Nun denies abuse claims New Zealand

Nun denies abuse claims

By Christopher Niesche, New Zealand correspondent September 18, 2002

SISTER Bernard Mary, a Sisters of Nazareth nun accused of child abuse and who was subsequently claimed to be dead, said yesterday she was bewildered by the accusations."I find some of (the allegations) quite disgusting – that anybody could even think those thoughts," she said in a soft, almost timid, voice. Yesterday's interview with The Australian was her first public response to the allegations. Aged 69 and just 157cm tall, Sister Bernard, is among a group of nuns accused of abusing children at the Sisters of Nazareth orphanage in Brisbane in the 1950s and 60s. Allegations include that young girls were raped with flagsticks and forced to eat feces and rotting food. "There is no truth in them, absolutely not," she says, blinking and squinting from behind spectacles. Perched on a chair in the sitting room at the Sisters of Nazareth old people's home she runs in Christchurch, New Zealand, Sister Bernard is very much alive. A court document filed in Brisbane last year, on behalf of the order, had stated she was dead but that was "a mistake" by lawyers. Several women are suing the Sisters of Nazareth for abuse they allegedly suffered – and they name Sister Bernard as an abuser. Far from being abused, the children she looked after had "on the whole a very happy life", she said. "Really they had a lot of fun to try and make up for the fact that they had missed out on the love and support of family." Sister Bernard, who joined the order at the age of 22, was at Brisbane's Nazareth House from 1958 to 1962. Discipline was tougher in those days, she conceded. It was acceptable to smack children but there was never anything more than a smack with an open hand; nothing that could be construed as abuse. Why then were there so many abuse allegations? Sister Bernard thinks she was the victim of a conspiracy. The children had often been rejected and dumped by their mothers.. "Strangely enough, when that rejection rises to the surface, it's not the parent they go back to, it's the person who looked after them."