatives that attended these schools. While the Common Experience Payment (CEP) and Independent Assessment Process (IAP) offered an opportunity at recognition and reconciliation for harm to our IRS survivors, it is extremely painful to hear that victimization by ruthless lawyers has been perpetrated against vulnerable people who have had to endure a lifetime of pain and suffering,” said Grand Council Treaty #3 Grand Chief Warren White. “I encourage all IRS claimants who have questions or concerns about the manner in which their file, claim or compensation has been managed to come forward.”

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Alexandra Paul
Posted: 06/9/2014

The day Winnipeg lawyer Ken Carroll talked a sick, elderly woman into a 10-hour bus trip from Thunder Bay and had staff take $8,100 off her cheque as soon as she walked out of a Winnipeg bank, he was in trouble.

And any lawyer who did anything like it is also in trouble now, after a court ruling in Manitoba last week put a stop to the dubious practice.

Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench cited Winnipeg lawyer Ken Carroll and the First Nation Residential Schools Solution Inc. as a test case to make a larger point.

Mr. Justice Percy Schulman said his ruling applies to any lawyer and agency that filled in forms for survivors to get compensation and then charged their fees against their compensation cheques.

In fact, Schulman made no bones about his feelings on the matter in a ruling that covered 55 pages and took up for some 1,000 survivors of residential schools.

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AUSTRALIA
Failed Messiah

Magistrate Williams said he needed to apply the law as it was at the time of the offense but said if it had occurred today he “would have had no hesitation in sending [Daniel “Gug” Hayman] to jail.”

Daniel “Gug” Hayman

Daniel “Gug” Hayman, a former director of Chabad in Sydney, Australia sexually abused a boy at a Chabad camp in the late 1980s. Hayman went on to fail to comply with his voluntary sex offender counseling in Los Angeles and lived openly there under the partial protection of Debbie Fox, a social worker who at one time was mistakenly believed to be a strong advocate for haredi and Orthodox abuse victims.

Hayman was finally arrested in Australia on the old abuse charge and pleaded guilty.

What did Hayman plead guilty to?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Hayman sat in court today and “did not stop reading from the Book of Pslams as he was given the sentence for touching and holding a 14-year-old boy’s penis during a camp at Stanwell Tops in the 1980s.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Emma Partridge June 10, 2014

A Jewish volunteer found guilty of indecently assaulting a teenage boy at a Yeshiva camp was handed a 19-month suspended jail sentence in a Sydney court on Tuesday.

Daniel Robert Hayman did not stop reading from the Book of Pslams as he was given the sentence for touching and holding a 14-year-old boy’s penis during a camp at Stanwell Tops in the 1980s.

Magistrate David Williams said he would not have hesitated in sending Hayman to jail had the offences been committed recently but said he was bound by the laws at the time the offence was committed.

Hayman, a dual Australian-American citizen who lives with his wife and children in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty to indecent assault of a child under 16 and under his authority at a hearing in May.

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UNITED STATES
The American Conservative

By ROD DREHER • June 10, 2014

The Irish Times pokes more holes in the initial reporting of the Tuam story. Excerpt:

‘I never used that word ‘dumped’,” Catherine Corless, a local historian in Co Galway, tells The Irish Times. “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.” …

At this point, it doesn’t appear that the story, while still horrific, is not as bad as it appeared when first reported. That is, it doesn’t seem that the children were especially mistreated at the Catholic home, and their bodies disrespected because they were the issue of unmarried parents. It seems — I keep saying “seems,” because there’s still a lot we don’t know about the “Home Babies” case — anyway, it seems that the high death rate had a lot to do with Ireland’s poverty at the time, and while illegitimate children were harshly and cruelly stigmatized in Ireland at the time, that ought to be understood in context of the era, its intense poverty, and the conservatism of all Irish society, not just the Roman Catholic Church. I could be wrong. We’ll see.

It’s wrong to call all this “good news,” but to me, it is a relief to learn that the Church may be less culpable than the initial reports indicated. I posted the shocking first story, and have posted the debunking follow-ups as they’ve become available. That hasn’t stopped pious Tom Piatak, a stringer for a turgid Midwestern monthly, from losing his grip over my blogging. A “bitter apostate” he calls me, which is theologically ignorant; according to the Catechism, an “apostate” is one who totally repudiates Christianity, while a “schismatic” is one who affirms Christianity but who does not submit to the Roman pontiff. But this isn’t really about theology with him, but rather tribal breast-beating:

Rod Dreher’s desire to pass judgment on Irish Catholicism on the basis of one poorly sourced story, and Andrew Sullivan’s desire to jettison sexual morality on the basis of that same story, tell us that they cannot be trusted when it comes to the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney

THE former head of a Catholic order, due to give evidence at a royal commission hearing starting today, failed to take any action in response to allegations of child sexual abuse, its lawyers have said.

Marist brother Alexis Turton is expected to give evidence during the Canberra hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Separately, lawyers acting for the commission have published their submissions relating to a previous hearing, arguing evidence exists to allow the commissioners to make adverse findings against Brother Turton, as well as other Marist clerics.

Between 1993-94, Brother Turton spoke to one alleged abuser, Raymond Foster.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

The suppression order protecting the identity of former Marist Brother Gregory Sutton found guilty of child abuse in 1996 has been lifted.

Sutton has been known as ZA since 1996, but the order was lifted following an application to the NSW District Court by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse sitting in Canberra.

Sutton’s lawyer, Greg Walsh, applied to have his client’s identity kept secret on the basis it could cause psychological damage as well as putting Sutton at risk of physical harm.

Commissioner Justice Jennifer Coate ruled against the application. She said the issues raised had not been sufficient to shift the balance away from the obligation for a clear and open inquiry.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times

The Marist Brothers have paid out $6.84 million in compensation to 38 former students who were sexually abused by John William Chute, who is also known as Brother Kostka.

Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Simeon Beckett, said payments averaged $178,000 but those made through Towards Healing were substantially less.

Chute is now living in the community in NSW.

The royal commission heard on Tuesday that allegations of sexual abuse were made against him as early as 1960 and that he had admitted to “inappropriate touching” while at Marcellin College in Randwick.

Chute was transferred to St Anne’s Primary School at Bondi and was again the subject of allegations of sexual abuse in 1961 and 1962.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Star

Jessica Grewal | 10th Jun 2014

THE child abuse royal commission has begun its inquiry into allegations two predator Catholic brothers from Lismore were allowed to damage dozens of children over more than four decades before finally being jailed for their sins.

For the first time since he was convicted of 67 child sex abuse offences in 1996, Gregory Sutton has been exposed for the years of torment he inflicted on students at St Carthages in the 80s.

A non-publication order imposed by the NSW District Court at the time of his sentence was lifted at the start of today’s hearing.

The harnessing of the careers and protection of both Sutton and brother John “Kostka” Chute – a former St Joseph’s (now Trinity College) principal, who despite admitting child abuse at Lismore, was promoted to Canberra’s prestigious Marist College – is the focus of the hearing.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

It has taken almost 30 years but two women, abused as 10-year-olds by then Marist Brother Gregory Sutton, have finally received an apology from their molester.

Sutton, whose identity was disclosed for the first time at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Canberra on Tuesday, had told one of the two he would kill her family if she ever spoke out.

The offences occurred while Sutton was a teacher at St Thomas Moore School in Campbelltown in 1984 and 1985. Before this he had taught at Marist College Junior School at Pearce in Canberra from 1980 and 1983. It has been alleged that while in Canberra, Sutton had abused seven boys aged 10 and 11.

Sutton’s lawyer, Greg Walsh, contacted the former Marist Brother during the lunch break and told him earlier attempts to apologise to witnesses ADM and ADQ had not been passed on.

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AUSTRALIA
Echo Netdaily

AAP – Stories of ruined lives, death threats, lost police statements and a three-decade-old apology have featured in the opening session of child sexual assault hearings in Canberra.

Witnesses on Tuesday recounted their mistreatment at the hands of Marist Brothers Gregory Sutton and John Chute who worked as teachers at schools in NSW, the ACT and Queensland.

Sutton worked for a period at St Carthages in Lismore, while Chute is a former principal of St Josephs (now Trinity College).

‘The affect of the abuse by Brother Gregory has been profound and had a significant impact on me in a number of areas of my life,’ one female victim told the hearing, recounting numerous problems since the 1984 abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
Reporter
Canberra

A PEDOPHILE Catholic brother was allowed to continue working as a school principal, even after he was charged with 24 counts of child sexual abuse in the 1990s.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this morning commenced a hearing into the Marist Brothers’ dealings with two pedophile teachers John Chute and Gregory Sutton accused of collectively abusing 69 girls and boys at numerous schools across NSW, Queensland and Canberra.

Counsel assisting the commission Simeon Beckett, in his opening address, that senior Marists were repeatedly warned about both Chute and Sutton, and both admitted wrongdoing, but allowed them to continue teaching.

Sutton was “sent for counselling” to the Southdown Institute, a residential care facility in Canada, after revealing wrongdoing to a senior Marist, Alexis Turton, in 1989.

Police in Australia meanwhile issued 24 warrants for his arrest between 1992 and 1993.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel and Emma Jane Hade

A GOVERNMENT and church-backed independent commission of inquiry into the mother and baby homes scandal won’t be launched until it is clear it will not interfere with garda investigations.

Privately, senior cabinet ministers acknowledged such an investigation would be set up within months though there is increasing concern over the scale of its inquiry remit.

Mother and baby homes operated across Ireland for 40 years but were also intrinsically linked to industrial schools and orphanages.

The facilities are also at the centre of secret vaccine trial and clandestine foreign adoption controversies.

The Coalition is open to the inquiry being led by domestic or overseas judicial official once its precise remit is agreed.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Caroline Crawford
Published 10/06/2014

AS the full extent of the shocking mother and babies home scandal becomes apparent, a number of questions remain to be answered.

Just how much light the Bon Secours order of nuns can shed on this matter remains to be seen. They have welcomed an investigation saying they were “shocked and deeply saddened” by the reports about St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home.

However, it is not clear if remaining members of the order are aware of any gravesite for children at the home.

What do the surviving records from the home tell us?

All records on the home were passed on by the Bon Secours to the Health Service Executive in Galway. The ledgers have now been found at Tulsa, the Child and Family Agency. They must be studied in depth.

The specific number of children who may be buried in the tank at Tuam is also unclear. Historian Catherine Corless has so far checked only a cross-section of 100 names from the list against local burials. It has also emerged that records do not exist for all of the graveyards in the area. A full in-depth review of each of the 796 children will be needed to ensure they were not buried elsewhere.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Caroline Crawford
Published 10/06/2014

A prominent member of the committee set up to mark the 800 babies who died in a Tuam home has called for a “reality check” when it comes to apportioning blame for the tragedy.

Martin Ward, who is also a former Mayor of Tuam, insisted that the Catholic Church must not carry all responsibility for what happened in the homes, insisting that society and the parents of the young girls must also accept blame in the matter.

“I think people need a reality check. People have got to look at the times and the culture that was in it. Kids outside the home were dying in large numbers as well. People don’t seem to realise that,” he said.

Mr Ward said it was easy to simply blame the Catholic Church for what went on but pointed out that society at the time was harsh.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Caroline Crawford
Published 10/06/2014

The scandal over events at St Mary’s Mother and Baby home has been 90 years in the making. These are the main developments:

* St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home was operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, Co Galway, from 1925 to 1961.

* Inspectors’ reports from 1947 raise concerns about the high numbers of deaths at the home. They also mention emaciated children.

* In 1975 two Tuam children, Frannie Hopkins and Barry Sweeney, discover skeletons, believed to be those of children, in a covered-over crypt while playing in the field near where the home stood. Prayers are said at the site by a local priest and the bones are covered over again.

* Locals in Tuam tend to the grave over the decades and it is recorded on maps as a children’s burial ground.

* In recent years a local group set up a committee to erect a memorial at the site. As part of this work, historian Catherine Corless requests the death certificates for all children who died in the home over its 36 years. She was left stunned to receive death certificates for 796 children ranging in age from two days to nine years. They died from a range of ailments.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

A drug company, which has records of children who underwent experimental vaccine trials in baby homes, has said it will “respond fully” to those requesting their own personal data.

A spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was commenting after the use of trial vaccines on children in orphanages between 1960 and 1973 re-emerged in the wake the baby deaths controversy at St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

A €2m state probe into the vaccine trials was abandoned in 2006 by former health minister Mary Harney after a court challenge.

Victor Boyhan, a councillor in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, who was in the care of the Church of Ireland run Bird’s Nest home, yesterday called for an inquiry before an Oireachtas committee into the drugs trials.

A Department of Health report confirmed in 2000 that 123 residents of Dublin children’s homes were used in vaccine trials by the Wellcome drug company. It suggested some children used in one trial may have been more susceptible to polio infection as a result.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

An inquiry into the operation of mother and baby homes in Ireland should establish precisely what happened in those institutions; the level of approval and support they received from State agencies and Catholic Church authorities and whether the lurid headlines of recent weeks have any basis in fact. Unmarried mothers and their children experienced cruel and deliberate discrimination. But to what extent did social rejection facilitate forced adoptions, improper vaccine trials, avoidable deaths and the heartless disposal of small bodies?

The painstaking work of local historian Catherine Corless drew public attention on the deaths of 796 children who died at a mother and baby home in Tuam Co Galway, between 1925 and 1961. Her efforts, over a number of years, including paying for copies of publicly available death certificates, were designed to ensure that every dead child from the home should be remembered by name on a formal burial plaque.

Reports that the bodies of 800 children were “dumped in a septic tank” did not come from her. But they dominated political discourse; broadened the debate and drew attention to an unhealthy symbiotic relationship that existed between church and State during those years, including many working in health services.

The surprising thing about the Tuam disclosures is that we are surprised. Modern Ireland has an amazing capacity for self-induced amnesia. The systemic abuses that took place in industrial schools, mental hospitals, county homes and laundries were well documented but largely ignored.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Harry McGee, Rachel Flaherty

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the issues in mother and baby homes are much wider than just one home and another senior member of Cabinet said the Government is moving toward a full inquiry.

Speaking on his way into a Cabinet meeting this morning Mr Kenny said Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan would give a presentation on the progress of an interdepartmental review into some of the issues at the homes.

These included mortality rates, burial practices, forced adoptions and other issues.

The Sacred Heart Home opened in Bessborough, Co Cork, in 1922, managed by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary. Cormac O’Tuama, looks at teddies and flowers placed outside the gates of Bessborough during a memorial service on Sunday. Photograph: ProvisionMother and baby home inquiry must examine our culture of concealment

“I have a briefing from the Minister for Children this morning and will decide what is the best thing to do,” Mr Kenny said. He said the issues were “much broader than just one home.”

The review was ordered following disclosures that almost 800 infants and young children had died in the Bon Secours home in Tuam between 1925 and 1961.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

If shame has gone, why do we use secret abortions in England to preserve the myth of holy Ireland?

Fintan O’Toole

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

The Irish psychosis whose latest expression is thousands of dead babies in unmarked graves is a compound of four elements: superiority, shame, cruelty and exclusion. The Taoiseach last week called the deaths of those children “yet another element of our country’s past”. Are we so sure that these forces are not also our country’s present?

The superiority complex in Irish society came from the desperate need of an insecure middle class to have someone to look down on, an inferior Other against which to define its own respectability.

In 1943, the Joint Committee of Women’s Societies and Social Workers compiled a well-meaning memorandum on children in institutions. It noted of those in mother-and-baby homes that “These illegitimate children start with a handicap. Owing to the circumstances of their birth, their heredity, the state of mind of the mother before birth, their liability to hereditary disease and mental weakness, we do not get, and we should not expect to get, the large percentage of healthy vigorous babies we get in normal circumstances. This was noticeable in the institutions we visited.”

These were humane and compassionate reformers. And it seemed obvious to them that children born out of wedlock would be physically and mentally weak and that “we should not expect” them to be normally healthy.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Member of child abuse commission says documents from vaccine trials inquiry still available

Patsy McGarry

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

A member of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has said that a significant amount of work had been done and documentation collated when its vaccine trials inquiry was suspended in 2003 due to legal action.

The inquiry, set up as a module of the commission by government order in June 2001, was to investigate the use of children from mother and baby homes, orphanages, reformatories and industrial schools in three such trials.

Dr Kevin McCoy had been chief inspector of the Inspectorate of Social Services in Northern Ireland, before his appointment to the commission in 2000.

Last night, he told The Irish Times that before the vaccine trials inquiry “ran into the ground” due to legal action, “a lot of information had been collected and work done”.

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MEXICO
Milenio

[Summary: The San Luis Potosi archdiocese has sought to confuse public opinion by saying there is only one complaint of sexual abuse against priest Eduardo Cordova, according to attorney Armando Martinez but there are actually 19 complaints. He is representing the victims.]

MILENIO DIGITAL
09/06/2014
México
La Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí pretende confundir a la opinión pública al afirmar que solo existe una denuncia contra el sacerdote Eduardo Córdova, por abuso sexual, como lo afirma el abogado Armando Martínez, toda vez que hay 19, afirmó Martín Faz, representante de las víctimas.

“Hay una denuncia por parte de 19 víctimas de abuso sexual, esa es la verdad legal, no sola una como asegura el abogado (de la Arquidiócesis). Se está generando una estrategia de confusión por parte de la iglesia”, aseguró.

En entrevista con Azucena Uresti, para Milenio Televisión, el abogado señaló que el clero potosino está creando una estrategia “perversa” para proteger al presunto padre pederasta, quien se encuentra desaparecido.

“En 2012 iniciaron una investigación interna por la denuncia de una familia, en ese entonces pidieron silencio a la familia afectada. Hoy la Arquidiócesis alega que no puede dar más datos a la procuraduría porque supuestamente la familia le ha pedido secrecía. Esa es una estrategia perversa de encubrimiento”, insistió.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Footnote to Story About Irish Mass Grave: Story Appears Only to Grow Worse

Another footnote today to previous discussions on this blog: last week, in the thread discussing the story of the mass grave of babies and young children found being a former Catholic home for unwed mothers in Tuam, Ireland, both Marco and Conrad suggested that it was possible that the bodies of these children were treated shockingly callously because they had not been baptized due to the circumstances of their birth. I replied by noting that I had never heard of denying baptism to children because they were illegitimate, and that I doubted this was a factor in the Tuam story.

But according to Antonia Molloy in the Irish Independent today, “Babies born inside the institutions were denied baptism and, if they died from the illness and disease rife in such facilities, also denied a Christian burial.” Mary Elizabeth Williams cites Molloy’s article at Salon, noting that Michael Dwyer of Cork University has found what appears to be evidence that children in a number of similar Irish care facilities in the 1930s were subjected to illegal drug trials.

Williams’s heart-rending conclusion:

What Ireland is only now beginning to fully investigate and understand is a story involving potentially thousands of children who were almost certainly neglected and mistreated, and whose deaths were addressed as a mere trash disposal issue. It is now believed a total of upward of 4,000 children were similarly disposed of in other homes across the country. It’s a story of untold even higher numbers of children who were unwitting subjects in a vaccine test that further refused to see them as human beings, capable of fear and pain. And an interesting insight into why so many children may have been so casually treated and tossed away was revealed in a recent feature on the scandal in the Independent. Babies born to unwed mothers – and this, let it be noted, would have included mothers who were raped – “were denied baptism and, if they died from the illness and disease rife in such facilities, also denied a Christian burial.” In other words, the Catholic institutions that these women and their children were forced to turn to as their only refuge viciously turned their backs on them — treating them, quite literally, as garbage.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Ewan Gilbert

During the 1970s and 80s the Marist College and Daramalan College in Canberra were home to at least five known paedophiles.

Four have since been convicted and one took his own life shortly after making his confession.

Now, decades on, it is the task of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to investigate who knew what, when they knew it and what, if anything, they did about it.

The commission will spend the next two weeks examining the response of the Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse in schools across the ACT, New South Wales and Queensland.

Someone who will be watching the Canberra hearings closely is lawyer Jason Parkinson.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson
theguardian.com, Tuesday 10 June 2014

A suppression order hiding the identity of Greg Sutton, a convicted paedophile and former Marist brother and teacher, has been lifted after nearly 20 years, as the royal commission begins examining how the religious order failed to prevent two members sexually abusing young children in their care for decades.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse began its 13th public hearing in Canberra on Tuesday, focusing on the cases of two former Marist brothers – Sutton and John Chute.

The two men were shifted from school to school across Queensland, NSW and the ACT throughout their teaching careers, despite – and in some cases because of – multiple complaints against them alleging child sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour.

Sutton was convicted in 1996 after pleading guilty to 67 charges of sexual assault against 15 children. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, with a minimum term of 12 years, and was released in 2008.

On Tuesday the commission heard an application by Sutton’s legal representative, Greg Walsh, to continue a suppression order placed on Sutton’s identity at the time of his conviction, and which had been left in place by his parole board in 2009.

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UNITED STATES
WBUR

Tue, Jun 10, 2014
by Aine Greaney

I once met a fellow Irish expatriate who had spent more than 40 years living in Australia, where she had married, divorced, had kids and become a grandmother.

“You must like it there,” I said.

She shook her head. “No. It’s hard to like a country where so many bad things have happened to you.”

Her “bad things” included her marriage and ex-marriage to a nasty man.

These days, I feel the same way about my native Ireland. It’s hard to like or be proud of your own country, a country where bad things have happened: church-concealed child sexual abuse, women’s labor camps, a.k.a. Magdalene Laundries, and, now, 796 unconsecrated and unmarked baby graves. No, not ‘happened.’ These atrocities were perpetrated, ignored and criminally concealed. The victims? Women, children and the poor. The atonement? Little to none.

What does it take for a country to have or to acquire the morality, the humility and the will to atone for collective cruelties to its most vulnerable citizens?

Even if the national will or means were there, even if it could be orchestrated, how would Ireland carry out a reconciliation process? What does it take for a country to have or to acquire the morality, the humility and the will to atone for collective cruelties to its most vulnerable citizens?

I don’t know. But I do think that a formal separation of church and state would be a very good start. So would an end to the hypocritical set of laws that still mandates that 21st-century Irish women must travel overseas for legal, safe abortions.

As an Irish school girl and college student and, later, a young working woman, I did not get pregnant or have to abort or bear or give up an “illegitimate” child. This was not because I was pure or demure or had access to legal contraception. (A 1935 law banning the importation and sale of contraception in Ireland was on the books until 1980 for married people and until 1985 for single people over the age of 18. For married and single, access was at the discretion of the individual prescribing doctor (married) and individual pharmacist (condoms for single people).

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NEW JERSEY
Morris News Bee

Posted: Tuesday, June 10, 2014

By PHIL GARBER

It took 30 years but William P. Wolfe can finally speak openly about the time he was sexually abused by a priest at the Delbarton School.

“I feel like I’m walking on air,” Wolfe, 44, said on Friday after the school agreed to lift a gag order on Wolfe stemming from a 1988 settlement with the school.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to have the ability not to live secretly about what happened to me,” said Wolfe, an information technology specialist who is married with no children and lives in Boulder, Color. “Nobody who has gone through abuse should be prevented from talking about it.”

The agreement was announced on Friday in Superior Court in Morristown. Wolfe, who was raised in Morristown, spoke about his reactions in the office of his lawyer, Gregory Gianforcaro of Phillipsburg.

Wolfe was 14 when he was sexually abused by the Rev. Timothy Brennan, who pleaded guilty in 1987 to criminal sexual contact. Brennan was given a six month sentence at a facility for clergy sex offenders.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY June 10, 2014

HUNTER Catholic priest Des Harrigan has resigned from his Taree parish after controversy over his appearance at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry in Newcastle.

Father Harrigan declined to comment on Monday, but a spokeswoman for Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Bill Wright confirmed the resignation.

It followed an angry response from Taree parishioners after the bishop wrote a letter urging them to forgive the “repentant” priest because “there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than 99 just people”.

Bishop Wright, named as a possible replacement for Cardinal George Pell in the Sydney archdiocese, reinstated Father Des Harrigan to Taree parish in September last year despite noting the likelihood of “concern and distress” among some parishioners about the priest’s conduct.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Maria Luddy

Tue, Jun 10, 2014

It is difficult now to imagine how it must have felt to be a young woman in Ireland in the 19th or 20th century and to find yourself pregnant and unmarried. Your news would not be greeted with joy, by anyone.

You would feel the anger and disappointment of your family. If you were desperate, you might try and hide your pregnancy and attempt to give birth without assistance and then dispose of the infant’s body.

In the early 20th century, a local priest might be informed of your situation and would recommend placement in a mother and baby home. You might enter the workhouse to have your baby. If your family had money they might pay for a place in a private home where your shame could be hidden. Or you could go to England and have your baby there.

Imagine the anxiety of having to tell your parents you were pregnant, the accusations, the arguments, the tears, the shame, the fear the neighbours might find out, the loss of face that would follow, the gossip and the scandal.

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UNITED STATES
1st Feline Battalion

In the early 200s, the Roman Catholic world suffered what turned out to be a major earthquake: for decades, many clergy committed acts of sexual abuse against both children and adults. The extent of the abuses was global. Worse, many Archdioceses were complicit in covering up the abuses. This was a huge black eye for Catholics.

When the Catholic scandals hit the fan, many Protestants decried–with some merit–the institutional problems within the Catholic Church that permitted the culture of abuse to fester: notably (a) celibacy requirements for clergy and (b) a severe lack of transparency and accountability.

Still, Protestants had issues of their own on this front, and–while Protestants don’t require clergy to be celibate–many congregations have a deep-seated culture of hypocrisy that nurtures coverups of abuses, including sexual abuses.

During my seminary days, I had a friend–ND (not her real initials)–who spilled the beans:

She was raised in a Baptist Church.
She was in an outwardly “good, Christian family”.
Her father started having sex with her when she was 13.
The abuses continued for about four years.

She finally decided to do the right hing: she moved out of the house, reported her father to the police, and he was promptly arrested.

He was sent to prison, and ND found herself abandoned by her family and effectively made persona non grata at her church.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith and Juno McEnroe

An independent commission of investigation must be set up into deaths at religious-run mother-and-baby homes, should examine claims of illegal adoptions at the facilities, and needs to be completely independent of Church and State.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin issued the call for action — which goes far further than existing Government plans for an inter-departmental “review” of already available files — after a week of revelations surrounding the deaths of 796 children in Tuam between 1925 and 1961.

Speaking on RTÉ radio yesterday, the senior Catholic Church official said any commission must be given “full judicial powers” and involve the gardaí so individuals can be compelled to provide all records.

He said it should be led by someone “of the calibre” of Ian Elliott, the former head of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, and must be independent of both Church and State to ensure transparency, as Church and State were “entangled” with each other in the past.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Susan Lohan

Amidst the tsunami of speculation about the whereabouts of the bodies of almost 800 children from the former Tuam mother-and-baby home, some sceptics have settled on the belief that 796 bodies could not be contained in this small plot of land.

This is a cynical distraction from the core issue of ‘illegitimate’ children dying at such homes at a rate five times higher than that for ‘legitimate’ children, and not just from readily curable common childhood diseases but also, more sinisterly, from malnutrition.

It is a distraction from the real point that no one knows where exactly the remains of these children are; a distraction from the question of why the State funded such homes “to care for” these children whilst they actively prevented their own mothers from doing so; and a distraction from the scandals that State inspection reports from these homes were not acted upon.

It is, above all else, a distraction from the dawning realisation on the public’s part that all of these facts have been known by successive governments and have all been communicated to every single minister for children since the post came into existence in 2000.

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MINNESOTA
Wonkette

You know how when you are being deposed or whatever, you are supposed to only answer the question put to you and never volunteer anything? And you know how also sometimes people on trial for shit or being questioned for something give super-comical totally not-disingenuous answers where they “don’t recall”?

Well, Archbishop Robert Carlson — formerly of Minneapolis/St. Paul, and now presiding over the souls of Good St. Louis — took that to its logical extreme in a deposition about priests under his command raping children, when he told his deposers that he does not recall whether he knew doing sex to children was against the law.

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IRELAND
Slugger O’Toole

Mick Fealty, Mon 9 June 2014

Whenever a society attempts to impose without exception an impossible abstraction on fallible human beings, such cruelty will always be necessary.

Andrew Sullivan on the Tuam Mother and Baby home…

Now we understand that the high mortality rates at Tuam may have been the norm for such homes across the post independence state. A few years back similarly high rates at the evangelical Protestant Bethany Homes were reported in detail.

And there was (to our modern eyes) a remarkable consensus on the pretty awful way unwed mothers should be treated. Shane Harrison reporting one remembered experience:

“I grew up with starvation, was treated more or less as a dog,” he said.

“I was that hungry that I remember going into a farmer’s field and picking spuds so that we could have a meal and putting the roots back in. Well-off people in the area knew the state we were in but they walked around as if it never happened.”

Tuam closed in 1960 or 61, around about the time contraception became available in the UK. Although it didn’t arrive in the Republic till much later, it was technological change that killed the force of the abstraction Sullivan cites above rather than some spiritual sea change.

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IRELAND
Washington Post

BY HENRY FARRELL
June 9

Over the last week, there has been international outrage over reports of mass deaths of babies at a former home for unwed mothers in western Ireland. The story is dreadful, it’s but also more complicated than many of these reports suggest. Here’s a rundown:

Is it true that the skeletons of nearly 800 babies and children have been discovered in a septic tank in Ireland?

No. Contrary to a great deal of reporting, including two stories published by The Washington Post, it doesn’t appear that there are 800 skeletons in a disused septic tank. Many of the early stories appear to have conflated two different sources of information. One comes from a local historian, Catherine Corless, who has discovered death certificates for nearly 800 babies and children at the home, which was run by the Bon Secours order of nuns from the 1920s to the 1960s. The other comes from two local men, who say that they found some kind of crypt beneath a concrete slab in the area containing a number of skeletons when they were playing as boys in the early 1970s. One of the men estimates that 20 skeletons were contained in the space. These two different sources have been conflated into the claim that a mass grave of babies and children was found in a septic tank. Corless, who appears to have been the crucial initial source of information, has since claimed: “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.”

So it’s all a big misunderstanding?

Not so fast. No one is challenging Corless’s archival research, which appears to show that nearly 800 babies and children died at the home over a period of 40 years, without burial records. Locals believe that they are buried in an unofficial graveyard at the back of the building, where they have built a small grotto and placed flowers. One expert on health and mortality in Ireland believes that the death rates are much higher than they ought to have been and deserve further investigation. Contemporary debates in Ireland’s parliament reveal that children born out of wedlock in Ireland in the 1920s had a mortality rate five times higher than normal, in part because of semi-deliberate neglect. In some years in some institutions, the mortality rate for such children seems to have been above 50 percent.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

[with video]

By: Jennie Olson

Yet another deposition was released Monday in the ongoing clergy sex abuse case within the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Archbishop Robert Carlson heads the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri, but was ordained in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis in 1970. He was in charge of handling child sex abuse allegations and reports here in Minnesota for 15 years.

Carlson was deposed on May 23 as part of a civil lawsuit in Minnesota.

In the four-hour deposition, Carlson said under oath that he couldn’t recall details about how he handled allegations of abuse against a Minnesota priest years ago, but he did say he never went to authorities after that priest admitted in 1984 that he engaged in criminal sexual contact with a minor.

Watch clips from the May 23 deposition here.

Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan say the documents show that Carlson made a conscious choice to protect accused sex offenders and conceal crimes. Anderson says Carlson uses the words “I don’t remember” 193 times under oath when asked of his knowledge of cases of child sex abuse in the church.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

By Brian Lambert

Do they also take a vow of forgetfulness? At MPR, Madeleine Baran writes, “St. Louis archbishop Robert Carlson — who served in the Twin Cities for 24 years — testified last month that he wasn’t sure whether he knew it was illegal for priests to have sex with children when he served as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s, according to a transcript released Monday. The former chancellor also said he couldn’t recall reporting abuse to police while here from 1970 to 1994.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

[via Jeff Anderson & Associates:
Watters Deposition 3-17-86 p. 55 for Carlson
Carlson Ex. 301 – Adamson meeting 11-25-80
Carlson Ex. 304 – Statute of Limitations 6-29-84
Carlson Ex. 305 – Meeting with McDonough 7-9-84]

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMOX/AP) – The head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis said under oath he couldn’t recall details about how he handled allegations of abuse against a Minnesota priest years ago.

But Archbishop Robert Carlson did say he never went to authorities after that priest admitted in 1984 that he engaged in criminal sexual contact with a minor.

Carlson was deposed last month in a case against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, where Carlson served for years and had a role in investigating allegations of abuse from 1979 to 1994.

When asked if he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child, the Archbishop says, “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

He says he’s also not sure when he did discern that it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[with video]

By Lilly Fowler lfowler@post-dispatch.com 314-340-822118

1984 Archbishop Robert J. Carlson memo

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson claims to be unsure that he was aware a priest sexually abusing a child constituted a crime when he was auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, according to a deposition released Monday.

During the deposition, attorney Jeff Anderson asked Carlson whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

Anderson went on to ask Carlson whether he knew in 1984, when he was an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that it was crime for a priest to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure if I did or didn’t,” Carlson said.

Yet according to documents released by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates in St. Paul, Carlson showed clear knowledge that it was a crime when discussing sexual abuse incidents with church officials during his time in Minnesota.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

On May 23, 2014, Archbishop Robert Carlson, who serves as the archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, was deposed in the Doe 1 case in St. Paul. The case is a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and Thomas Adamson for allegations of abuse between 1976 and 1977.

Archbishop Carlson was a priest of Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis between 1970 and 1994, serving as chancellor from August 10, 1979 through July 1, 1987 and as auxiliary bishop from January 11, 1984 through February 21, 1994. We offer his deposition–of which selected portions were redacted to protect victims–as part of our renewed commitment to transparency and disclosure.

PDF:
Deposition of Archbishop Robert Carlson

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 06/09/2014

A former Twin Cities bishop who now leads the St. Louis archdiocese responded 193 times in a court-ordered deposition that he could not remember details about priest child sexual abuse during his tenure.

The Rev. Robert James Carlson served from 1979 to 1994 as a top handler for priest abuse cases in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, according to attorney Jeffrey Anderson.

Anderson represents victims of childhood sexual abuse, including Doe 1, a man who sued last May alleging that he was molested by former priest Thomas Adamson while he served in St. Paul Park.

“He doesn’t remember anything about what he did,” Anderson said about Carlson at a Monday press conference in his St. Paul office.

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MINNESOTA
Press & Dakotan

Associated Press

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The head of the Archdiocese of St. Louis said under oath he couldn’t recall details about how he handled allegations of abuse against a Minnesota priest years ago.

But Archbishop Robert Carlson did say he never went to authorities after that priest admitted in 1984 that he engaged in criminal sexual contact with a minor.

Carlson was deposed last month in a case against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, where Carlson served for years and had a role in investigating allegations of abuse from 1979 to 1994.

Messages left with the St. Louis archdiocese weren’t immediately returned. The St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese had no comment.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, June 09, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

The brave mothers and children of another Irish Catholic center for unwed mothers are calling for truth and justice. We applaud their courage and perseverance.

[Irish Times]

Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork is one of several homes across Ireland that treated the mothers that came to them and their babies with deplorable callousness. We believe that healing and reconciliation can only begin when victims come together and seek justice.

That is exactly what these protesters in Cork are doing and we praise them for demanding action and giving a voice to the innocent children who did not survive.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

Women who gave birth at the notorious Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Cork were not allowed pain relief during labour or stitches after birth, and when they developed abscesses from breast-feeding they were denied penicillin.

One nun who ran the labour ward in 1951 also forbid any “moaning or screaming” during childbirth. Girls in poverty, who could not afford to make donations to the Sacred Heart order, had to spend another three years after their babies were born cleaning and working on the lands around the Cork city home to ‘make amends’ for their pregnancy.

Such work often included cutting the home’s “immaculate lawns” on their hands and knees — with a pair of scissors.

Before they left the home, their three-year-olds, with whom they would have established a strong emotional bond, were removed from them and fostered, put up for adoption, or sent to an orphanage — often with only hours’ notice.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Sean O’Riordan

Children adopted from a mother-and-baby home run by the Sacred Heart Sisters in Cork have called for an independent public inquiry to find out how many babies died at the centre and where the bodies are buried.

The adoptees have also called on the Government to provide them with counselling and to support surviving mothers who gave birth at Bessborough House.

The call was made yesterday after members of the Bessborough Mothers and Babies Group gathered at the site in Mahon-Blackrock, commemorating the babies who died there.

BMBG spokeswoman Helen Murphy, who was adopted out of Bessborough in 1963, said the group had no idea how many babies died there, but said the number was higher than the near 800 buried in a mass grave at a similar facility also operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, Co Galway.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Sean O’Riordan

Children adopted from a Sacred Heart Sisters’ mother-and-baby home in Cork have called for an independent public inquiry to find out many babies died at the centre and where on the site they are buried.

They also want the government to immediately provide counselling for themselves, surviving mothers who gave birth at Bessborough and their families.

The call was made yesterday after members of the Bessborough Mothers and Babies Group gathered at the site in Mahon, where they brought flowers, teddy bears and candles to a vigil where they remembered the babies who died there.

Helen Murphy, who was adopted out of Bessborough in 1963, said the group had no idea how many babies died there, but believe the number was higher than the near 800 buried in a mass grave at a home operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, Co Galway.

It is claimed that many of their deaths were due to starvation and neglect.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel
Published 09/06/2014

TEDDIES and toys were carefully tied to the gates of the notorious former Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork as potent symbols of stolen innocence.

Mothers who lost babies and endured the cruelty of the regime wept openly.

Children who were adopted by other families away from their birth mothers sobbed as they struggled to imagine the horrors suffered inside the grim gates.

Now, mothers, children and relatives are united with one purpose – for the truth.

“This isn’t a protest … it is a campaign. We want the truth. We want justice to be done and we want Bessborough to be included in any inquiry,” Helen Murphy said.

Helen was born at Bessborough and left the home when she was seven months old.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Olivia Kelleher

Mon, Jun 9, 2014

Mothers who lost babies at the former Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork tied teddy bears and toys to the gates of the building yesterday as they stated their hope to be included in any inquiry the Government is going to order.

The founder of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Support Group, Helen Murphy, who was born at the home and left when she was seven months old, said yesterday’s vigil at the site was part of a larger campaign.

“We want the truth to be known. We want justice to be done, and we want Bessborough to be included in any form of inquiry the Government is now going to order.

“We founded the Bessborough Mother and Baby Support Group as an outlet for all those whose lives were affected by this place. The purpose of it is to remember the people who were there, and especially the babies who died.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eimear Phelan
Published 09/06/2014

Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn this morning supported the idea of an enquiry in to the Tuam babies scandal.

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland Education Minister Quinn claimed that many of the headlines about the Tuam babies were “simply untrue”.

“The sensationalism and the way it has been reported is different to the facets that are known,” he said.

The Minister said that the case is not as is being reported around the world and “some of the headlines that went around the world were quite horrendous and gave a very mistaken impression of what really happened.”

This incident “is not the same as the abuse that was done in the residential institutions” he clarified said we have to remember that the mother and baby homes have “been know about and written about for quite some time.”

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Chief Executive of Tusla, the child and family agency, has said records for the mother-and-baby homes in Tuam, Bessborough in Cork, and St Patrick’s on the Navan Road in Dublin have been transferred to the agency.

Gordon Jeyes told RTÉ’s News At One there are nine registers dating between 1921 and 1961 as well as quarterly returns that went to county councils that date back to 1919.

He said there is no difficulty in making these available to the cross-departmental investigation due to be established by Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan.

Mr Jeyes said it is his understanding that Tusla is in possession of all the available records.

He said some of the publicity surrounding these events is unfortunate in terms of the way it has been misreported, causing distress.

Mr Jeyes said that Tusla plans to digitise them and make them accessible to the individuals concerned, any relevant inquiry and to social historians to provide an accurate knowledge about Ireland in the past.

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IRELAND
Herald

BY ALAN O’KEEFFE AND RALPH RIEGEL – 09 JUNE 2014

DEATH rates at a Dublin mother-and-baby home were almost as high as mortality rates at the Bon Secours home in Tuam, recently released records held by church authorities have revealed.

The Dublin death rates are coming to light as official inquiries by gardai and a number of Government departments get underway into the deaths of almost 800 children at the Tuam home in a 36-year period ending in 1961.

Documents that belonged to former Dublin Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973, show that St Patrick’s mother and baby home at Pelletstown in Cabra also had high death rates in at least one year. The records show that one in every three babies died in the home on the Navan road in 1933.

Convent

The Pelletstown death rate was 34pc in that year while, at the same 
time, the annual death rate in the County Galway convent-run home in Tuam was 35pc. The Dublin deaths may also come under official scrutiny now.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, June 9 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

Three disturbing facts jump out from St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson’s deposition – taken last month but released today – in a clergy sex abuse and cover up case.

1) Carlson admits that he never called the police about known or suspected clergy sex crimes at any point in his 24 years as a priest, bishop and other top church official in Minnesota.

2) Carlson testified under oath that he wasn’t sure whether he knew it was illegal for priests to have sex with children when he served as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

3) And another Catholic bishop testified under oath – in a different deposition – that Carlson advised him to claim memory loss if he were deposed in clergy sex abuse cases.

In a 1986 deposition, then-Winona Bishop Loras Watters said that Carlson told him “the best thing you can say (in depositions) is, ‘I don’t remember.'”

This is why Catholic officials fight so hard against victims in court and do all they can to prevent themselves from being deposed – because embarrassing truths surface through the justice process, truths that show many bishops are deeply complicit in horrific child sex crimes.

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are now 53 publicly accused child molesting Twin Cities clerics. And Carlson was in that archdiocese for almost 25 years. But not once did he call the police, he admits. Shame on him.

Finally, in a deceitful and self-pitying claim, Carlson blames therapists for decisions he made and other bishops made to quietly keep pedophile priests in parishes, saying “in many ways, we (bishops) were the victims of those we sent people to for treatment.”

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IRELAND
Newstalk

The Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has requested a report from An Garda Síochána on information relating to the Tuam babies case.

In a statement, the Department of Justice said “It is very important that we address these disturbing issues as sensitively as possible. There is no doubt that coverage over the last few days will have inevitably evoked very painful memories for people, many of whom are now quite elderly”.

“There is now an interdepartmental process under way to examine how this complex, disturbing and tragic situation can be best addressed”.

The Department says it has also been liaising with the gardai “so that the information available to them can feed into the interdepartmental process”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Conor Lally

Sat, Jun 7, 2014

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has sought a report from the Garda on all of the information available to the force about the burial of children’s remains over a period of five decades at a site in Tuam, Co Galway.

She said while there was no Garda criminal investigation into the deaths of babies at a mother and baby home near the burial site where, it is alleged, the children’s remains were dumped in an unmarked communal plot, the Garda was involved in the Government review of what had taken place.

However, Colm Keaveney TD (FF), in whose Galway East constituency the plot is located, called for more decisive action. He urged the closing off of the site and for a team of experts led by State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy to examine it.

Mr Keaveney said there was now considerable media interest in the story, with reporters from around the world having arrived in Tuam.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

[with deposition videos]

Watters Deposition 3-17-86 p. 55 for Carlson
Carlson Ex. 301 – Adamson meeting 11-25-80
Carlson Ex. 304 – Statute of Limitations 6-29-84
Carlson Ex. 305 – Meeting with McDonough 7-9-84

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Jun 9, 2014

St. Louis archbishop Robert Carlson — who served in the Twin Cities for 24 years — testified last month that he wasn’t sure whether he knew it was illegal for priests to have sex with children when he served as chancellor of the Twin Cities archdiocese in the 1980s, according to a transcript released Monday.

The former chancellor also said he couldn’t recall reporting abuse to police while here from 1970 to 1994.

Carlson, 69, testified as part of a lawsuit that alleges the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. The man who filed the suit claims he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s.

The case has already forced the depositions of Archbishop John Nienstedt, former Archbishop Harry Flynn and other top officials. It also required church officials to make public the names of abusive priests and turn over more than 60,000 pages of internal documents to the plaintiff’s attorneys.

Carlson also faces a massive clergy abuse lawsuit in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, where he’s served since 2009. The case, set for trial in July, involves a similarly aggressive fight over the release of documents and the names of offenders dating back decades. One document made public in the case shows that more than 100 priests and church employees have been accused of abuse, and the Missouri Supreme Court has ordered the archdiocese to turn over the names of abusers under seal.

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IRELAND
Salon

New revelations about unauthorized vaccine trials

MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

It gets worse. One week after revelations of how over the span of 35 years, a County Galway home for unwed mothers cavalierly disposed of the bodies of nearly eight hundred babies and toddlers on a site that held a septic tank, new reports are leveling a whole different set of charges about what happened to the children of those Irish homes.

In harrowing new information revealed this weekend, the Daily Mail has uncovered medical records that suggest 2,051 children across several Irish care homes were given a diphtheria vaccine from pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome in a suspected illegal drug trial that ran from 1930 to 1936. As the Mail reports, “Michael Dwyer, of Cork University’s School of History, found the child vaccination data by trawling through tens of thousands of medical journal articles and archive files. He discovered that the trials were carried out before the vaccine was made available for commercial use in the UK.” There is no evidence yet – and there may never be – that any family consent was ever offered, or about how many children had adverse effects or died as a result of the vaccinations. Dwyer told the Mail, “The fact that no record of these trials can be found in the files relating to the Department of Local Government and Public Health, the Municipal Health Reports relating to Cork and Dublin, or the Wellcome Archives in London, suggests that vaccine trials would not have been acceptable to government, municipal authorities, or the general public. However, the fact that reports of these trials were published in the most prestigious medical journals suggests that this type of human experimentation was largely accepted by medical practitioners and facilitated by authorities in charge of children’s residential institutions.” In a related story, GSK revealed Monday on Newstalk Radio that 298 children in ten different care homes were involved in medical trials in the sixties and seventies that left “80 children ill after they were accidentally administered a vaccine intended for cattle.”

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