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Other Christian institutions & contexts Catholic St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada · 1991

Canada: Hughes Inquiry finds justice system suppressed the Mount Cashel investigation

Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

Christian Brothers staffing an orphanage, officials who suppressed the 1975 investigation

Organization

Mount Cashel Orphanage, Congregation of Christian Brothers

Spiritual nexus

Orphaned and committed boys lived under the total custodial and spiritual authority of the resident Brothers; the inquiry documented how institutional and state power together shielded that authority.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation
  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 1992-04-01 · royal commission finding

    Hughes Royal Commission of Inquiry, Newfoundland, Canada. The Hughes Inquiry (1989–91, reporting 1992) found that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and Justice Department officials suppressed a 1975 police investigation into sexual and physical abuse of boys by Christian Brothers at Mount Cashel Orphanage, allowing the abuse to continue for over a decade. Nine Brothers were ultimately convicted between 1989 and 1993.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • total custodial authority over resident boys
  • suppression of a police investigation allowing abuse to continue a decade

Primary record

Sources

national public broadcaster inquiry report CBC News, coverage of the Hughes Royal Commission of Inquiry findings (1989–1992).

Canada's public broadcaster on the inquiry's findings of suppression and continued abuse.

Related record

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