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TWO IRISH NUNS working in South Sudan have said they will not be leaving the 700 schoolgirls in their care despite the recent violence that erupted in the region.
There has been heavy fighting between rebels and government soldiers in the capital Juba in recent days and thousands of people have fled the violence.
Sister Ita Moynihan, the Loreto’s Irish Provincial, told TheJournal.ie that the order has been in touch with Sisters Maria Suelta and Colette Deasy and they are both well.
There is no fighting in Rumbeck, where they have a primary and secondary school providing education to some 700 schoolgirls, but the situation is volatile and could change at any time.
“They’re doing okay, but it’s an anxious time.”
Food shortages
The principal of the school, Sister Orla Treacy, is currently in Ireland, but she will be flying to Nairobi tomorrow to see if she can get back to Rumbek, where she has been working for the last ten years.
“She’s one of the most positive people you’d ever meet, she wants to be back there because of all the people they’re responsible for and in case things get worse, to make sure they can get people reconnected with their families,” Sister Moynihan said.
We also have teachers out there from Kenya and those kind of people would have to be cared for – they would do that before they think of looking after themselves.
Hunger is a big concern for the nuns at the school – there was already very little food in the area before the latest outbreak of violence.
“There was a complete economic breakdown anyway,” Moynihan said. “People in any civil service job haven’t been paid for months, they’re just not able to buy things so they’re in a bad way.”
‘Selfless’
Moynihan said the sisters are totally committed to their work, describing them as “entirely selfless”. Their story is an example of the vital missionary work that Irish orders have been doing for decades, she said.
The whole reason we set up over there is because of a request ten years ago for some order or some people to go and do education for girls, secondary education. They are just completely neglected, boys might have some chance, but girls at 14 or 15, they just get them married off. You could get so many cows if you marry off daughters, it’s just a different kind of culture.
“The local chief in Rumbek has been all the time supportive of what is being done there, he’s very forward looking and actually really wants people to be educated.”
“If the place is peaceful, there’s an awful lot of good we can do,” she added.
h/t The Irish Catholic
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Good for them. I hope that they and their pupils don’t suffer in spite of the violence.
Nuns and priests have been doing this since start of christianity no matter how much the media want to portray the 2-3% pedos who deliberately sought out positions of influence over children and the sinful corrupt hierarchy as being christian or the norm of the rest of the 97-98% decent christian church.
1 in 10 priests in most major cities investigated Steven, not 2-3%. Thousands and thousands of kids with major top down disregard when the information was brought forth. But fair play to these nuns. That’s what it’s supposed to about. We have a nun in the family and we love her dearly, a purer, more lovely person you could not meet.
@Conor Brady…………Investigated! Nebulous remark. Try something with more credibility to it such as below and link to more.
-
…”Written By Bob Allen
The Associated Press reported recently that three insurance companies receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, challenging the assumption that clergy sexual abuse is an exclusively Catholic problem that does not take place in other churches.
That is a higher number than the annual average of 228 “credible accusations” brought against Catholic clerics in records reported by the Catholic Church in response to media scrutiny, a priest observed in a Fox News commentary questioning why the story isn’t garnering more attention….”
https://www.facebook.com/notes/leonard-alt/147-protestant-clergy-abuse-equals-or-exceeds-catholic-clergy-abuse/431640530219229/
@Conor Brady
“Pedophilia (the sexual abuse of a prepubescent child) among priests is extremely rare, affecting only 0.3% of the entire population of clergy. This figure, cited in the book Pedophiles and Priests by non-Catholic scholar, Philip Jenkins, is from the most comprehensive study to date, which found that only one out of 2,252 priests considered over a thirty-year period was afflicted with pedophilia. In the recent Boston scandal, only four of the more than eighty priests labeled by the media as “pedophiles” are actually guilty of molesting young children.”
Source: non-Catholic scholar, Philip Jenkins
“advocates for the victims of clerical sex abuse continue to argue that the church plays down the true scale of the problem. Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests, said on Sunday that BishopAccountability.org, a website that attempts to document abuse cases and apparent cover-ups, had figures suggesting that the proportion of US priests accused of abuse from 1950 until 2013 was about 5.6%.”
People like this are the reason the world is still worth caring about
I am not a fan of the religious orders but fair dues to those nuns
Woman of Ireland, your glory’s in the shade.
All the red thumb liberal brigade should ask themselves if they would sacrifice their personal pinko safety for others like these nuns. These women are part of a proud real Irish legacy and real socialism
I am proud of them.They deserve every support from our Govt. to ensure their safety.
I was very lucky to have known Orla in my college days and she was a fantastic, funny, very intelligent and extremely caring person back then. It seems her selflessness has only grown. Imagine being here safe in your home country with your family and doing everything you can to get back to a war torn country to help others?! I am in awe of this woman and those that work with her. Good luck to them. My prayers, for what they are worth, are with you.
Very noble but with all the money we spend in that region of the world i would have thought hunger was last on the list ?
Europeans have spent trillions helping the 3rd world, we have let millions, the most able the least poor into our countries on the basis of false emotional blackmail, while the most wretched and downtrodden are still in Africa, yet somehow it is never, never enough, and the white man is still racist. #BlackLivesMatter
Those girls won’t brainwash themselves I suppose.
Before anyone is tempted to reply, don’t feed the troll. They grow stronger with your attention. Yes I’m aware of the irony in this comment
Yet you managed it all on your own Tariq.
As an Athiest I fully support the irish nuns presence, the indoctrination of the poor uneducated and helpless into the peaceful religion of Christianity is the best defence against the spread of the Islamic Cult.
Iran and North Korea left for the central Bankers and its mission complete. South Sudanese had the misfortune of not having a central bank controlled by the private banking Cabal. They will have one when the blood letting is done and more innocent people have been wiped out due to criminal bankers.
Cool story bro
There’s still nuns
Interesting observation.
My own powers of observation lead me to conclude in addition, they are not Imams.
have your say