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clementchene via Creative Commons

Dutch Catholic institute to review child deaths

The deaths of 40 children at the home in the early 1950s are not being treated as suspicious, according to Dutch prosecutors.

A DUTCH Catholic institute for disabled girls said yesterday it will review 40 deaths at the children’s home in the early 1950s.

The review comes days after prosecutors began a criminal investigation into 34 deaths at a former Catholic boys’ institute in the same town and the same time period.

The mysterious rash of deaths in the two children’s homes nearly 60 years ago came to light during a search of Catholic church archives by a commission investigating possible sexual abuse.

There is no evidence that the unusual number of deaths over a three-year period in the small southern town of Heel was ever investigated for common threads or links to each other.

Archives

Guus Feron, director of the St Anna’s girls institute, said his organisation will scour its archives for information about the girls, though he was unsure of what might be found. The institute routinely destroyed dossiers 15 years after residents left or died.

“We thought, gosh, there’s so much attention to this, we should have a look at our archives,” Feron told The Associated Press by telephone.

He said one possibility would be finding records of a contagious illness.

Eugene Baak, spokesman for the regional public prosecutor’s office, said the girls’ deaths are not currently thought to be suspicious, despite the higher numbers.

“Those numbers have been presented without any context,” he said. But he couldn’t rule out a criminal investigation if new information is discovered.

Death rate

Baak said the investigating commission tipped his office with “specific information” that the death rate at St Joseph’s boys institute spiked sharply to more than 10 per year in 1952-1954, while only one or two died in the years before and afterward.

Dutch media have reported that the priest who oversaw the sick ward of St Joseph’s during those years was dismissed abruptly after a complaint by a doctor. Baak would not confirm that, or reports that the priest was then transferred to another Catholic institution in Belgium.

The priest has not been identified publicly.

Feron said that although the absolute number of deaths at St Anna’s was higher, the number of women and girls housed there was also higher — around 1,000 compared with 400 boys at St Joseph’s. So the death rate was lower in percentage terms, and more stable.

Both institutions were for the mentally handicapped, though the girls at St Anna’s often were younger and had more serious health problems, he said.

Thea de Boer, whose twin sisters died at St Anna’s, said it was too early to draw conclusions, “but I do find it damned suspicious.”

She said in an interview on NOS television that the family had been told at the time that one of the twins died of a lung infection, and she couldn’t remember about the other sister.

“That’s what they said. You could wonder about whether it’s really true,” she said, hoping for a thorough investigation soon.

St Joseph’s was closed in 1969. Successor organisations of both institutions retain links with the church, but are not staffed by priests or nuns.

Possible prosecution

Prosecutors said that even if they find evidence of crimes at St Joseph’s, they are unlikely to be prosecuted due to the passage of time. Suspects may have died, and statutes of limitations apply to crimes other than murder.

They said they have informed the dead boys’ next of kin when they could be tracked down and were still alive.

The Roermond Diocese, which oversees Heel, said it welcomed the investigations, in line with an openness policy in the wake of sex abuse revelations that have rocked the church around the world in recent years.

David Clohessy, Executive Director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that his group was “grateful that an investigation is happening, but disappointed that authorities are already assuming no prosecutions will result.”

In an email, he wrote that “many law enforcement officials have been able to find novel ways to pursue criminal cases against at least some of the wrongdoers, even if some of the specific charges may have to be or seem to be lesser charges.”

The commission that uncovered the deaths in Heel is conducting a church-funded investigation into some 2,000 sex abuse allegations in the Netherlands. It is expected to present its final report by year’s end.

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8 Comments
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    Mute Louise Lowe
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    Aug 19th 2011, 9:04 AM

    Ah, the daily story about all the negative stuff going on in the Catholic church. Here come the usual comments…….

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    Mute Cormac Laffan
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    Aug 19th 2011, 11:27 AM

    Maybe you should have read the article before posting that comment Louise. 40 kids suddenly dead on your watch will get you bad press. Should we look the other way just becuase the church is involved. (again)

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    Mute Barry
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    Aug 19th 2011, 11:42 AM

    Louise because the news is negative for the church should it just be ignored then? Perhaps that would be of most benefit to the church?

    Maybe that would make you happy?

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    Mute Louise Lowe
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    Aug 19th 2011, 12:27 PM

    Why don’t we have a story about the International Eucharistic Congress which takes place in Ireland next year? It will bring a boost of at least â

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    Mute Simon Cunnane
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    Aug 19th 2011, 9:19 AM

    Louise, yours IS one of the “usual comments” i.e. snide, dismissive, uninformed.

    This story is yet another disturbing example of how a religious institution utterly failed in its duty of care.

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    Mute Patrick Sarsfield
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    Aug 19th 2011, 2:33 PM

    So let me get this straight – the Dutch authorities horrified by the possibility some twisted person was killing off poor, unfortunate and unwanted kids in 1955 and yet poor, unfortunate and unwanted kids continue to be ‘terminated’ in their mother’s wombs – looks like we have a case of double Dutch logic

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    Mute Rory Connor
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    Sep 1st 2011, 10:26 PM

    And just possibly this may solve the “mystery” (although no doubt some people will claim that the doctors who signed the death certs, were in league with the Catholic Church to cover up the murder of children)!

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    Mute Rory Connor
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    Aug 22nd 2011, 11:27 PM

    For a decade or so after 1996 there was a witch-hunt in Ireland involving claims that the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy had deliberately killed children in their care. As in the present case, most of the alleged victims were boys and the killings were supposed to have taken place mainly in the 1950s – a nice long time ago and therefore difficult to investigate. UNLIKE the current allegations, many of the accusations related to times when no child died of any cause!! Accordingly I coined the phrases “Murder of the Undead” and “Victimless Murders” – try Googling these. (However some related to children who actually existed and had died.)

    The Gardai spent a large amount of time investigating these allegations and came up with no evidence to support them. I know that one current Garda Superintendent is angry at the “waste of time” caused by his predecessors actions in having ground dug up etc. Of course if his predecessor had said “This is rubbish” and refused to commit men to the investigation, he would probably have been denounced as a pawn of the Catholic Church!

    There is a summary of the allegations against the Christian Brothers at:
    http://irishsalem.com/irish-controversies/allegations-of-child-killing-1996to2005/SunTribune25May06.php

    Does this kind of thing differ from medieval Blood Libels against Jews??

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