Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
Child abuse case
Implicated Sisters to move out
A tug of war on the future of Lourdes Home in Għajnsielem goes on behind the scenes. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli.
The Dominican Sisters implicated in the abuse of children at Lourdes Home, in Gozo, are expected to be removed from the institute by the end of this week, The Times has learnt.
Sources said it is the procedure that whenever such incidents occur, the persons accused of any shortcomings are no longer allowed to continue working with minors. No information was forthcoming on where they will be moved to.
"This move will put into practice the recommendations made by the commission set up by Gozo Bishop Mario Grech to investigate the fresh allegations of abuse," the sources said.
The home's operations have been shadowed by a cloud of controversy after a report, commissioned by Mgr Grech to investigate allegations of physical and psychological abuse, confirmed that "in some particular cases there had been inadmissible behaviour involving minors that should have never taken place".
The future of Lourdes Home remains in the balance as a tug of war goes on behind the scenes between the Sisters, who have informed Aġenzija Appoġġ they cannot continue running the home, and Mgr Grech who wants it to remain open at all costs.
Mgr Grech has also written to the civil authorities to express his wishes because the diocese cannot afford to lose the only home for abandoned children in Gozo.
The Bishop has been adamant from the start that he never wanted the home to close, especially after the Sisters' valuable work in the past, so the Gozo Curia has been working to secure this children's home.
"We are working together to see how this residence can continue operating as a home for children.
"I understand it's not an easy job but we're not here to choose easy jobs, we are here to provide a service to those who need it most," Mgr Grech said in an interview on the Church's radio, RTK, last week.
"I understand the number of Sisters is dwindling but I'm not disheartened. With goodwill and support from the state and its agencies, the home can continue to offer this service, which I feel we still need," he said.
Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono too would like Lourdes Home to remain open and she has signalled her support towards this end following meetings with all the parties concerned.
"We respect whatever decision is taken but if the Sisters decide to continue providing this service we are prepared to provide them with professional personnel in collaboration with all the parties involved," Mrs Debono said when contacted.
The Times contacted the Dominican Sisters' Mother Superior in Malta to establish the home's future but she preferred not to be roped into making any comments.
The situation is complicated because, while on the one hand the Sisters can choose to stop providing the service, the future of the home is not completely in their hands; it is a diocese project. Sources explained that Ġużeppa Debono first provided the service in 1935 and when she could no longer carry the burden herself then Gozo Bishop Joseph Pace offered his assistance and helped fund Lourdes Home, which was opened in 1947.
Since then the Gozo Church has continued to upgrade the home and when in 1956 Ms Debono became too old to administer the home, the Bishop decided to pass on its direction to the Dominican Sisters, which explains the present conflict over the home's fate.
Despite the struggle between the two sides, the process to transfer the youngsters who remain at Lourdes Home is gaining momentum.
"We have always refused to get into the debate of whether the home should remain open or not. We have to separate the future of the children from that of the institute.
As Appoġġ we look at the children's interests - they need stability and that's our responsibility," Joe Gerada, chief executive of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, said.
"Nobody has offered a stable alternative, so we are in the process of finding the children new homes.
Being uprooted is never easy but the children are all Maltese and we are working to ease the trauma.
"I believe it's more damaging for the children if they keep receiving mixed messages on their future - the more we shelter them and keep them out of the picture the better," he stressed.
Social Policy Minister John Dalli said social workers have been present at the home every day, including weekends, to support the children during this difficult period.
"They have, together with the Appoġġ psychotherapist (who has had weekly group sessions with the children for over a year), explained to the children that they will be moving out of the home," Mr Dalli said.
The children have been informed of their new placements and the social workers have started to accompany them on orientation visits to their new home in Malta.
Mr Dalli added that over the last weekend the Sisters were provided with the support of an additional care worker because they were having difficulties coping with the children's behaviour.
Appoġġ social workers have also drawn a care plan for the children concerned, which will be finalised and implemented in the coming days.
"The ministry will continue to monitor this case closely," Mr Dalli said.
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Comments
I expect that they should be convicted as well.
What happened in that house should serve as a wake up call to the believers that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
That abuse is jus one of the many that take place here in Malta and in many parts of the Roman Catholic Church.
That same abuse happened in Church's past, make no mistake about it.
Now what shall be the solution as if they move them out the sisters are getting just a minor slap on the hand and like some correspondent wrote they shall get scot free.
Justice? My foot!
How can you calculate how many criminals we have avoided from the streets simply because their upbringing was at least half way decent? We can already see how great the system works when it comes to "rehabilitation".
Of course there are nuns that don't know how to raise children what did you expect, but let me tell you there are even way more parents (especially in Malta) that are not fit to be with people their age let alone with kids. Manure under your feet? How about 'iskott ghax inkissrlek rasek mal hajt'? How many times have you heard that in open public? I'm sure those mothers will put actions to words once they are home.
Give me a break people ... I say let the church take care of its own and the authorities at most should just coordinate that this is done otherwise I'm grateful that there does exist an organisation that is really trying to make a difference.
Does anyone know how many kids are "in care" in our country? It is indeed a pity that it takes incidents like this to put the topic of "children in care" on the national agenda, at least for a few days.
Having said this, it is also a pity to crucify those nuns who are doing what apparently many, many, many of us just will not do. If the children live there that means the nuns work there for 24 hours, 7 days a week. That means each caring nun is doing the work that would normally be done by 4 or 5 people (calculate it at 40 hours per week plus leave, sick leave, public holidays, training etc). Does not our country have some duty to prevent these nuns from stress-related "burn out" ?
After all they are caring for those children that it seems no one else is willing to raise - and they're not THEIR children so really, unlike family: they are not bound by a "duty to care". Whatever happened to these kids' parents, aunties, uncles, grannies... if I may ask? Why does nobody ask about them? That's the way we work in this country: so many nuns do us a favour and look after these kids practically for free (and save us hundreds of thousands in Taxpayers' money) and the next thing you know we throw out the baby with the bath water and wipe out all the good they are doing. I personally don't know any of them in Gozo but this is not the kind of summary justice that I'd like to see the media and society meting out to them - no matter the unexcusable mistakes some of them committed.
Is this what we want? The pound of flesh?
Let me put some questions to those who are asking for these nuns' blood:
How much have you helped these Homes in these past years? How much have you helped consecrated men and women in their missions of providing a 'family' for these abandoned children?
How much abuse is being carried out in homes, in families and nobody speaks about it for the sake of 'blood ties'?
I am not in the least condoning what a few nuns did to innocent children in these past years. Absolutely. However, I have no urge to see them being taken to court and a sentence passed on them. The Church as an institution has the necessary means of going further than this - in fact, it is important for the Order of these Religious Females that the couple of nuns - or maybe more - are removed from any apostolate which is deemed to include vulnerable people: here I am also referring to senior citizens.
But let us not forget the good that most of these female religious did in these many, many years when the State never bothered to provide for children in need.
And anyway, you bunch of hypocrites, where were you when all was apparently going well? Did you ever write in and praise these nuns for their endeavours?
Some comments here smell of anti-religious sentiments, that's for sure.
Now, write on, comment and cut me to pieces - much I care!
Another issue I'd like to raise is that although only a small number of carers were found to have caused the abuse, what about the rest of the carers? Why didn't they report it? Studies show that in most cases there are signs you can see in an abused child. Or is it a case of you don't tell on one of your own!?
This in order that we may have a decent family life, making allowance for keeping in mind the holistic requirements of each and every person making up our family.
The nuns everybody (or almost everybody) is so wisely advocating for the gallows did, like me and my wife take care of children, with some slight differences.
The children were not their own, but somebody else’s, maybe somebody who thought that the innocent creature they have brought was such much trouble to them, they decided somebody else would take care off. These nuns did it!
While my wife and I gave much importance on our age at which we would rear our children, lest we would be tired, these nuns had no say on when they would rear and bring-up their children.
It is a fact and those of middle to mature age know it, that the ways and means of bringing up children not a long time ago differed heftily form the way it is being advocated now. I am of the same age as the then children implicated in this case. Discipline then carried a narrower definition than that of today. Today one must take care what is and what is not allowed to do in order to bring up tomorrow’s good citizen. This does not however, bring me to think that my parents were abusing me in any way. As a parent now I understand more their real love in their atrocities.
It seems to me that maybe without knowing it, nowadays we are giving life to a big monster that would sometime in the future devour us.
Under the prevailing circumstance I tend to agree with the nuns’ conclusion that they would not go on administering this home.
I ask a simple question now and would like to have an answer:
During all the time this and any other home was being taken care of, the carers being nuns, friars or else, did not do only bad things, so how is it that we never hear a word of praise or thanks.
It is because these carers do what we do as we say with so much sacrifice for our children, in our sometimes rowdy homes, in the quiet of their homes.
If somebody did something wrong, may they pay for it but please let us not be other people’s judges.
Lastly I would say this;
One man’s rights start were an other man’s duties end! And everybody has rights as well as duties.
I'm sorry but definitely have to disagree. In one of the news items related to this story, such abuses were reported to have happened up to five months ago. This means that the law was in place. Still this goes beyond the law. The nuns responsible for these abuses should not only be jailed for life (as they were individuals that suppodedly could have been trusted by children because of the veil they wear), secondly these nuns should be dismissed from the clergy by the church itself and before that they should be made to go public and apologize for what they did. Anything less then that will make the Curia as responsible as the nuns!
But the issue that strikes me is the phobia against all things religious. Actually, we can plainly admit our secret feelings: let's get them all out of their jobs. Therefore we close all schools, all creches, all old people's homes, shelters for women and child. I think we should just get these people out any jobs since we all probably had some close encounter with an arrogant nun or a hard priest.
However and this is also what strikes me as well, will the same measure be applied to everyone, or is this actually churchphobia?! Yesterday a man was arraigned for regular sexual abuses on a six year old girl, why did this not end on the front pages, but received only minor reviews? Will the parents who neglect children be arrested, as well as those who make their children work extra hard at extra-curricular activities or private lessons also be punished? Will those parents who have given a beating to us children also be featured in front pages?
I became an orphan when very young – incidentally, I am Ghajnsielem born – so I know a bit about orphanages, though obviously not the Lourdes Home. Things that happened during my upbringing at the orphanage i was at – St Joseph's at Hamrun – would not have been any different anywhere else. The trauma we suffered was more of the loss of one or the two parents rather than at the hands of the dirigents of the Institute then. Those years instilled in me the independence which I have found invaluable ever since. I have lived the last 45 years in this big vast continent, not sheltered in Malta or Gozo. I left St Joseph's in 1960. I realise that one or two dirigents went astray in the duty of care of boys under their "protection" some recent years ago. But that doesn't mean that the whole order was tainted. It has nothing to do with the rotten apple.
Same as with these Dominican Nuns. Please give them a chance to continue the precious work that they carry out for the benefit of humankind.
Let us first of all encourage and sustain the idea with all children that positive action can leave better results than punishment. Discipline should mean self discipline and not an inexplicable inner urge to punish.
This is where we need to work as a nation besides the old adage that prevention is better than cure and that should start with responsible parenthood.
Let us encourage the care of a new baby as a treasure of the miracle of life so that it becomes a celebration of life rather than a burden. Let us support others who cannot appreciate this and think positive .Preventive education is much cheaper than millions spent on remedies. Of course the secret of such a process is the respect for and practice of values.
When I was around 13 and attending St Dorothy's in Mdina, a nun from a different order, not a Dorothean took an instant disliking to me - presumably because I am left-handed, and despite it not being too long ago (I am now almost 41), a few ignorant people still regarded left-handed people as "evil". She used to call me "daughter of the devil", and was particularly nasty towards me right until the end.
One incident in particular sticks in my mind: boys skiving from St Aloysius whom I did not know, but who knew girls in my class, were in the habit of chucking all sorts of things through our classroom windows, obviously not knowing where they would land - pomegranates, eggs, frogs, you name it, they threw it. Anyway, our desks were put together in twos, and during one such day, I was sitting at the front of the class next to a friend, whom I shall call L, when a whole carrier bag of horse manure was thrown through the window and landed right on my feet. L was allowed to move towards the back of the class because of the stench, whilst I was made to sit through the whole 45 minutes of the lesson with the bag of manure on my feet, without being allowed to move even my toes. I understand that the nun was frustrated with these happenings, but her picking on me started way before these incidents.
I had not told my parents about the incidents until years later, less so the school concerned. To say that I dislike this nun to this very day is a gross understatement. To this very day, she still hides under her habit, looking a respectable sight. Pity those who may be entrusted to her care, and rest assured that whilst most nuns are good, there are many like the one whom I have mentioned.
More importantly - why should they be allowed to continue to hide under their habit?
This setup is to include the help of professional cares. This type of Home; now common in most European countries, would house a maximum of ten children.
This policy is called the DAHNE II project and Malta has signed this policy paper way back in 2002. So when will Maltese children reap the benefit of these policies?