Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
It is an agonizing story, and a book has been written about it and a movie was also recently made about it. The story I am referring to is the story of Philomena Lee who at the age of 19 gave birth to a baby boy, out-of-wedlock, at the Sean Ross Abbey in County Tipperary, in Ireland. If you are unfamiliar with the story, Philomena became pregnant out-of-wedlock after being raised in a convent after her mother died at the age of 6. Her father kept 3 boys at home and put Philomena and her two sisters in the convent because he was unable to care of all of them.
After she left the convent at age 18, she became pregnant and was sent to the Sean Ross Abbey where her son was born and three years later, was adopted and moved to America. If you have seen the movie or read the book you know what happened to her son, who she never saw alive again. But the story of Philomena is not the main focus of this article. Philomena was one of thousands of Irish women who were forced by religious beliefs and societal pressures to hide their “sin”. However, what happened to some of the children who did not get adopted?
If the idea of watching your 3-year-old son being driven away from you is not horrifying enough, a recent disclosure out of Ireland exemplifies what happened to many of the children born out-of-wedlock and forced to live in these religious orders homes. “The Catholic Church in Ireland is facing fresh accusations of child abuse after a researcher found records for 796 young children allegedly buried in a mass grave beside a former orphanage for the children of unwed mothers.
The researcher, Catherine Corless, says her discovery of child death records at the Catholic nun-run home in Tuam, County Galway, suggests that the former septic tank filled with bones is the final resting place for most, if not all, of the children” Reader Supported News Evidence indicates that the septic tank was renovated to be used as a burial crypt.
We have to remember that this sad find was uncovered by a researcher and not disclosed by the Irish Catholic Church or officials from the religious order that ran the home. It is also important to note that this is just one of the many church run mother-child homes run in Ireland.
The Church or the religious orders that ran these institutions were considered the place of last resort for these women who, in most cases, were too poor to go elsewhere or to buy themselves out of the arrangement. Unfortunately, the homes were not maintained just for charitable reasons. It seems that the homes were paid by the government for each mother and each child being taken care of and then there were the adoption “fees”.
“Such was the power of the church, and of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, that the state bowed before its demands, ceding responsibility for the mothers and babies to the nuns. For them it was not only a matter of sin and morality, but one of pounds, shillings and pence. At the time young Anthony Lee was born, I discovered that the Irish government was paying the Catholic church a pound a week for every woman in its care, and two shillings and sixpence for every baby. And that was not all.
After giving birth, the girls were allowed to leave the convent only if they or their family could pay the nuns £100. It was a substantial sum, and those who couldn’t afford it – the vast majority – were kept in the convent for three years, working in kitchens, greenhouses and laundries or making rosary beads and religious artefacts, while the church kept the profits from their labour. ” The Guardian
The women and their children were money makers for the religious orders and the Church. The adoption fees at the time were reported to be in the range of $2000-$3000 dollars which during those days was a large amount of money. I wish I could say that this was the end of a horrible story. However, if the above abuses were not enough, it has now been reported that at various mother child homes, secret and illegal drug testing was done on the children in residence there!
“Michael Dwyer, of Cork University’s School of History, found the child vaccination data by trawling through tens of thousands of medical journal articles and archive files. He discovered that the trials were carried out before the vaccine was made available for commercial use in the UK.
Homes where children were secretly tested included Bessborough, in Co. Cork and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, both of which are at the centre of the mass baby graves scandal. Other institutions where children may also have been vaccinated include Cork orphanages St Joseph’s Industrial School for Boys, run by the Presentation Brothers, and St Finbarr’s Industrial School for Girls, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
In Dublin, it is believed that children for the trials came from St Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys, Cabra, and St Saviours’s Dominican Orphanage. But Mr Dwyer said: ‘What I have found is just the tip of a very large and submerged iceberg.
‘The fact that no record of these trials can be found in the files relating to the Department of Local Government and Public Health, the Municipal Health Reports relating to Cork and Dublin, or the Wellcome Archives in London, suggests that vaccine trials would not have been acceptable to government, municipal authorities, or the general public.
‘However, the fact that reports of these trials were published in the most prestigious medical journals suggests that this type of human experimentation was largely accepted by medical practitioners and facilitated by authorities in charge of children’s residential institutions.'” Reader Supported News
I realize that when all of these alleged travesties occurred the world was a different place for women and their babies born out-of-wedlock. However, why did it take researchers, through countless hours of research and the living victims of these mother child homes going public to uncover the truth?
I would assume that one of the questions the current Irish government will be asking is if these secret vaccination tests resulted in payments to these very same religious orders and the Irish Catholic Church.
I would think the Catholic Church of Ireland would have been doing its own research to try to get to the bottom of its seamy and relatively recent history. I wonder why not?
When Philomena Lee’s son returned to Sean Ross Abbey in the late 1990’s and suffering from an illness that would soon take his life, he pleaded with the Sisters at Sean Ross Abbey to tell him who his birth mother was and to help him find her, they rejected his plea. Maybe he didn’t offer enough money?
Philomena Lee has been able to forgive all of those who hid the truth from her and her son. I admire her ability to forgive, but at the same time, I don’t know how anyone could forgive these transgressions that went on for decades. And how many other mothers like Philomena and their sons and daughters are still searching? Shameful.
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Before we die we must all repent our mistakes and Sins. For those of you who belong to the Catholic Church there is but one admonition: Pull Out Now, Like Your Father Should Have! When you die and go to the Pearly Gates for he Interview, you will be put in the Catholic Day line on Wednesday for that Interview. Most, if not all Catholics, get sent to Limbo. Sinners like pedophile priests go straight to Hell. Limbo is often a place like Ireland. On Wednesday it is golf day and Saint Peter has a stand-in. Usually a former orphan. So, repent now and leave that Catholic Church, its Confessions, Plate and finery, behind.
Religions are institutions based on power over their members. This power must be held absolute with the ‘We never make mistakes.’ stance that underpins all institutions. The catholic church is the longest existing major power in human history. The catholic church has committed every sin available to man in the name of power, not god. The reason for these abuses, past, present, and future is absolute power. If the pope were to demand an investigation he would only be undermining the power of the institution he heads. He is nothing more than a leader of a powerful institution. He has no connection to any god or any other divine righteousness. He is, by ignoring these atrocities, participating in this part of the manifestation of the power of his institution. Or, to make an omlette, you have to break some eggs. We are all equal but some are more equal than others.
Donna Hayden
“Jesus loves the little children.” Unfortunately, the Catholic church doesn’t.
= = =
Oh Donna, the Church leaders love them… in their own special way.
Sierra Rose,
I forgot to mention the vaccination trials were secret and not authorized by the government. Doesn’t sound like they were merely attempting to cure the kids in the home.
Sierra Rose,
Check the links in the story and you will see a discussion concerning the possible causes of death of the children. That begs the question why were they deposited into a refurbished septic tank for years without explanation if they died under good care? Secondly, Philomena’s son went to the Abbey in the late 1990’s asking for information concerning his mother. The request was a recent one and his mother had been attempting to get his information from the same Sisters for decades.
When I was educated in the years I do not want to think much about right now, I was told that the heretics which we (The R C Church) crucified and butchered, because they would not bow the knee to the Pope, would be burning in Hell forever!
The fact is, I have learned that the Creator God has given unto all mankind free will, and thus it is actually going against the will of the Creator God, to force anyone in the spiritual realm, to do anything against his or her will!
Thus, I could not help but believe, that Catholicism, has nothing to do with the Creator at all, as they break the will of God for others! These charlatans who have more money in Au than any others in the world, i.e. the Jesuits, of whom Francis I is, in the past have murdered in excess of 100 thousand people, who would not bow to the Pope, thus acting against the freedom of choice as to what one does with his life, that is GOD-given.
I am not at all against religion; I am dead set against those who want to rule the world, religiously, and when they have that power, they begin another Inquisition, to ensure all the people left alive on planet Earth, call themselves Roman Catholic. This will happen again, and is planned to again happen, but this time, Yahuwah will only give them 3.5 literal years, to fill up their cup of iniquity, THEN forever, that Occult throw back to Sun and Baal Worship, will go up in smoke, and all who had dealings with it, will cry over it, because it has come to its bitter end. Read Revelation 18, and see what is occurring just ahead of our days.
Remember, I condemn no man here, save those who know full well, they serve Satan, and being just as stupid as this monster is, they have learned to actual believe him who is even sicker than they! There is no truth to any of them, for if the vicar tells them black is white, they will say with conviction, “Yes, it is indeed white!” These Jesuits, ARE the Illuminati, and will try to do as many in as possible, but when the Son, Yahushua comes in the clouds of glory (together with the Angels that excel in strength far above Satan’s disheveled physical form when seen for whom he truly is, not the maleficent actor), these who follow after Satan, shall be brought to order, and will suffer terribly, but they too shall awaken 1000 years later, to meet their eternal fate, with none to call for help to, but Satan, who too is entering into the same flames of destruction! Hallelu Yah!
How many children have died to protect the “honor” of the United States? Thousands in dozens of wars during the past 75 years. Thousands more in the United States through the perpetuation of poverty and institutional neglect.
“Jesus loves the little children.” Unfortunately, the Catholic church doesn’t.
It’s not just the church that is culpable. So is the government, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medical researchers who actually conducted the trials. You can’t pretend that you are an honest person by selectively handing out free passes, without being dishonest, first.
Experimenting on people is not Christlike.
Religions have been, and in many cases still are, a fertile field for evil’s blooming. From children as laboratory rats to sex objects to honor killing of girl children to women in burkas. Children and adults suffer real harm. From wars for a land “promised” by their religion to burning heretics alive or even stoning (how stone-age).
Religious orders’ record in childcare is spotty at best. To be fair their are successes too. But all too few.
OH!!!……..The Atrocities of the Religious!!!
A lot of conclusions being jumped to here without a lot of information. Childhood diseases and infant mortality rates were much higher back then (even more so in Ireland than in the US) and this is especially so for children in large institutions, whether run by Catholics, Protestants, or government agencies. Contagious diseases often swept through such large gatherings of children leaving behind high death tolls. Which is one possible reason that institutions would allow vaccination trials.
In regard to not giving Mr Lee information on his parents, this was, and sometimes still is, standard practice in the closed adoptions of the past. Such records were permanently sealed with neither parent or child having access. In fact, there have been many people who have recently expressed dismay and horror at the idea that their supposedly sealed records have recently been opened without their consent and information given to either a parent or a child who they did not want to be contacted by
It is always difficult to look at past actions through the lens of today’s knowledge and standards. It is important to keep in mind the conditions, available alternatives, available medical practices, and yes- even the attitudes of the time these events took place.
rafflaw:
has this happened anywhere else in the world? How did the children die? From natural causes or from something else?
Were the death records available for these children?
Very interesting story. The Irish Catholics are a strange lot, the IRA gave last rights to people they murdered in cold blod and had Priests perform the service and the Priests would do so.
The history of the RCC is mixed, they have done some bad things and some good things. But then so have lawyers, it is the human condition and not so much the Catholic religion.
Let’s not forget the sordid story of the Church in Québec..
bill mcwilliams,
Bless you for staying more sane than all of them.
At age 9 or so, I was told: “We got you out of an orphanage when you were two weeks old and nobody in the world wanted you, and we TOOK YOU IN”.
I grew up with that man, his wife, and their three sons. I went to live with my biological mother shortly before my 16th birthday. After about a month, she faked a nervous breakdown, and apparently told her doctor that it was my fault.
She was hoping that i would have to return to where I came from…the hypocritical Baptists who should have been prosecuted for child abuse.
Suffice to say, the sting still does.
Every time we hear a story about Muslim violence against women and children, we also hear that Christians would never be so inhumane and backwards. These incidents of child abuse, indentured servitude, the ostracization of unwed mothers and their children, medical experimentation say differently. Who knows what happened to the deformed babies, were they just thrown in the septic tank, after being starved, strangled, drowned or alive? Then to add insult to injury were denied Christian rites of baptism and burial. These were babies and children already born. This from the Church that thinks abortion is wrong. This is the Church that hid the sexual abuse of children by Priests. This from the Church that thinks homosexuality is a sin. Sickening.
Raff:
There’s a story that needs telling. Great work.
Reblogged this on Social Action.