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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Thank you raff. My heart stiff stuffers the indignities created by the state.
And to think prisoners in the US cannot be used to further drug research anymore. I wonder why?
SierraRose ~
Any good Catholic knows that it’s intentionality that is important.
rafflaw, I praised your POST yesterday @ 6:16p and 11:48p. The THREAD is the comment section following a post. A thread can take on a life of its own, as we all know. This is the 2nd time I had to point out that I am brutal on the Catholic Church pedophile priests and other injustices by the Church. It is on the record here and elsewhere. Please read ALL my comments before taking offense.
Nick S.: “This thread has that stench.”
Stench is in the nose of the sniffer?
Thanks for the posting, rafflaw. You have a good heart (and mind), IMHO.
Nick,
As a life long Catholic, I can assure you that this isn’t an anti-Catholic thread. This was an article about a very dark chapter of the Catholic Church that is still being unraveled by the powers of the Church. The idea that the Church is not out in front of this investigation is troubling to me and that is one of the main reasons why I wrote it. You can’t change what happened in the past, but you can surely find out what exactly happened and do whatever is humanly possible to make it right.
rafflaw – What, exactly, would you have the Irish Church do to get ahead of this?
I am always skeptical when people raised in other religions are hating on Catholics. If you are. or were Catholic, I give a blank check. Former Protestants, Jews, etc. will often get the stink eye. I can smell born and bred anti-Catholicism. This thread has that stench.
Sierra, US women are spoiled, aren’t they.
I wonder though Sierra Rose if the good sisters didn’t get a little satisfaction hearing the cries of the laboring mothers, after all they sinned. Perhaps they considered it as the start of the the wanton girls’ many years of penance.
Paulette Williams – I had both my kids in US military hospitals. Normal births were given no drugs of any kind either. It was not a punishment, just a dedication to natural childbirth. Women have been having children without drugs for millennium. And the majority of the worlds mothers still do.
But that was your choice. I had my children in the 70’s. I remember.
“Religion is the opiate of the masses.”
Leave my opium alone.
It’s like Bill Clinton (“Hillary The Enabler’s” meal ticket), I don’t care about his
personal life, I’m gonna vote for him cuz he gives me “free stuff.”
P.S. Free Stuff? Where’s Alexis de Tocqueville when you need him?
paulette,
Maybe Gandhi was correct when he said, and I paraphrase, I like your Christ, I just don’t like your Christians.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/22155-i-like-your-christ-i-do-not-like-your-christians
The opulent prison built by Pablo Escobar to house himself and cartel members is now a Benedictine monastery.
Paul ~
When John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, a representative was called to Rome to help determine the fate of the US monastic communities. In later years, I got to know, respect and love this man who was an Abbot. During one of our conversations he told me how he and several leaders of the world’s great religions decided to meet once a year to better understand one another and their philosophies. In the beginning he said it was difficult and uncomfortable but they were not deterred. As time past they began to see that THEY actually had more in common with one another than many of the followers of their respective religions.
Many religious would do well to transcend dogma and follow the words of Alexander Pope who said: “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring…”
MikeA, Bingo about the secrecy part. It’s very important for us to know our history, thanks for telling us part of yours. It also applied to “annulments.” When I got to be a teenager I was told about a woman who “followed” my dad from New Orleans, where he was stationed after the war, back home to Ct.. Also, at the same time in my life, my old man started lecturing me about not having sex before marriage. He was not a lecturer and his persistence was noteworthy. As years passed I heard more about this woman and she was portrayed as a stalker. Maybe she was, I don’t know.
When my dad died I helped my mom go through all my dads military records. I got to my old man’s Navy discharge papers and they said “Married.” I showed it to my mom and she quickly put them in an envelope saying, “You know the military, not very accurate.” I didn’t press her, just let it go. Later, I learned my dad did indeed marry this woman, she allegedly told him she was pregnant, although she was not. My Uncle Charlie, the family patriarch, paid for an annulment.
Secrecy was pathological in my family, including, but not limited to, addiction, alcoholism, etc. I saw as a child how trying to keep secrets was such negative, wasted, energy. Kids know what’s going on, something I hope most parents realize. But, I saw my siblings carry on that family “tradition” w/ their kids. I chose to end that in my family. My siblings were shocked and dismayed. There is a bizarre comfort in repeating behaviors, no matter how destructive and dysfunctional they might be. There is comfort in familiarity.
anonymous – you are being deliberately obtuse. Paul C. Schulte
It’s the other way around, I’d say.
“They were not deposited like so much garbage.” Paul C. Schulte
How do you know?
You don’t put dead babies and children in “a disused septic tank.”
How do you know, Paul?
anonymous – you are being deliberately obtuse.
anonymous – read all the articles that have been linked. -Paul C. Schulte
“They were not deposited like so much garbage.” Paul C. Schulte
How do you know, Paul?
anonymous – you clearly did not read the Washington Post article.
anonymous – read all the articles that have been linked.
Mike – you are attempting ‘presentism’ in this situation. I cannot speak for your mother’s mother, however the Catholics’ where not the only ones who used the words b*st*rd and illegitimate. Being one was a big deal when I was a kid. Today we no longer use the term as it was intended. Remember all the trouble people got into for calling Obama illegitimate, even though he is?
During the 1950s and early 1960s if a girl got pregnant in high school, she was forced to leave the school. These were public schools as well as parochial schools.
Divorce was also a horrible stigma. You just didn’t get divorced regardless of your religion or lack there of.
It was a different time with different mores.
“They were not deposited like so much garbage.”
How do you know, Paul?