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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Sierra Rose just what kind of explanation do you think will be given for the hundreds of children who were deposited in a septic tank like so much garbage?
I think you all are focused on the shiny object here. The septic tank was rebuilt into a burial crypt. They were not deposited like so much garbage. The graves are unmarked but the deaths seem to be on the home’s register with name, date and cause of death.
Mike,
Thanks for sharing your very personal story.
Mike – stick to the one argument. Trying to layer on other bad acts by other people shows the weakness in your argument. Remember, the homes started in Ireland when the British were in control.
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so now it’s the Protestant brits fault that the irish catholic church buried babies in a septic tank.
talk about layers
pete – I was responding to someone else’s layers.
For those of you who are not Catholic, I should also add that abuse is facilitated by secrecy, and secrecy was always a fundamental consideration among traditionalist Catholics on issues such as unwed motherhood. Religious orders who cared for unwed mothers emphasized penitential service; those in their care were fallen women.
My maternal grandmother was a young working class German Catholic girl in Dayton, Ohio when she became involved with a young working class Irish Catholic boy and became pregnant. She was sent away until she gave birth to my mother. She died when my mother was eight, and my mother lived in a Catholic orphanage until she finished high school.I was in my thirties before I learned the actual identity of my grandfather and the story behind it. My mother never discussed it with me; she passed the information on to my sisters with instructions to share it with me when they deemed it appropriate. My mother was made to feel shame over her illegitimacy, and she bore that shame until her death.
In sum, the revelations in this story sadden, but do not surprise, me.
raff
I have a box of Sharpies. I’m happy to share.
Paul,
Once again, if they are answerable to the Pope they are also answerable to the bishops that are controlled by the Pope. If they are subservient to the Bishop they and their superiors have to follow the orders from the Diocese and above.
rafflaw – just because the Motherhouse is in a diocese does not mean it answers to the bishop. The Motherhouse assigns the nuns, etc. If they answered to the bishop, he would be responsible for the administrative affairs of the Motherhouse.
All Catholics are answerable to the Pope in matters of faith.
rafflaw – Benedictines are liturgists, not theologians. The nuns all get some theology and they may have known enough to buffalo you, but they are way down the theology knowledge scale. In fact, some are far enough out of the mainstream of theology, that the Pope is putting a stop to some of the more radical ones.
I do believe that you were crazy and hormonal in grade school. I can accept that.
The nuns I knew answered to the Motherhouse. Yes, eventually to the Pope but not directly. They did have to get permission from the bishop to operate in his territory, but although they were subservient to him, they did not directly answer to him
Byron
Bergdahl’s ‘mates’ didn’t care much for Bergdahl – almost from the minute they met him for reasons that most here would reject. He didn’t want to sit around, shoot the sh*t, drink beer, and eat barbeque. They reported with contempt that he ordered from Rosetta Stone. Hastings, and others are confirming, it was NOT a great outfit. I’ve seen the interviews. Those men wouldn’t like me much either. I don’t think they are admirable. Would they all lie? Maybe. Maybe they think it is pretty cool to go on Faux TeeVee and tell stories about Bergdahl. Have you ever known kids to gang up on the ‘outsider’ and delight in telling some rather tall tales about the outsider? Do you think that is possible? Do you think it might be a good idea to hear from Bergdahl? Do you think we should leave soldiers behind?
Corruption? Oh yeah. There is plenty of corruption. And it leaks into every nook and cranny of America.
Death threats to to Bergdahls? Oh yeah. We are one great big festering pustule.
I thought Rosetta Stone was a language learning system? Was he ordering language lessons? And which ones?
Paul,
I liberated your comment in the spam filter. I think you may want to rethink your idea on the amount of independence that nuns have. They answer to the Bishop or Archbishop just the same way as the priests do. They may have a central authority in their order, but that authority is subservient to the Bishop and eventually the Pope. And yes, all nuns follow the teachings of the Church. Like all religions, they don’t always agree, but they are answerable to their superiors and the bishop and his superiors.
Also, to claim that the nuns did not have a good grasp of Catholic theology is an insult to the many Sisters who are just as conversant as the priests and brothers and had to teach it to crazy hormonal kids like myself. The Benedictine nuns that I learned from in grade school knew their way around theology and the priests knew it.
Darren and Mike, The picture from Wikipedia that is on the top of this article is from a Magdalene house.
No problem Feynman!
Actually, the operations of the Magdalenes were not limited to commercial contracts. They also did laundry for Catholic seminaries. But that is not really the point. The common thread running through the religious horror stories in Ireland is the political power of the Church in that country. When a religious institution is not subject to any secular authority, abuses are inevitable. And the Church has wielded enormous influence in Ireland for centuries.The sexual abuse scandals in the United States were successfully hidden from public view for many years due to the same religious mindset, the view that the status of an organization as a religious body is effectively a grant of immunity from the requirements of secular law.
The scandals in Ireland have done irreparable harm to the Irish Church, and to the Church in this country as well because Ireland has long been a net exporter of parish priests to the United States.
Paul C, I was educated by nuns for 12 years. In the city of Chicago, many orders of nuns were represented and one could identify the order that the nun belonged to by the habit that she wore. By the seventies, their attire had changed.
Mike – let us not forget the 800+ year occupation of Ireland by the English and the damage done by them. The Church wielded influence primarily because of the actions of the British. It was a focal point for the Irish as they were suppressed and exploited.
The sexual abuse scandals were successfully hidden from view by the same mindset that moves teachers from school to school rather then have them charged with sexual abuse of their students. But sexual abuse scandals have little or nothing to do with the Magdalenes. There have been a few cries of sexual abuse at laundries but nothing major. I know high schools who have had more sexual abuse scandals.
Mike – stick to the one argument. Trying to layer on other bad acts by other people shows the weakness in your argument. Remember, the homes started in Ireland when the British were in control.
raff
Sorry! I attributed this post to Elaine in error.
Annie – you make it sound like they were killing the kids on purpose. Have you ever been to the children’s section of a Catholic cemetery? It is rather heart-breaking.
SWM – It was not secret. Actually it was a burial crypt. But as these places are excavated now, these things are turning up.
Help Help Help The Vortex of Doom ate a lengthy response to Annie.
Annie – I am not sure what point you are attempting to make. How they are funded decides how they run. In Ireland, everybody is Catholic. The weekly bingo is run by people who following the teachings of the Church. However, as a general rule, nuns do not have a good grasp on Roman Catholic theology. Anyone who has good to Catholic grade school and then high school and then college can attest that the level of theology changes the more you move up the educational ladder. Nuns go to position is that everything is a sin. There is no grey area. In high school you learn, from the priests, that grey areas exist. In college you learn that everything is grey.
To say that the nuns followed the teachings of the Church would be inaccurate. They may or may not have followed the teachings of their order, but that is about as far out on a limb as I will go.
You also seem to think that the Roman Catholic Church is a monolithic organization. It is not. Each bishop speaks for, runs and represents his diocese. He has full power to run it as he wants. However, if things go too far south, he will be asked to resign. The bishop is in charge of the priests, parishioners and parishes in his diocese. Nunneries and abbeys come under different authority. Abbots who have the same authority as bishops head up abbeys. Nunneries select a nun from their group to lead their community (convent) and they usually are beholden to a central nunnery somewhere. Jesuits are the only priests who take an oath of allegiance to the Pope (as well as their Vicar General), others take an oath to their bishop or abbot..
feynman:
are all his unit mates telling a lie? Do you honestly think he was taken prisoner against his will? Based on the evidence available, it doesnt look good for him. But it is up to a courts martial.
The troubling part is not Bergdahl’s repatriation but the release of 5 stone cold killers. Bergdahl is a pawn but he joined the “game” willingly. This war, in my opinion, has been terrible and it has really brought home to me the utter corruption of our federal government on a number of levels.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/tag/home-babies/?orderby=date&order=ASC “I blame the crippling, toxic, near-insane fixation on sexual sin as the core ideology at work here. A view of sex that is riddled with shame and disgust, in which simple human nature must be so expelled and exterminated it requires a secret mass grave to keep the lie in place.”
pete, You’ve become a curmudgeon, you’ve lost your wit, and now you have stopped reading all the comments. I said, “I LIKE THIS POST.” I loved the flick, Philomena. Why don’t you direct a few questions to someone like 740??
Nick – I found the film Philomena to be tripe. However, my wife liked it. I thought Dame Judy Dench phoned her part in and the guy who played the reporter (better known as a comedian) was barely above adequate. Of course, he also wrote the film. The script was very weak since the emphasis was really on the reporter instead of Philomena. He got the good speeches and she ran around looking silly and witless.
“Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours is a Roman Catholic religious congregation for nursing (gardes malades), whose stated object is to care for patients from all socio-economic groups. Reflecting their name (“bon secours” means “good help” in French), the congregation’s motto is “Good Help to Those in Need.” “wikipedia… These french nuns certainly strayed from the mission of their order.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/10885038/More-Irish-mass-graves-likely-to-be-found-warns-Archbishop-of-Dublin.html
Looks like they think more mass graves will be found.