CANADA
CBC News
By Philip Lee, for CBC News Posted: Apr 17, 2016
When I think about the Mount Cashel story, I often remember Brenda Lundrigan.
In 1974, when she was 17, her cousins and brothers were living at the Mount Cashel orphanage. She had heard stories about what was happening to boys at the hands of the Christian Brothers and was worried sick.
One day, she had heard enough. She put a couple of boys in a taxi and took them to the Social Services head office, demanding that something be done. She wanted to put an end to the abuse right then and there. This admirable young woman paid for the taxi ride with her babysitting money.
She and the boys told their stories in 1974 and were ignored. But 15 years later, when she told her story in public at an inquiry into child abuse at Mount Cashel, her small act of courage shone like a beacon across a landscape of corruption and neglect.
I still remember the morning I first heard the name Mount Cashel. I was in the Sunday Express newspaper office on the phone with a man who had a story that needed to be told.
He told me that in 1975, police had investigated complaints of child abuse by Christian Brothers at the Mount Cashel orphanage, that the investigation had been stopped before charges were laid, that a police report had been scrubbed, and that Brothers accused of serious crimes had been allowed to leave the jurisdiction.
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