Irish sex abuse crisis
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Here are some snips from a lengthy AP report on the the Irish government's call for responsible religious orders to pay a more fair share of the financial settlements with children abused in their schools over the past 70 years:
The Catholic orders responsible for abusing Ireland's poorest children say they're struggling to come up with money to help their victims. Yet investigations into their net worth paint a very different picture — that of nuns and brothers with billions worth of carefully sheltered assets worldwide.
Irish government leaders said Wednesday they expect the 18 religious orders involved in abusing children in workhouse-style schools to pay a much greater share of compensation to 14,000 state-recognized victims. They also demanded that the secretive orders reveal the true scope of their wealth for the first time in face-to-face negotiations with the government.
"We have to ascertain how much they actually have. The government is adamant and determined that they will make an appropriate contribution," Defense Minister Willie O'Dea said.
The push follows last week's publication of a nine-year investigation into the widespread sexual, physical and psychological abuse of children in church care from the 1930s to 1990s, when the last of the special schools, reformatories and orphanages closed.
On Wednesday, about half of the 18 orders announced they would meet with the government. All reiterated apologies for their role in harming children — but none said they would contribute more than promised in a 2002 deal with the government that left taxpayers paying almost all of the $1.5 billion bill to settle the abuse claims.
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The Conference of Religious in Ireland, an umbrella body, said the 18 orders are planning a private strategy session Friday in Dublin to decide on a common approach to the government.
Experts on the global fight against abuse claims say the orders won't shed light on their finances voluntarily.
"First off, don't trust anything they say," said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, an American Catholic priest who is an expert on canon law and a champion of abuse victims' rights. "And be prepared to follow up the urging for voluntary donation or contribution with some form of force."
Doyle said the Irish orders "must be forced by a power greater than themselves, and that's the courts and the Irish government, to make sure the compensation comes, even to the point of forcibly divesting them of properties."
The order most deeply implicated in the abuse report, the Christian Brothers, was founded two centuries ago in Ireland but has spread across the globe. It has the biggest property empire and faces exposure to abuse claims ranging from the United States to Canada, Australia and Ireland.
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A 2001 investigation by Irish broadcasters RTE into Christian Brothers' mounting legal fights worldwide estimated the order's global property assets, including its Rome headquarters, in excess of $1.4 billion.
Brother Edmund Garvey, spokesman for the Christian Brothers in Ireland and the order's former world leader, estimated this week that its approximately 100 schools in Ireland alone are worth $560 million.
Last year it transferred control of its Irish school network to a Dublin-based trust. Garvey insisted the trust was designed to defend the long-term viability of the order's schools, not protect the order from lawsuits. He said the order was ready to surrender Irish assets but was struggling financially to care for its 250 largely elderly brothers in Ireland.
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The Irish Times, Ireland's newspaper of record, urged the government Wednesday to go harder after the orders.
"Their clumsy and self-serving efforts to protect their own interests are rapidly alienating whatever limited support they have. This is how institutions perish. The gross imbalance which leaves the state paying 90 percent ... is indefensible," the newspaper said in an editorial...
Irish sex abuse crisis
(Read the complete AP report)
