14 Claim Abuse by Priests in Marty Boarding School

Here we get at the root of why there is so much domestic violence in Indian Country: generations of children were severely abused in Indian boarding schools just like this one. Here are some excerpts from an article in the Argus Leader.

Fourteen former students of what is now the Marty Indian School have accused Catholic priests, monks, nuns and others of repeated sexual abuse.

Their lawsuits filed Thursday in Minnehaha County Circuit Court are in addition to a 2003 lawsuit involving eight other ex-students, which still is pending.
...snip...

According to the complaints, nuns routinely beat female students and forced them to beat the younger girls, forced them to strip naked and fondled them under the auspices of reprimand or concern for their health.

Priests, especially one called Father Francis, are alleged to have fondled and/or engaged in oral sex with boys and girls alike, and a monk allegedly beat a boy while he was naked.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place between 20 and 50 years ago. For most, if not all, of the 14 accusers filing Thursday, the statute of limitations has expired for prosecution.

But their lawyers say the civil actions should proceed because the plaintiffs realized only in the past three years that their symptoms are related to clergy abuse.
...snip...

At a news conference in front of St. Joseph Cathedral, John Manly, a California lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he wants Bishop Paul Swain to name all alleged perpetrators in the diocese and stop what he says is a common practice of settling victims' complaints in secrecy. Victims must be allowed to go public with their stories, get help and seek prosecution of their abusers where possible, he said.

"You don't tell victims to shut up," Manly said.

The same lawyers who filed these suits also filed them against the St. Francis Indian School.

So, if you hadn't been aware of this issue, this article should alert you to to why there are generations upon generations of adults in Indian Country who have grown up not only with no example of how to treat their own children, and not only within an education system whose stated goal was to "kill the Indian, save the man," (i.e. viciously destroy a culture), but with a seething, yet unacknowledged, internal anger from being abused as a child. Often, that anger has no healthy outlet.

I truly hope that additional victims of these particular schools step forward and tell their stories. It would be a painful, but very productive step onto a healing path, which in many cases also includes dealing with the impacts of post traumatic stress disorder.