Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1514782
9 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JANUARY 2024 their own story to tell about how they were forced into sexual acts by clergy men. The most horrific and graphic account is Carmen's. She says that Sister Josephine had once brought a priest to the orphan- age to address the fact that Carmen had no boyfriend. "Sister Josephine brought a priest so that I can experience feelings and be attracted to men. She would take me down alone with the priest in the Bishop's hall, which is part of Lourdes Home. They would force me to touch myself to get turned on and start having feelings for men," Car- men recounts. This happened on four separate occasions. The three women also remember anoth- er priest, who is now deceased, who used to be brought in for confession. "Everyone knew about what he did, and no one took action," she says. "He would greet you by asking you if you had a boy- friend, whether you had sex with him. You would then look down at his robes, and he would have his penis out. He would start laughing. I would freeze, I hadn't even seen someone kiss before, let alone be in such a situation." This happened every week, the victims say. "Once I was looking out of the window and suddenly, I felt him groping me from behind. I turned around and told him to stop or I would report him. Deep down I knew I wouldn't, but it was a last resort," Roseanne says, on the verge of tears. "Had I had someone I can trust and love, I would have told her, but I kept everything bottled up inside me." After sitting down with these women for more than three hours, it is evident that the pain of a stolen childhood has left last- ing scars. They spoke out in the past and after an initial investigation by the Gozo Cu- ria, then administered by the late Bishop Nikol Cauchi, had dismissed their claims, a subsequent investigation by a commis- sion set up by Cardinal Mario Grech in 2006 when he was bishop of Gozo, found that abuse did take place at the orphanage. The commission's report was never published but the orphanage was closed down and Grech publicly apologised. The victims do not make much of the apology (see separate story). The nuns who carried out the abuse and those who turned a blind eye to what was happening did not pay for their actions. The victims feel let down by the church and the system. They now seek some form of justice and have filed a constitutional case in which they argue their human rights were breached because the State failed in its du- ty to care for them as vulnerable children. Details of the abuse they endured have emerged in court testimony the women gave in the first sitting that took place ear- lier this month as they relive their child- hood trauma in the orphanage from hell. 'Same old, same old…' – Dominican Sis- ters MaltaToday reached out to the Domin- ican Sisters over the phone asking for a reaction to the stories recounted by the victims. When I identified myself as a journalist, a nun on the other side of the phone, who refused to identify herself, said she would not comment. Pressed further, she said it was "all a lie". "Same old, same old. They have been repeating the same lie for years," she said. "God bless you, and goodbye." The nuns had similarly refused to com- ment back in 2006 when details of the abuse first emerged in TV programme Bondi+ and The Malta Independent on Sunday. MaltaToday also reached out to the Gozo diocese for the Bishop Anton Teu- ma's views on the case. I received a short reply by email: "The Church in Gozo, condemns any form of abuse whether its physical, verbal, sexual and/or psychological, within the Church community, wherever it may exist. Since a recent constitutional Ccase against the State by victims of the Lourdes Home or- phanage, run by another Institution oth- er than the Diocese has been opened, no further comments will be issued, until the ongoing proceedings have been conclud- ed." the vomit back onto the plate and eat it again' Sr Josephine Anne Sultana (left and in top photo, at head of the table), Sr Carmelita Borg (above left) and Sr Dorothy Mizzi (above right)