Abusive church reform schools blasted in report

America has no monopoly on abusive facilities for children.

Officials in Ireland have now released a 2,600-page report detailing decades of abuse in reform schools and orphanages run by the Catholic Church.

The abuse in these tax-supported but Church-run facilities included rapes, beatings, and other acts. The investigation also unearthed Vatican records that prove the Church knew about pedophiles in its ranks as long ago as the 1930s but wouldn't do anything about them.

These institutions also exploited child labor. One survivor says she was raised in an orphanage where children were forced to manufacture rosaries and were then beaten or raped.

The Church said it would continue to shield the identities of clergy members responsible for abuse. In fact, the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order that ran some of the schools, sued to keep their identities unnamed in the report.

Some young people spent years in Church-run reform schools for offenses as minor as truancy.

Maybe someday, U.S. officials will finally release a detailed report about abuse by America's teen confinement racket.

(Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hG7UpOwvc_tTJz3KkFUHO9AUBnBAD98A7LA80)