Posted on 12/04/2023 9:52:11 AM PST by Red Badger
Call her Sheila.
She doesn’t want her name used because of court testimony she has given as a state social worker which helped put men who abused their families in jail. She’s retired now, but still a rescuer by nature.
On a recent afternoon she went back to Madonna Manor, the Catholic orphanage in a Spanish colonial revival building, now shuttered, several miles across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. “A reverent place,” she sighed, “but it’s also a crime scene.”
She gazed at the wooden plank covering a window. Raccoons now nested in rooms that were once the dormitory for boys under age 12 at Madonna Manor. Feral cats roamed the empty playgrounds where homeless men sometimes camped.
“I tried. I did everything I could to get that man put away,” she said, referring to Harold Ehlinger, who lived in a dormitory room when her day job was counseling boys at Madonna Manor decades ago.
On the opposite side of Barataria Boulevard, another Spanish mission structure housed the older, adolescent boys: Hope Haven, a name dripping with irony like candle wax given the hell described in victims’ lawsuits against the New Orleans archdiocese.
The buildings warped by neglect stand on vast green acreage – potentially sizable assets in the bankruptcy protection this archdiocese sought in 2020, facing abuse victim lawsuits. The church case now exceeds 500 abuse claims, whose potential value depends on the survival of a recent Louisiana “look-back” law which eliminated filing deadlines for victims.
The outlines of a subterranean criminal religious culture are emerging with roughly 100 abuse claims that center on the two orphanages.
The severity of suffering at Hope Haven and Madonna Manor probably explains why 23 of those claimants, already some of society’s most vulnerable and marginalized, have had legal troubles and ...
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
A left-handed relative of mine lived there.
The nuns carried big thick yard sticks, and by the end of each day, and until a day or two later, he was no longer left-handed.
“Madonna Manor, the Catholic orphanage”
(Not picking just on Catholics here, Protestants are no better, its “organized religion”)
” “A reverent place,” she sighed, “but it’s also a crime scene.””
A dichotomy. In this case, it CAN’T be BOTH!
“Sometimes they wore masks to conceal [their] (the clergy) identity so you didn’t know who raped you”
““They’d bring you over to the Dark Tower – that’s what we called the church, the cathedral they had on the property. Running away from Madonna Manor you just wanted to be someplace else. You’re still going to an abusive environment, but it was the horrors of being sexually assaulted, like the devil was in the building.”
” Sister Martin Marie began “tying me by the genitals and nearly suffocating me to sexually pleasure her between the legs”. “She liked to sit on my face till I couldn’t breathe,””
“Between 2010 and 2020, the archdiocese settled more than 130 sex abuse claims, totaling $11.7m, in many cases requiring victims to sign confidentiality agreements”
AND THESE PEOPLE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE MEN/WOMEN OF GOD!!!!!
Organized religion! Who needs it?
Talk directly to God yourself, He will hear you.
Read/study His word.
PRAY!
Ignorant superstitious witches.................
Parents abandon kids, relatives wont take them in. Today we abort them so instead, so merciful. High and mighty we child killers feel reading about abusers. The abusers are us, and Hamas, too.
There was a time I drove past there everyday, and now do on occasion, it’s always been a haunting feeling.
I’m reading more and more stories about this kind of stuff, not just with catholics.
On a side note, seems like all the stories from the 80s-90s about devil worshipping/ child sex abuse that were discredited, were in fact true. Lots of pedos and groups of pedos, pretending to be something they are not, just to get access to children. All the stores seem to involve the same sadistic theme of pedophilia, torture/abuse, satanism. Wouldn’t surprise me if the catholic church is loaded with them. Satanists want places of power and symbolic power and access to the innocent for ritual abuse.
God does not care what ‘denomination’ you are.
Neither does Satan...................
It is horrendous that this happened, ever. It is even more horrendous that the higher-ups covered it up.
At a certain point, blaming the APA guidelines (saying that psychiatrists could cure pedophilia, etc.) just isn’t enough.
Our Lady of Sorrows parish, Farmington MI, was full of pedos. Head priest was finally arrested. But some of them didn’t, and even “volunteered” at the local Boy Scouts.
They crossed my life in a bad way, and the lives of some I knew. One of my friends shot himself in the head from it.
The Catholic religion also functions as a giant support group for molesters. From Decons to the Pope.
It may be an unpopular opinion but even abuse claims should be subject to statute of limitations. I am not dismissing the real horror of abuse sexual or otherwise. I am being honest about human nature and how it is difficult to mount a defense against memories.
There are statute of limitation laws for a reason. You can be sure a portion of those bringing claims were sought out by attorneys. Their claims may be valid or they could be matter of convenience relying on imperfect memories, dead witnesses, and allegations which are hard to investigate.
There is no Statute of Limitations on certain crimes, murder and in many states, Armed Robbery, for instance.
Rape and other sexual crimes leave a lasting scar on the mind and mental health of a person that is abused, and it never heals or just goes away.
While in this particular case the perpetrators are most likely long dead, the institution that protected them and hid their crimes should face the punishment that they deserve....................
I am aware that not all crimes have a statute of limitations. What I object to is making past allegations of crimes subject to statute of limitations being lifted for that offense. I think due process and other rights of a defendant are not protected when that happens. If the legislature of a state wants to lift the statute of limitations it should apply to crimes committed after the law has been passed.
Ping
Lawsuit in progress
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.