“And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” — William Shakespeare, Richard III

The sexual abuse of children by priests of the Catholic Church has been well documented and exposed to the world for some time now. Every part of it was absolutely sickening and the world was done a service by those that brought it to light and the priests to justice for what they had done.

But there’s another skeleton in the Catholic Church’s closet, one that is well known amongst those in my parent’s generation yet never talked about, unless it comes up in conversation. Sort of an open secret if you will. It’s so well known that almost everyone I’ve ever met from that age group either experienced it first hand, witnessed it or knew someone else who had gone through it.

I’m talking about the physical abuse carried out by nuns on children in orphanages and in Catholic schools.

It’s hard to get traction on such an issue. After all, back in those days, corporal punishment in both religious and public schools was actually a thing. There’s also the other issue of severity — or in the eyes of many adults, lack thereof. If the Catholic Church and the community around it could justify or keep quiet something as heinous as sexual abuse, then physical abuse? That’s an easy one.

In the eyes of most Catholic parents, the nuns are women of God — if they think you deserve a walloping, then you deserve a walloping. Short of coming home looking like you were in a fistfight, most parents would brush it off as the kid being a little shit, tell them they deserved it and not to piss the nuns off again.

Now, I don’t think anyone would argue that corporal punishment in school isn’t wrong. My parents’ generation never talked about it fondly, but there was always the air of “I got a few wraps over the knuckles and it did me good.” The teachers that punished severely were generally done away with once parents complained.

The kind of abuse I’ve heard about that was dispensed by Catholic nuns, however, is the stuff nightmares are made of. The stuff that leaves lasting scars and trauma. Floggings, burns, beatings, even dragging children to be sexually abused by the priests. You name it. It’s all there. Being a more stoic generation, those who suffered from it keep it to themselves, like a wounded veteran who refuses to discuss his experience at war.

Do even a quick Google search and you’ll turn up pages and pages about abuse by nuns, with everything I just described. I personally know a woman who found herself in a Catholic orphanage as a very young girl after her mother was killed, her only comfort in the world being her twin sister. Trying to process the death of your parent while coming to terms with being completely alone when you’re less than 10 years old is unimaginable enough on its own.

What’s even more unimaginable? That the nuns of the orphanage, far from being kind, understanding and nurturing in the aftermath, immediately yelled at her to stop her crying. All I could think when I heard this was “what in the hell was wrong with these women that they’d treat a child like that after losing a parent?”

Imagine living in that kind of environment on a daily basis. Unfortunately, many children in Catholic orphanages had it far worse.

My own mother didn’t come from a religious family, but she attended a Catholic girls high school. What struck me from her stories wasn’t just the kind of physical abuse that was dispensed by these women, but the sheer cold-blooded viciousness of it.

That’s what so many of them remember. It’s not the fact that the nuns were abusive. That on its own is bad enough. It’s the fact that there was a self-righteousness to it, that there was the sense these women believed a child deserved to be abused.

“You had to kneel down and do the rosary…You know you’re 6 or 7 years old and you’re kneeling down, the nuns walking back and forth, beating the shit out of you for making any noise…”

That was director Abel Ferrara talking about his childhood on an episode of Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain. It stuck out to me because I happened to watch this episode after I began writing this. All I can say is…what the actual fuck? He’s chuckling about his childhood — no doubt the memory has softened with time. But look at that language he uses: beating the shit out of you.

How can something so heinous be so normalised?

Here’s another, far more disturbing account from a case in Australia:

An earlier inquiry had already found that hundreds of children had been sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour at the Neerkol orphanage and soon after the 2015 hearing commenced, the treatment of children at the orphanage was similarly unpleasant which was described as vicious and sadistic. Victims shared graphic descriptions of the abuse they suffered at the hands of priests and nuns at the orphanage. One victim told the hearing that two priests sexually abused her while nuns would punch and slap her. One nun flogged her so hard with a skipping rope that she had struggled to walk for several days after.[17]

Thankfully, this issue is gaining traction. While the focus was initially on the sexual abuse by priests, nuns outnumber them worldwide by around 200,000, leading many to believe that their own abuse against children has been just as pervasive. Looking through some of the stories as I was writing this article, it certainly appears to have been just as large a problem.

I’ve never been a religious person and for most of my life didn’t see the value in it at all. I have, however, always respected the teachings, the comfort it provides people and the communities they belong to. Seeing this though? Seeing that nuns, these so called “brides of Christ” abused the most vulnerable of humanity disgusts me. It disgusts me even more that none of them have been brought to justice.

To me, it begs the question: what the hell is it about the Catholic Church as an institution that breeds such misery? Is it simply that it attracts these individuals in the first place, or does it corrupt regular people into these perverted, sadistic monsters who have turned the whole thing into a horror show?

All I know is, if this was a government institution where I live, there’d be massive inquiries, heads would roll and the whole thing cleaned out top to bottom. When you have such a widespread problem, the only solution is widespread reform. That hasn’t happened with the Catholic Church though. Still licking their wounds after they were begrudgingly brought to account over sexual abuse, there are doubtless still hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of cases of physical abuse that are never going to be resolved.

Of course, nuns have done their own share of sexual abuse as well. Unfortunately most of their victims have had little to no success in prosecuting them for their crimes. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen either, being that most of the nuns that committed such abuse would be very old or already dead by now.

That said, Catholic schools still haven’t improved all that much. I’ve known a number of teachers over the years who have worked in those schools, and the children, even today, are regarded with those old school values of suspicion and that a child should be seen and not heard. In fact, one teacher recalled to me the moment a little girl in kindergarten had wanted to go back inside at recess to fetch her jacket, because she’d forgotten it. The teacher told her that it was her fault for forgetting and that no, she couldn’t go back and get it.

It was the middle of winter.

Who treats a five year old in such a mean spirited way? It’s like something straight out of a Charles Dicken’s novel. This wasn’t decades ago either, this was back in 2018. And this was a teacher. It’s clear now why you need to have Catholic education credentials and a reference from a priest to work in those schools, because a public school teacher would never put up with it. You need to keep the cycle of abuse a secret, lest the outsiders blow your cover.

It’s clear that the Catholic church doesn’t learn and has little interest in change. While they’ve stopped the physical abuse — only because the law says you can’t hit children mind you, they’re still continuing their legacy of cruelty.

Let’s hope more people hold them account for their crimes, and force them to actually live the values of their own religion.