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Babies taking the Air at a Mother and Baby Home |
In March 2017, the Association of Catholic Priests - that had originally expressed skepticism about Judge Yvonne Murphy's appointment to lead the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes - seems to have accepted the secular consensus that awful things must have happened there. It should be noted that while the Commission's remit comprises 14 Mother and Baby Homes and 4 County Homes, it was the atrocity stories about Tuam that sparked the establishment of the Commission. These have been well described by Brendan O'Neill editor of the SpikedonLine website in an article "The Tuam Tank: Another Myth about Evil Ireland" subtitle The obsession with Ireland’s dark past has officially become unhinged. [Sample quote: A hysterical piece in the Irish Independent compared the Tuam home to the Nazi Holocaust, Rwanda and Srebrenica, saying that in all these settings people were killed ‘because they were scum’.]
Statement from the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) on the Tuam Babies revelations and the resignation of Marie Collins from the Vatican Commission on Clerical Sex Abuse
The latest revelations about the burial of babies in the former Mother and Baby home in Tuam, though widely predicted, provoke a sense of both sadness and shame. Sadness, that the very precious, elemental relationship between mothers and their children could be so disrespected by institutions of Church and State in Ireland; and shame because as priests we are part of an institution that has played a central role in this sorry saga.
It will be argued, with some cause, that the Catholic Church was not totally to blame, as the whole culture of Ireland during that period made it acceptable for pregnant unmarried girls to be treated so shamefully. But the Church, because of its dominant position in the Ireland of the time, must take a large degree of responsibility for what happened. Also, we must acknowledge that individual priests in parishes, through the advice they gave to parents of unmarried pregnant women, and in some cases through public condemnation from pulpits, helped to limit to Mother and Baby homes the options available to parents.
The recent Tuam revelations, coinciding with the attitudes of Vatican officials which led to the resignation of Marie Collins from the Vatican Commission on Clerical Sex Abuse, serve to underline our conviction that Catholic sexual teaching and the attitudes that can underpin it need urgent renewal. There is still a long way to go before women are treated with equal respect and dignity in the Catholic Church.
There are a total of 56 Comments after the article. The following are a selection:
Nowadays we take it for granted that graves will be marked, but it has not been always so. I remember the first time I saw the Angels’ Plot in Glasnevin – it was a wilderness. It has now been enormously improved; but infants were buried there from maternity hospitals in a manner perhaps not as well as they did in Tuam. The same happened in many other locations around the country. I enquired of Glasnevin last year, and was told that about half of their graves are unmarked.
My mother’s parents are buried in Glasnevin; I tracked down the unmarked grave about 30 years ago while doing my family tree. It was only marked about four years ago by a cousin of mine. It’s certainly not that my mother and her brothers lacked respect for their parents; priorities were different in the first half of the 20th century, and finance was a factor. Many graves of children and adults were unmarked. As in the Murphy Report, it’s important that we do not judge the motives of people in former times and circumstances by the standards of what seems obligatory today.
There’s an item of mine from last year, putting the Tuam babies question in historical and social context, and followed by a discussion, on the ACP website, which may be helpful:
Tuam Babies
http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2014/06/tuam-babies/.
6. Eddie Finnegan March 5th, 2017 at 11:22 pm
“Also, we must acknowledge that individual priests in parishes, through the advice they gave to parents of unmarried pregnant women, and in some cases through public condemnation from pulpits, helped to limit to Mother and Baby homes the options available to parents.”
So what should these “individual priests in parishes” have offered as an alternative option? A subsidized boat ticket from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead/London?
7. Bro. Jude March 6th, 2017 at 1:43 am
Thank you Padraig for your objective assessment. Given the verifiable facts of your demographic research, on infant mortality and the link to same, I would have expected the ACPI to have made a more factual and objective statement. A reading of René Girard on scapegoating would have helped the ACPI from joining in what can only called a ‘group-think’. ‘Group-think’ is not based on fact. Ironically, the same ‘group-think’ being the very people who have sacrificed innocent priests and religious to the mob. One needs to discern well before joining the group-think’ which the ACPI statement has now aligned itself.
The ACPI statement has done a disservice to the innocent babies buried in Tuam. The statement of the ACPI on this tragedy is in sharp contrast to its demand for justice on other matters. It needs to amend its statement in the light of the national facts on infant mortality as outlined in Padraig’s findings. Anything less is merely joining in the emotional group-think. Groupthink makes good sound bites. Sound bites are not the same as the verifiable facts. They are the lowest form of journalism. I humbly suggest a reading of Girard.
10. Anne March 6th, 2017 at 3:41 pm
This report on the Tuam Babies reminds me of the time when the Kerry Babies scandal happened. The newspapers had sensational stories every day and all sorts of wild theories were circulated . I actually bought the Offical Report from Government Publications and was amazed to find that the information in the report bore very little resemblance to what was in the newspapers at the time.
I fell it would have been better to wait until the investigation was complete,with all the facts on the table about what happened to these children. Keyboard warriors are today’s version of mob rule.
I lived adjacent to a County Home in the fifties. I often went to Morning Mass in the Home with my mother . There was usually three or four rows of young women at Mass. Sadly they were considered to be fallen women(no fallen men take note) the women bore all the blame ,can’t be ruining a young mans prospects. The church seems to be bearing the brunt of the blame for what happened to these unfortunate women but from my recollection of that era families were terrified by how the would be judged by society as so called “illegitimate” children were shunned. Shot Gun marraiges were common too for the same reason.
Hard to believe that today but that was the way it was. There were no marches or demonstrations by the general public to have these places shut down.
13. Pádraig McCarthy March 6th, 2017 at 10:07 pm
Attached is a copy of a PDF document (in booklet form) which I sent to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission as a contribution to the social and historical context of the Investigation.
MOTHER AND BABY HOMES INVESTIGATION Some Notes on Social History DOWNLOAD
17. Sean O'Conaill March 7th, 2017 at 1:07 pm
Many thanks to Padraig McCarthy (#13) for that pdf contribution to contextualisation. Pending further development of that by the MAB commission we should not venture at this stage into summary judgement, especially of those who staffed these ‘homes’.
Social stigmatisation is a powerful and mysterious force, and the subsidence of the stigma surrounding unmarried pregnancy in Ireland has removed all of us from the psychic universe of that Tuam burial site. I can understand Paddy Ferry’s distress, but would counsel him to postpone despair until a far more detailed map is drawn of the international pattern of dealings with this issue. Every age has its own unquestionable ‘givens’ and every land has its own hidden secrets. That Ireland is an exception to the international pattern of management of this issue remains to be proven – and some of the current commentary is of a transparently opportunistic, axe-grinding and blinkered character.
Why, for example, is horror over the historical Tuam story, not matched by equal horror over the current international reality of late-term abortion? What we choose to see and to ignore in any given era will probably always cause consternation decades later, so the abortion-tolerant of this time would do well to test the clarity of their own lenses before wallowing in righteously superior indignation over the blindness of past generations.
19. Eddie Finnegan March 7th, 2017 at 4:13 pm
A sincere thanks to Sean O’Conaill @17 for that thoughtful follow-through on Pádraig @13. The past may indeed have been a somewhat different country, but many of us were there and so were our parents, and in some cases our aunts or sisters. I stood with an old Maynooth classmate outside the ‘luxury Dunboyne Castle Hotel & Spa’ in June 2013 (I think Brendan H was there the same evening) as we met to mark the group’s 45th ordination anniversary. Tom was a bit quiet and withdrawn for a while before he mentioned that, as a curate in the 1970s, he had accompanied girls and their parents to the hotel’s main building – from the 1950s to the 1990s it had been the Mother & Baby Home for the area, run by the Good Shepherd Sisters. Tom was one of those “individual priests in parishes” who, I have no doubt, supported those families compassionately through an experience none of them would have chosen – he certainly never ‘read anyone off the altar’. Our contraceptively enlightened and abortion-tolerant age may feel it has all the answers and the right to lacerate an earlier era. But, like one or two others, I feel that a breast-beating ACP should not join the mob.
24. Paddy Ferry March 9th, 2017 at 8:51 pm
I did not fully understand the impact the most recent revelations from Tuam has had on the country until the last couple of days. I had not been in touch with anybody from home in the last week but, even if I had, they probably would not want to say much about it. However, watching and listening to an Taoiseach at Leaders Questions in the Dáil on Monday brought it home to me. He was excellent. ( link below for anybody who did not see it.) And, this ,remember, is a Taoiseach who takes his Catholic faith seriously. And, he reminded us –perhaps a little indelicately, but it definitely had to be said—that only the young women were condemned and punished. Werner Jeanrond’s “cultural forces” were obviously at work here as well.
President Michael D, in his International Womens Day address yesterday was also excellent and quite rightly singled out Catherine Corless for special praise. What a great and brave woman she is! Donal Lynch, in last Sunday’s Sunday independent calls her the Erin Brockovich of the Tuam Babies scandal. I only got the paper over here on Tuesday but reading it through and realising that the horror and disgust that I was feeling was shared by just about everybody else, was somehow consoling. Sean @11, I agree, it is puzzling how the basic requirements of the Gospel did not affect the behaviour of the clergy at the time. I expect Lord Acton’s oft quoted remark about the corrupting effect of total power is ,once again,relevant here But, you are surely not telling us that we should save our despair until we learn how these situations were handled in other countries ! Surely not, Sean !! There have been some excellent contributions to this debate but I would especially like to commend Kevin for his gentle, thoughtful reflections.
I am now more baffled than ever as to why anybody could challenge the judgement of the ACP in issuing their statement above. It was the very least that was required and anything less would have been unacceptable and a serious mistake.
► VIDEO: Tuam babies: Taoiseach decries ‘social and cultural sepulchre’
25. Eddie Finnegan March 9th, 2017 at 9:42 pm
Keep it up, Paddy@24, 21, 15, but let’s also have a shout out for that atheist Brendan O’Neill’s excellent piece in this morning’s Irish Times: “Rush to moralise over Tuam has run ahead of the facts.” Alternative Facts, like the poor, will always be with us, I suppose. Meanwhile, praise to the Almighty for creating a few atheists to help us to think.
26. Rory Connor March 9th, 2017 at 9:43 pm
"The latest revelations about the burial of babies in the former Mother and Baby home in "Tuam, though widely predicted, provoke a sense of both sadness and shame. …"
What precisely is the cause of this sadness and shame on the part of the ACP? I see that Brendan O’Neill (editor of the online current affairs magazine Spiked) has an article in the irish Times today
Rush to Moralise over Tuam has Run Ahead of the Facts
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/rush-to-moralise-over-tuam-has-run-ahead-of-the-facts-1.3002786
I will quote just the extracts dealing with ascertainable facts:
On Friday, [the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes] confirmed what many had suspected: that babies and young children were buried in the grounds of the home. It said “significant quantities of human remains have been discovered” in a “long structure divided into 20 chambers”. It said the structure “appears to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water”, but it has “not yet determined if it was ever used for this purpose”. …….
That the “structure” had 20 chambers suggests it had been turned into a kind of catacomb. That the children buried there were “swaddled up”, as one eye-witness described it, suggests they were not simply “dumped”. That the discovery of the structure in the 1970s was followed by a priestly blessing and then the setting up of a grotto by local people suggests the town of Tuam, and Old Ireland more broadly, was not a foul place but rather had many good people in it, concerned for the dead.
Brendan O Neill comments that “The rush to moralise about Tuam doesn’t only run ahead of facts – it seems also to run ahead of common decency” and gives as a example the fact that Commission told the media about the discovery of human remains BEFORE it told the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors (CMABS), some of whose members lost siblings in Tuam. A spokesman for CMABS said it was “shocking we [had] to learn of this news via the media”.
From this he concludes that
One can’t help feeling that the commission’s urge to emote publicly, to display its “shock”, overrode the traditional decorum of informing individuals of the potential discovery of family members’ remains. Nothing, not even basic civility, can be allowed to stand in the way of virtue-signalling over Tuam. Now THAT is something that should arouse “sadness and shame”.
29. Anne March 10th, 2017 at 8:53 am
When the burial ground was excavated and it was discovered that”the structure had twenty chambers” surely experts in sanitation were consulted as to what exactly the structure was. Why wasn’t it made clear what it was as with today’s sophisticated methods of gathering evidence it should not have been difficult to establish facts like when was it built and what was its purpose,and whether or not it was used for sanitation.
The impression was given that nuns just opened up a cover and threw the remains into a septic tank. I know that this is not what the Report states.
But it left enough confusion for wild speculation to take flight There may be still some older residents alive who worked there or told stories of their time there and might be able to shed some light on this matter.
The people of Tuam showed that they respected the burial ground and have lovingly maintained it over the years.
30. Padraig McCarthy March 10th, 2017 at 10:58 am
Many have jumped to exaggerated conclusions on the Tuam story. A letter in the Irish Times on Wednesday 8 March may free us from the hype:
“Sir, – As the son of one of the residents of the Bon Secours home in Tuam, who still has contact with some former residents, I have issues with the story of the ‘discovery’ of a mass grave.
We always knew as a family that the plot currently in the news was where the babies who died in the home were buried. That was common knowledge.
The public record also shows that about 800 babies or young children were registered as having died in the home over a period of 35 years. So even without any technological examination of the site, it was clear that there had to be about 800 remains buried there. The coincidence of the number of the deaths recorded at the home and the number of remains buried at the site is what you would expect. Had only 200 deaths been recorded and 800 been discovered, for example, then it would indeed be real news. What in fact the recent examination has done is just confirm the information already available. Nothing new has been discovered. – Yours, etc,
PAUL CHURCHILL”
Note the final sentences: “What in fact the recent examination has done is just confirm the information already available. Nothing new has been discovered.”
33. Soline Humbert March 10th, 2017 at 5:53 pm
@30 “What in fact the recent examination has done is just confirm the information already available.Nothing new has been discovered.”Paul Churchill
Well it seems to be news to the Bon Secours Sisters:In 2014,Terry Prone acting as PR representative for Sr Marie Ryan, leader of the Bon Secours sisters,wrote in response to an inquiry about Tuam former mother&baby home :”If you come here,you’ll find no mass grave,no evidence that children were so buried….and the local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying” Yeah a few bones were found,but this was an area where famine victims were buried…”
Row Brews over Terry Prone Tuam Babies Email
Furthermore,in an interview/debate on RTE radio the day before the publication of his letter,when put before the facts presented by historian Catherine Corless about the burial site in Tuam ,Paul Churchill acknowleged :”That’s news to me”
Tuam Babies Debate Catherine Corless and Father Paul Churchill
The full recording is worth listening to if you can.
40. Padraig McCarthy March 11th, 2017 at 6:09 pm
We have had much heart-searching about the Tuam home situation, and many comments seem to presume that this is a particularly Irish and/or Catholic problem. I would like to emphasise a few points so that we can see the wider picture. I have no specific information about Tuam; we await the further results of investigations.
(i) Is burial in an unmarked grave a sign of disrespect – that those who died were just dumped or discarded?
In one location in Dublin there are about half a million people buried in unmarked graves. That place is Glasnevin Cemetery, where just about half the graves are unmarked. My mother’s parents who died in the 1920 and 1940s were in an unmarked grave until about five years ago when we erected a headstone.
Burial in an unmarked grave does not mean disrespect to the dead. Usually it means that the people concerned had other priorities on their minds at the time. It is likely that most families in Ireland (and perhaps elsewhere) have relatives in unmarked graves – you could enquire for yourselves.
This is the case not only in Ireland.
(ii) Was infant mortality in homes such as Tuam evidence of malpractice?
Again we await further reports. For reference keep in mind what Robert Karen PhD wrote in Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love, Oxford University Press, 1994, page 18ff:
“It had been reported, for instance, in 1915, that infants admitted to ten asylums in the eastern United States had mortality rates of from 31.7 percent to 75 percent by the end of their second year…”
Perhaps Ireland may be found not greatly out of step with international experience.
(iii) Was treatment of unmarried mothers particularly harsh in Ireland?
Minister Katherine Zappone says that human rights were violated. As seen today it was undoubtedly harsh.
We must remember that our contemporary awareness of human rights dates from after World War II, following the abomination of how so many were treated in Nazi Germany. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights dates from 1948. Other jurisdictions had far more draconian ways of dealing with those who were judged unfit to procreate.
Legislation for mandatory sterilisation was enacted in 33 of the then 48 States of the USA, beginning with Indiana in 1907. These included many women who were sent to institutions under the guise of being “feeble-minded” because they were promiscuous or became pregnant while unmarried. Most notorious, perhaps, is the judgment of US Supreme Court Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in Buck v. Bell, in 1927, upholding a Virginia law: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Justice Pierce Butler, a Catholic, dissented.
European countries that had sterilisation programmes include Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, Iceland, Austria, France, Belgium and the Czech Republic. Winston Churchill was in favour, but, thankfully, failed to get it through.
From this perspective, how unmarried mothers were treated in Ireland then, however objectionable today, was less severe than found in other jurisdictions.
It is possible that the strength of Catholic teaching helped keep Ireland free of those excesses.
There is more information in PDF booklet referred to at #13 above.
This is not to imply, of course, that all was well, but it is important to understand the world and social milieu of the time. We have much to learn for our own day.
41. Rory Connor March 11th, 2017 at 11:01 pm
When Enda Kenny spoke about the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in the Dáil he said.
“Tuam is not just a burial ground, it is a social and cultural sepulchre. That is what it is. As a society in the so-called ‘good old days’, we did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings, we dug deep and deeper still to bury our compassion, our mercy and our humanity itself. No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap our children. We gave them up to what we convinced ourselves was the nuns’ care.”
As David Quinn pointed out in the Independent on 10 March, our Taoiseach’s tone and his words contrasted very sharply with those of Labour’s Kathleen Lynch in 2013 when she addressed the Dáil about Bethany Home, which also housed unmarried mothers and their babies.
Harsh Victorian morality at core of Mother and Baby Home Scandals
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-quinn/harsh-victorian-morality-at-core-of-mother-and-baby-home-scandals-35517919.html
Ms Lynch, then the junior minister in the Department of Justice, used much softer language than the Taoiseach, even though hundreds of babies also died in Bethany Home and were buried in an unmarked grave.
Explaining the high death rate in the Protestant-run institution she said: “Unfortunately, poverty and disease were commonplace in Ireland up to the 1950s and this was reflected in infant mortality rates.
“Infant mortality rates in the 1940s were at a level that is hard to comprehend today, about 20 times higher than now and that figure applies across the entire population. For those who were malnourished and subject to disease and a lack of hygiene, the figures would have been higher still.”
Responding to critics of the home, she said [my emphasis]: “Our Constitution demands we respect the rules of natural justice. People are entitled to a fair hearing and an opportunity to protect their good name…It seems to have been accepted at the time that Bethany Home was run by people with charitable motives.“
Why are the rules of natural justice not being applied to the Bon Secour nuns? Why is it assumed that the Tuam Mother and Baby Home was NOT run by people with charitable motives? Note for example the headline in the Connaught Tribune yesterday:
http://connachttribune.ie/tuam-babies-investigation-likened-to-nazi-war-crimes-trials-088/
Tuam babies’ investigation likened to Nazi war crimes trials
[ Link doesn't work now but same story appears to be online at Galway BayFM site
Tuam babies’ investigation likened to Nazi war crimes trials ]
As per the article, Junior Minister John Halligan is calling on Gardai to question any surviving Bon Secours nuns who ever worked at the home, to establish whether a criminal investigation is warranted. Minister Halligan says as was the case with the Nazi war crimes trials, if an individual has been an accessory to a crime then they should be held accountable, regardless of how many years have passed.
This is just a further development of Enda Kenny’s statement that “We took their babies and gifted them, sold them, trafficked them, starved them, neglected them or denied them to the point of their disappearance from our hearts, our sight, our country, and in the case of Tuam and possibly other places, from life itself.”
Why was this not said in the Dail debate about Bethany Home? Just for the sake of argument, let us suppose that a Garda inquiry into Tuam finds no evidence of crime or any behaviour that would justify this rhetoric. Should we expect an apology from the politicians concerned?
42. ACP March 12th, 2017 at 7:00 pm
Homily preached by Archbishop Michael Neary in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Tuam
11 March 2017 In recent years, and again during this past week, we in the parish, the archdiocese, the country and beyond have been endeavouring to come to terms with the heart-breaking news of the Mother and Baby Home here in Tuam. This is a deeply distressing story for all of us, but especially so for those affected individuals and families. We can only attempt to understand the emotional upheaval which mothers suffered as they felt so helpless and isolated.
What is particularly harrowing is the report of high levels of mortality and malnutrition. It was an era when “unmarried mothers” – as our society at the time labelled women who were pregnant and not married – were often judged, stigmatised and ostracised by their own community and the Church, and this all happened in a harsh and unforgiving climate. Compassion, understanding and mercy were sorely lacking.
It is now timely that this dimension of our social history be addressed and thoroughly examined. To do so would begin the process of attempting to explain, but not to excuse, what happened in our not too distant collective past. Perhaps we could begin with this fundamental question: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”
There is an understandable sense of shared anger arising from this situation; people are deeply distressed and desperately upset by what they hear and read. There is a danger, however, that when anger begins to die down, we may be tempted to move quickly to the next social problem from the past without having fully understood the complex and tragic historical situation before us. The use of highly-charged emotive language, while understandable in the situation, may prove to be counter-productive.
There is an urgent need for an enquiry to examine all aspects of life at the time, broadening the focus from one particular religious congregation, and instead addressing the roles and interrelationships between Church, State, local authorities and society generally. Such an approach should ensure that the truth will emerge no matter how unpalatable it may be to those on whichever side of the present discussion. In this way we will be enabled to move genuinely forward. One hopes that the Report of the Commission will enable that truth to surface in a clear and objective manner.
Even today there are huge challenges surrounding how we care for the disadvantaged in our society. In years to come our present society will inevitably be subjected to scrutiny and will most likely be found deficient in many areas to which we are blind at present. We need to learn from the past in order to prevent similar injustices in our time, and so as to inform our future generations.
I wish to again apologise for the hurt caused by the failings of the Church as part of that time and society when – instead of being cherished – particular children and their mothers were not welcomed, they were not wanted and they were not loved.
In the story of the Transfiguration in today’s Gospel, frightened disciples are given a preview of the Resurrection in order to give them courage to face the scandal of the Cross. Today, we pray for that courage to enable us to face squarely and honestly those agonising questions which confront us from our recent past. Let us pray for the light which will illuminate the dark recesses of that past and bring hope and healing to us all. Amen.44. Kevin Walters March 13th, 2017 at 7:57 am
Padraig McCarthy@40
“We have had much heart-searching about the Tuam home situation, and many comments seem to presume that this is a particularly Irish and/or Catholic problem”
No the problem is about the action and manifestation of love or lack of it in a Catholic county where the Church has a monopoly over that culture.
(i) ”Is burial in an unmarked grave a sign of disrespect – that those who died were just dumped or discarded?”
Probably not under difficult circumstances, burial at sea etc but generally it would be preferable to do so as it gives comfort to those who are still living. But in your statement you have by passed the most important aspect of this scandal and that is of a Christian burial, to be buried in consecrated ground. Was there not a cemetery close by?
It has been stated on the radio that some of the children/mothers have been buried there, given the indignation that was shown by the Church’s teaching on suicides etc. Yes, they were just dumped and discarded by those who should have behaved better. As religious those who participated in this deception knew exactly that they were doing, it was a cover-up to hide the true reality of the situation at this institution (Mother and Baby Home) in Tuam.
The motive for doing this was to maintain an image of goodness for the benefit of the powers that be in order to maintain the power of Clericalism.
(ii) “Was infant mortality in homes such as Tuam evidence of malpractice?”
We will have to wait and see but the lack of respect and dignity for each individual human life gives us a good indicator to the mentality and behaviour of many of those involved.
(iii) ”Was treatment of unmarried mothers particularly harsh in Ireland?”
My opening statement address this question
“The problem is about the action and manifestation of love or lack of it in a catholic county where the Church has a monopoly over that culture”.
Within the context of the above statement, yes absolutely.
kevin your brother
In Christ
45. Padraig McCarthy March 13th, 2017 at 10:17 am
Archbishop Michael Neary asked: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”
On Mother and Baby Homes, we bought, at least partially, into the dominant paradigm of the time in Britain & USA: segregation in an institution. We must also ask: if religious organisations (not just Catholic) did not take up the task, what would have happened the single pregnant women? The State, through the County Homes, could not have coped financially or otherwise, and the women would have had nowhere to turn. Certainly, it is wrong that they were rejected by their families, and the churches were part of that society which was greatly influenced by a (Victorian?) puritanical conformism, especially with regard to more disadvantaged sections of society. It would be of interest to know how many, if any, women from the wealthier sections of society were ever residents in a Mother and Baby Home.
On the matter of taking the children, we bought into the “wisdom” of the day that it was better to take the children to give them the possibility of “a better life”, as England did in sending children to Australia. In February 2010 UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a formal apology to the families of children who were taken.
On how the unmarried single women were treated, we did not buy into the dominant paradigm in 32 States in USA and at least 10 countries in Europe, that the best thing was to sterilise such “feeble-minded” women so that they would not give rise to a new generation who would be a burden on society. (Winston Churchill was in favour but failed to get it through.) It is little consolation to the women and children who suffered, but at least in this matter we have reason to be grateful that we did not follow the example of so many other jurisdictions which would usually be seen as civilised.
46. Padraig McCarthy March 13th, 2017 at 12:54 pm
Kevin @44:
The Tablet in June 2014 reported: “Fr [now bishop] Fintan Monaghan, spokesman and archivist for the diocese of Tuam said the diocese’s baptismal register showed that 2,005 children from St Mary’s mother and baby home had been baptised from 1937 to 1961.”
Since children from the home were baptised, it seems very unlikely that those who died were buried in unconsecrated ground. I’ve never been involved in the “consecration” of a burial ground, but it seems quite possible that a priest from the parish, or a chaplain to the Home if there was one, could have blessed the ground at the beginning. The Home was originally the workhouse; I don’t know how much knowledge there is of the details of that operation. In Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, I was chaplain to St Colman’s hospital, on the site of the previous workhouse. Nearby there is a burial ground, known locally as a famine graveyard, but likely to hold more than just famine victims. There is just one memorial stone.
Many say that they were “dumped and discarded.” The Notice from the Commission on 3 March does not come to that conclusion. It seems better to wait the results of whatever further investigations may take place, and not condemn those responsible for the burials without clear evidence of disrespect.
52. Rory Connor March 14th, 2017 at 2:27 pm
“We must identify and own our own failures, without flinching, if we are to learn from them.” – Sean O’Conaill and Mary Vallely
In the case of nuns, the failures of the religious congregations also include the refusal to defend nuns who have been subjected to obscene and lying allegations – including the rape and murder of children. In a previous post on the topic “Child Abuse Scandal Almost Fatally Destroyed Catholic Church”, I referred to the article in the Daily Mirror on 11 October 1997 entitled
“HOT POKER WAS USED ON LITTLE MARION.. NO CASH WILL GET HER BACK; I THINK MY BABY WAS MURDERED AT THE ORPHANAGE, SAYS PAYOUT MUM.”
The tabloids have very high powered lawyers to defend them against libel actions and I’m sure they advised the Mirror editors that the allegation – that a Sister of Mercy had killed a baby by burning holes in both of the child’s legs with a hot poker – was highly libelous. However the editors understood – correctly – that the Sisters would not sue, possibly because they did not want to cause pain to the woman who was making the claim!
Two years later when former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall was convicted of raping a young girl, the media exploded with hate-filled headlines: “Vile Nun, Pervert Nun”, “I was Raped by Anti-Christ”. The conviction collapsed with extreme speed when the two accusers gave a newspaper interview that named them for the first time and one of their OTHER victims recognised the name of his own accuser! The following is an extract from the Wikipedia article on the case:
Nora Wall
Something similar may well happen in relation to the Bon Secour nuns who served at Tuam. I referred at # 41 above to the Connaught Tribune article headlined "Tuam babies’ investigation likened to Nazi war crimes trials" regarding Junior Minister John Halligan’s claims. I see from a related article in the Irish Times on 11 March that Minister Halligan is not just using the term Nazi as a kind of generic insult – like the guy in the pub who calls someone a “bastard” without knowing what the word means. Mr Halligan knows and intends to be taken literally.
‘Death Rates in Mother and Baby Homes Similar to Concentration Camps’
53. Rory Connor March 15th, 2017 at 10:31 pm
Further to my previous comment, an Irish Times article by Breda O’Brien regarding Judge Harding Clark’s report on the Symphysiotomy “scandal” is also relevant here. How many people still recall this fake scandal that occupied media headlines for a mere 17 years – prior to the publication of the judge’s report in November 2016?
Breda O'Brien: Why Did So Many Women Say They Had Symphysiotomies?
Sensationalist consensus may overlook one third of applicants who never had procedure
……But medical experts proved that a third of those who made applications, including some very vociferous and active campaigners, had never had the procedure at all.
Other applicants claimed to have had it in hospitals that were not yet built, or to have had it carried out by doctors who were not there, and “in several statements the applicant claimed being held down by nuns (in hospitals where there were no nuns) while she was being ‘assaulted’.”…..[My emphasis]
Ms O’Brien points out that this is eerily reminiscent of Nora Wall, who was accused, convicted and jailed for allegedly holding down a child while Paul McCabe raped a victim. Nora Wall was subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing, as was Paul McCabe. But reasons why such an utterly egregious miscarriage of justice were allowed to happen have never been properly investigated, and never will be.
Breda O’Brien writes about the role of the media and indeed the Wikipedia article on Nora Wall points out that she and Pablo McCabe “were originally accused in 1996 shortly after the broadcast by RTÉ of the TV documentary “Dear Daughter” in February of that year; they were convicted in June 1999 one month after RTÉ’s broadcast of the States of Fear series produced by Mary Raftery.”
There were also comments about nuns made by Dail Deputies at the time – of a tone similar to the recent ones by Minister of State John Halligan.
The main difference since then is that the Catholic hierarchy themselves now seem determined to join the witch-hunt against the Bon Secour Sisters. The Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary has recently asked us to begin with this fundamental question: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”
I would answer the Archbishop as follows: The late Pablo McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man who presumably qualified as one of “our most vulnerable” and former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall was hardly a member of high society. McCabe had no money but prior to 1999 no woman had ever been convicted of rape so McCabe was accused to make the allegation appear more plausible. The leaders of the Sisters of Mercy betrayed both of them and sided with the accusers. Archbishop what makes you think that the current accusers are more plausible? Do you really find it acceptable that a Government Minister should refer to Nazis and talk about Belsen, Auschwitz and Dachau? Archbishop, if a Garda investigation into the Tuam Home produces no evidence to support such claims will you do or say anything at all? Or will you remain silent like the current leaders of the Sisters of Mercy?
54. Rory Connor March 21st, 2017 at 3:43 pm
It looks like this discussion has ended but perhaps I can say a final word. I note from an article in the Irish Examiner that
Tuam: No Evidence of Crime, Nobody to Prosecute
AP Expands on Corrections of 'Tuam Babies' Story
55. Kevin Walters March 22nd, 2017 at 11:56 am
Rory Connor @54
In the past I have deliberately avoided making any comments on the Tuam babies story, but rather concentrated my efforts in regard to the culture of cover up relating to the child abuse scandal this article brought them together by including the resignation of Marie Collins from the Vatican Commission on Clerical Sex Abuse.
You have made many comments now and previously and put a lot of effort into citing headline such as “Tuam babies’ investigation likened to Nazi war crimes trials” the Symphysiotomy “scandal" etc. And yes much of this is hype and very unjust indeed, but what you need to know is that mankind see our Shepherds as having taken on the public mantle of our Saviour Jesus Christ and are now seen by them to be walking in His footsteps, proclaiming the good news, this mantle (Truth) is all they own, Jesus teaches that this is their only protection in this world, the world knows this also sadly this mantle has become so badly stained it is now almost unrecognisable and it needs to be cleansed quickly or our Shepherds will be trampled underfoot, the means are available to do this but this will take courage and honesty but then again if they possessed this courage and honesty in the first place the Church would not be in the mess it is to-day.
One can only hope and pray that those men with the calibre and leadership qualities of Bishop Moriarty, that are now, so badly needed within today’s Church will make their presence known and step forward, if they do so all will not be lost, as the laity/mankind will see the truths within gospels actual working.
kevin your brother
In Christ
56. Rory Connor March 24th, 2017 at 11:34 pm
It is possible that myself and Kevin Walters (and others) are operating at cross-purposes. I certainly believe that Christ’s call to establish a “Kingdom of Heaven” transcended Jewish Law and the Gentile attitudes to justice and truth that were accepted in his day – but it did not abolish them.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Matthew 5:18
Transcending (or fulfilling) the Law does not mean ignoring it or destroying it. A lot of Catholics today seem to be so consumed by guilt about child abuse that they have no interest in questioning the accounts of self-proclaimed “Victims” even where such accounts are either exaggerated or demonstrably false. Some Religious Sisters in particular, seem to take the view that the Catholic Church is (or was) Patriarchal and Clericalist and therefore bad. Thus even if “victims” tell fantastical stories they must have suffered deep pain at the hands of evil Church personnel – and the grosser the allegation, the deeper the pain. Their attitude is dogmatic in the most literal sense of the word i.e. there is no conceivable evidence that will cause them to revise their views!
I believe that the (comic) tragedy here is that these Sisters imagine that they are transcending the Old Testament attitude to Justice whereas in fact, they are failing to rise to it!
Archbishop Michael Neary asked: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”
On Mother and Baby Homes, we bought, at least partially, into the dominant paradigm of the time in Britain & USA: segregation in an institution. We must also ask: if religious organisations (not just Catholic) did not take up the task, what would have happened the single pregnant women? The State, through the County Homes, could not have coped financially or otherwise, and the women would have had nowhere to turn. Certainly, it is wrong that they were rejected by their families, and the churches were part of that society which was greatly influenced by a (Victorian?) puritanical conformism, especially with regard to more disadvantaged sections of society. It would be of interest to know how many, if any, women from the wealthier sections of society were ever residents in a Mother and Baby Home.
On the matter of taking the children, we bought into the “wisdom” of the day that it was better to take the children to give them the possibility of “a better life”, as England did in sending children to Australia. In February 2010 UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a formal apology to the families of children who were taken.
On how the unmarried single women were treated, we did not buy into the dominant paradigm in 32 States in USA and at least 10 countries in Europe, that the best thing was to sterilise such “feeble-minded” women so that they would not give rise to a new generation who would be a burden on society. (Winston Churchill was in favour but failed to get it through.) It is little consolation to the women and children who suffered, but at least in this matter we have reason to be grateful that we did not follow the example of so many other jurisdictions which would usually be seen as civilised.
46. Padraig McCarthy March 13th, 2017 at 12:54 pm
Kevin @44:
The Tablet in June 2014 reported: “Fr [now bishop] Fintan Monaghan, spokesman and archivist for the diocese of Tuam said the diocese’s baptismal register showed that 2,005 children from St Mary’s mother and baby home had been baptised from 1937 to 1961.”
Since children from the home were baptised, it seems very unlikely that those who died were buried in unconsecrated ground. I’ve never been involved in the “consecration” of a burial ground, but it seems quite possible that a priest from the parish, or a chaplain to the Home if there was one, could have blessed the ground at the beginning. The Home was originally the workhouse; I don’t know how much knowledge there is of the details of that operation. In Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, I was chaplain to St Colman’s hospital, on the site of the previous workhouse. Nearby there is a burial ground, known locally as a famine graveyard, but likely to hold more than just famine victims. There is just one memorial stone.
Many say that they were “dumped and discarded.” The Notice from the Commission on 3 March does not come to that conclusion. It seems better to wait the results of whatever further investigations may take place, and not condemn those responsible for the burials without clear evidence of disrespect.
52. Rory Connor March 14th, 2017 at 2:27 pm
“We must identify and own our own failures, without flinching, if we are to learn from them.” – Sean O’Conaill and Mary Vallely
In the case of nuns, the failures of the religious congregations also include the refusal to defend nuns who have been subjected to obscene and lying allegations – including the rape and murder of children. In a previous post on the topic “Child Abuse Scandal Almost Fatally Destroyed Catholic Church”, I referred to the article in the Daily Mirror on 11 October 1997 entitled
“HOT POKER WAS USED ON LITTLE MARION.. NO CASH WILL GET HER BACK; I THINK MY BABY WAS MURDERED AT THE ORPHANAGE, SAYS PAYOUT MUM.”
The tabloids have very high powered lawyers to defend them against libel actions and I’m sure they advised the Mirror editors that the allegation – that a Sister of Mercy had killed a baby by burning holes in both of the child’s legs with a hot poker – was highly libelous. However the editors understood – correctly – that the Sisters would not sue, possibly because they did not want to cause pain to the woman who was making the claim!
Two years later when former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall was convicted of raping a young girl, the media exploded with hate-filled headlines: “Vile Nun, Pervert Nun”, “I was Raped by Anti-Christ”. The conviction collapsed with extreme speed when the two accusers gave a newspaper interview that named them for the first time and one of their OTHER victims recognised the name of his own accuser! The following is an extract from the Wikipedia article on the case:
Nora Wall
Reaction of Sisters of Mercy After their conviction, the Sisters of Mercy issued a statement, which read:“We are all devastated by the revolting crimes which resulted in these verdicts. Our hearts go out to this young woman who, as a child, was placed in our care. Her courage in coming forward was heroic. We beg anyone who was abused whilst in our care to go to the Gardaí.”
Even after the collapse of the case against the two accused, the Sisters of Mercy made no effort to apologise to Wall or to withdraw their statement of support for Walsh. One commentator remarked: “The young woman their hearts were going out to, was the false accuser, not their own innocent nun. Our absolutist system had seduced them into identifying with the accuser and betraying their own sister.”Anyone who reads the Wiki article should also note the paragraph headed “Reaction of Kevin Myers, July 1999”. Kevin Myers, no friend of the Catholic Church, was prepared to defend Nora Wall even BEFORE the collapse of the rape conviction. Her former colleagues have failed to do so, even to the present day.
Something similar may well happen in relation to the Bon Secour nuns who served at Tuam. I referred at # 41 above to the Connaught Tribune article headlined "Tuam babies’ investigation likened to Nazi war crimes trials" regarding Junior Minister John Halligan’s claims. I see from a related article in the Irish Times on 11 March that Minister Halligan is not just using the term Nazi as a kind of generic insult – like the guy in the pub who calls someone a “bastard” without knowing what the word means. Mr Halligan knows and intends to be taken literally.
‘Death Rates in Mother and Baby Homes Similar to Concentration Camps’
“Old age should not diminish accountability for any crime or alleged crime. If you bear in mind that the child mortality rate at Bessborough in 1943 was approaching 70 per cent, sure that’s similar to concentration camps,” he said.
“Are we seriously saying that because somebody is ill or aged that we shouldn’t at least interview them? If you look at what’s happened at Belsen, Auschwitz, Dachau, even up to last year individuals who are alleged to have carried out horrendous crimes in their 80s and 90s were interviewed.”As it happens, I am in full agreement with Minister John Halligan that the Gardai should carry out an investigation into the deaths of babies in Tuam, Bessborough and elsewhere. Just for the sake of argument, let us suppose that a Garda inquiry into Tuam etc. finds no evidence of crime or any behaviour that would justify this rhetoric. Will the leaders of the Catholic Church request an apology from Minister Halligan? Or will they display the same kind of “compassion” shown by the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy when they failed to defend their colleagues against false allegations, up to and including the murder of a child? (And just what is the nature of such “compassion”?)
53. Rory Connor March 15th, 2017 at 10:31 pm
Further to my previous comment, an Irish Times article by Breda O’Brien regarding Judge Harding Clark’s report on the Symphysiotomy “scandal” is also relevant here. How many people still recall this fake scandal that occupied media headlines for a mere 17 years – prior to the publication of the judge’s report in November 2016?
Breda O'Brien: Why Did So Many Women Say They Had Symphysiotomies?
Sensationalist consensus may overlook one third of applicants who never had procedure
……But medical experts proved that a third of those who made applications, including some very vociferous and active campaigners, had never had the procedure at all.
Other applicants claimed to have had it in hospitals that were not yet built, or to have had it carried out by doctors who were not there, and “in several statements the applicant claimed being held down by nuns (in hospitals where there were no nuns) while she was being ‘assaulted’.”…..[My emphasis]
Ms O’Brien points out that this is eerily reminiscent of Nora Wall, who was accused, convicted and jailed for allegedly holding down a child while Paul McCabe raped a victim. Nora Wall was subsequently cleared of all wrongdoing, as was Paul McCabe. But reasons why such an utterly egregious miscarriage of justice were allowed to happen have never been properly investigated, and never will be.
Breda O’Brien writes about the role of the media and indeed the Wikipedia article on Nora Wall points out that she and Pablo McCabe “were originally accused in 1996 shortly after the broadcast by RTÉ of the TV documentary “Dear Daughter” in February of that year; they were convicted in June 1999 one month after RTÉ’s broadcast of the States of Fear series produced by Mary Raftery.”
There were also comments about nuns made by Dail Deputies at the time – of a tone similar to the recent ones by Minister of State John Halligan.
The main difference since then is that the Catholic hierarchy themselves now seem determined to join the witch-hunt against the Bon Secour Sisters. The Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary has recently asked us to begin with this fundamental question: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”
I would answer the Archbishop as follows: The late Pablo McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man who presumably qualified as one of “our most vulnerable” and former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall was hardly a member of high society. McCabe had no money but prior to 1999 no woman had ever been convicted of rape so McCabe was accused to make the allegation appear more plausible. The leaders of the Sisters of Mercy betrayed both of them and sided with the accusers. Archbishop what makes you think that the current accusers are more plausible? Do you really find it acceptable that a Government Minister should refer to Nazis and talk about Belsen, Auschwitz and Dachau? Archbishop, if a Garda investigation into the Tuam Home produces no evidence to support such claims will you do or say anything at all? Or will you remain silent like the current leaders of the Sisters of Mercy?
54. Rory Connor March 21st, 2017 at 3:43 pm
It looks like this discussion has ended but perhaps I can say a final word. I note from an article in the Irish Examiner that
Tuam: No Evidence of Crime, Nobody to Prosecute
A garda source said reasons for establishing a criminal investigation would be a reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed, such as homicide or neglect, but said it would be almost impossible to prove the latter after so long. A forensic expert said that 50 years on, the chances of establishing a cause of death were “very low” as except for cases such as strangulation, [my emphasis] bones would bear no signs.And I had almost forgotten that there were allegations in 2014 that the nuns had refused to baptise children because they were “spawn of Satan” but the Tuam Archdiocese proved this story false by producing records of thousands of Baptismal Certificates. The Associated Presss carried this story, which was reported in hundreds of newspapers worldwide, but then issued an apology as reported by the Jesuit Review “America” on 24 June 2014
AP Expands on Corrections of 'Tuam Babies' Story
…The Associated Press ….. repeating incorrect Irish news reports that suggested the babies who died had never been baptized and that Catholic Church teaching guided priests not to baptize the babies of unwed mothers or give to them Christian burials.
The reports of denial of baptism later were contradicted by the Tuam Archdiocese, which found a registry showing that the home had baptized more than 2,000 babies. The AP issued a corrective story on Friday after discovering its errors.Some of the lunatic allegations regarding the Bon Secour nuns are reminiscent of the 19th century anti-Catholic scandal centered on Maria Monk. “The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk” published in 1836 contained tales of depravity and infanticide centered on the Hotel Dieu convent in Montreal. Priests supposedly visited the convent via a tunnel. Because of this, infants “were sometimes born in the Convent, but they were always baptized, and immediately strangled.” The Catholic Church of course denounced the book as a fraud but what really discredited “Maria Monk” (never a nun and in fact, a Protestant) was that prominent PROTESTANT clergymen and journalists – who had originally believed her horror stories – carried out an investigation and pronounced her a fraud. However if Canadian Catholic bishops at the time had chosen to throw the nuns to the wolves and believe the atrocity stories, then honest non-Catholics would not have dared to take a stand against the mob hysteria! There is a lesson here for the Irish Hierarchy today.
55. Kevin Walters March 22nd, 2017 at 11:56 am
Rory Connor @54
In the past I have deliberately avoided making any comments on the Tuam babies story, but rather concentrated my efforts in regard to the culture of cover up relating to the child abuse scandal this article brought them together by including the resignation of Marie Collins from the Vatican Commission on Clerical Sex Abuse.
You have made many comments now and previously and put a lot of effort into citing headline such as “Tuam babies’ investigation likened to Nazi war crimes trials” the Symphysiotomy “scandal" etc. And yes much of this is hype and very unjust indeed, but what you need to know is that mankind see our Shepherds as having taken on the public mantle of our Saviour Jesus Christ and are now seen by them to be walking in His footsteps, proclaiming the good news, this mantle (Truth) is all they own, Jesus teaches that this is their only protection in this world, the world knows this also sadly this mantle has become so badly stained it is now almost unrecognisable and it needs to be cleansed quickly or our Shepherds will be trampled underfoot, the means are available to do this but this will take courage and honesty but then again if they possessed this courage and honesty in the first place the Church would not be in the mess it is to-day.
One can only hope and pray that those men with the calibre and leadership qualities of Bishop Moriarty, that are now, so badly needed within today’s Church will make their presence known and step forward, if they do so all will not be lost, as the laity/mankind will see the truths within gospels actual working.
kevin your brother
In Christ
56. Rory Connor March 24th, 2017 at 11:34 pm
It is possible that myself and Kevin Walters (and others) are operating at cross-purposes. I certainly believe that Christ’s call to establish a “Kingdom of Heaven” transcended Jewish Law and the Gentile attitudes to justice and truth that were accepted in his day – but it did not abolish them.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Matthew 5:18
Transcending (or fulfilling) the Law does not mean ignoring it or destroying it. A lot of Catholics today seem to be so consumed by guilt about child abuse that they have no interest in questioning the accounts of self-proclaimed “Victims” even where such accounts are either exaggerated or demonstrably false. Some Religious Sisters in particular, seem to take the view that the Catholic Church is (or was) Patriarchal and Clericalist and therefore bad. Thus even if “victims” tell fantastical stories they must have suffered deep pain at the hands of evil Church personnel – and the grosser the allegation, the deeper the pain. Their attitude is dogmatic in the most literal sense of the word i.e. there is no conceivable evidence that will cause them to revise their views!
I believe that the (comic) tragedy here is that these Sisters imagine that they are transcending the Old Testament attitude to Justice whereas in fact, they are failing to rise to it!
