The Church has been the source of major controversy, since the 2002 Boston Globe spotlight which revealed that the Catholic Church had cover up multiple priests sexual abuse scandals for decades. Just recently, the grand jury released a report accusing 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children. Now a new BuzzFeed News investigation reports that nuns of a now closed Catholic orphanage abused, tortured, and killed former residents staying at the facility between 1930 and 1970.
The BuzzFeed News investigation outlines the alleged abuse many children went through at the St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont. It also reveals the abuse from several other orphanages across the United States.
This is without a doubt the most horrific article I have ever read in my life. In the context of what’s going on now with the Church, it’s a must-read. https://t.co/tBkqv7F01z
— Tom Hanlon (@tjhanlon97) August 27, 2018
Numerous adults who lived in the orphanage in Burlington have talked about the horrible conditions, sexual and physical abuse they’ve faced for decades now. They’ve told BuzzFeed that the nuns forced them to kneel or stand for hours, forced them to eat their own vomit, dangled them outside a window, and locked them in closets and cabinets. Former residents even said that some of the children were murdered by pushing some children out windows or leaving them to drown. Between the mid-1800s until 1974, when the orphanage closed, thousands of children passed through the orphanage’s doors.
Yet so many of these allegations and testimonials never caught national attention. Journalists from the Burlington Free Press started to report these allegations of child abuse back in the 1990s, though. At the time, many survivors began to speak on the gut-wrenching abuse they experience.
Sally Dale was one of them. She lived in the orphanage from age 2 to 23, and spoke about the traumatic instances to her lawyer Robert Widman. In the 19 hour deposition, Dale mentions a nun pushing a boy out of a window, witnesses another boys drowning, and being forced to kiss a boy’s dead body, who had been electrocuted. She also recalls a chaplain molesting her.
Joseph Barquin, also a former orphan, came forward as well about the abuse he lived through. He said that the nuns mutilated his genitals. In 1993, Barquin accused the orphanage of abuse along with more than 100 other residents coming forward with similar claims.
When the lawsuit of Dale, Barquin, and 30 others happened, a federal judge ruled that the Church was not required to turn over the letters that supposedly detailed child abuse. The letter was written by another lawyer who worked on the case to Bill O’Brien, the churches attorney.
There is a section in this article that jumped out at me. It talked about the other countries that have investigated the orhanage systems, mainly run by religious groups. But the US has not. Why has the US not protected it’s most vulnerable population? https://t.co/sTutyfcRIu
— Amber Novak (@autumnskye72) August 27, 2018
One of the letters said:
“Dear Bill…. If L was caught not paying attention, the nuns would take a needle and regularly prick his fingertips. K remembers that Sister Madeline and Sister Claire…slapped her head and face, pulled her hair, struck her face with the backs of their hands, so that their rings split her lips, and tripped her and knocked her down.”
According to BuzzFeed News, many of the survivors received settlements and paltry reparations, but many never got to bring their case to court.