You know, there are stories of children surviving concentration camps in Nazi Germany because all the women in a barracks helped to hide them, and to share their own starvation rations, and to take the risk of torture and death for colluding in their concealment.
And some people here are trying to explain these monstrous crimes on the basis of poverty, and the culture of the times, etc. etc. etc.?
For shame. For shame. Everything in life comes down to individual character and choice. And often, the most humble, ordinary people do the most extraordinary things, while their *betters* commit and are complicit in the most awful crimes.
No excuses.
28
Shame on anyone who excuses this by citing Irish poverty.
I*ve lived in places where the poverty makes rural Ireland look like a middle-class paradise. Some people are good, and love and protect their children. Some people are bad, and do not.
Hard to fight against the culture of the times? Tough. Go to church and take Communion after shipping your daughter off to legal slavery? Sorry. No excuses for what you did, and what you failed to do.
How did those nuns dine while those post-parturition women and their babies were starving and dying of diseases of poverty? I*ll bet they were far from emaciated.
No excuses. No excuses. No excuses.
22
This piece is profoundly moving. Its publication in the New York Times will surely bring countless people closer to finding out who they are, where they or their loved ones came from, and give them peace.
I salute your graphics, video and sound personnel for the beauty of this piece. Makes me wonder if they saw this story personally, as do I - so many of us have Irish roots.
And words cannot express the thanks due to Catherine Corless.
Thank you.
16
Every English speaking nation in the world, Ireland, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada has faced and investigated at the national level the historic treatment/abuse of children in care and otherwise under the protection of the state.
Why hasn't the United States done this? Aside from one particularly religious political party's dislike for empowering people the Press has failed to look into and report the vast extent of it.
We hear stories now and then of horrors to an individual or at an individual place that never lead us to the fact that this sort of horror is/was common as dirt in every place in the nation where children were "protected" by the government. Just this morning there is a report of a 16 year old boy dying at one of these places meant to care for children.
8
Easy to blame *the Church.*
The Church and all institutions are made up of individual human beings each individually choosing to behave badly, or not.
Nuns choosing to shame, abuse and starve pregnant girls, mothers, and babies and children are human beings glorying in their individual power over those less powerful.
From the beginnings of civilization, some individuals have chosen to go against the prevailing tide, no matter where.
Remember the story of Scarlett the cat? Who almost died saving her kittens from a fire? Whose eyes were blistered shut and who had to count her rescued kittens by touch to ensure she*d saved all of them, before collapsing?
And you want to tell me that even the most abject farmwife in rural Ireland has less agency to protect her pregnant daughter?
Even that mother going dutifully every week to ask for the return of her son--I*d have been screaming in the street until they dragged me off. They*d have had to have beaten me to a pulp before they got me to cease and desist from trying to claim my child.
What failure of nature makes people accept such treatment of themselves, their children, their grandchildren, nieces, sisters? Why, even today, is the Church largely untouchable in Ireland and still wields outsize power in a supposedly modern, high-tech nation?
This elegiac story is designed to make us cry. How about mass shaming of the families, generation after generation, who refused to protect their own?
22
This is not a “failure of nature” it is the direct result of massive poverty. I suggest you read Angela’s Ashes to get a small idea of how bad things really were in Ireland at that time. In fact it was not only Ireland - the same scenario would rule in Scotland, all the rural areas of England itself and Wales. Life in those places was harsh, short and cruel for most people. That is why so many emigrated to America, to Canada and Australia.
1
Maureen: Poverty is no excuse for the failure of life*s basic nurturing unit. I*ve lived in places much poorer than rural Ireland, and everything comes down to character and choice.
Stop making excuses for criminal neglect and abandonment of one*s own children, and the legal enslavement of women in the 20th century in a European nation.
*Angela*s Ashes?* Abysmal failure to behave with the minimum of human responsibility.
5
Yes, it’s Halloween, and you might be thinking: Kathy, lighten up. Ok, I will, later, when the children come knocking and the street glows orange. I will find my balance during our day of tagging death, wearing new identities, tricking, treating. But this morning I’m still thinking about Dan Barry’s piece. Our blindspots. Our collective balance. “The Lost Children of Tuam” is like the hole Mary Moriarty falls into when she’s a young woman… she sees some things that aren’t settled, threatening, but she will move on, tread firmer ground, and let the hole itself be buried.
This piece isn’t just about Ireland or the Catholic Church. It’s not just about a woman’s right to the free agency of her body. Not just about patriarchy. I think it’s about our frailty and need for normalcy. It’s about conditioning. How we survive by denying difficulty and by scapegoating. It’s about our current political situation and it’s about our past. It’s about marginalizing the other (refugees, unwed mothers, the poor, the disabled) because of what we can’t accept in ourselves. Ok, booo. Halloween and graveyards and mummies. Disturb the dead, don’t be afraid. Disturb and honor at the same time, going door to door, with our existential question: trick or treat?
9
Thanks Dan.
4
This is the finest of journalism. Rigorous and deeply evocative at once. Thank you for rendering a haunting but essential testament to these betrayed children and their mothers. (I will not forget the image of a mother going every week for five years to ask that they give her back her son. And this being denied just so that he can be abused, neglected and she suffer the loss of her child.)
Savage "holy, righteous" sadism. Again thank you for bearing witness.
8
What's going on with American children in foster care is no less tragic than this. Too often they are abused at home, bullied at school, disbelieved and punished for disclosing abuse, even by school officials. Too often they are trafficked, even by social workers and group homes. I say this based on communication with kids themselves - and no, unfortunately, I am not being pranked. The plight of a kid who has no one in this world looking out for him or her is nothing less than terrifying.
I wonder how many kids who entered the foster care system are unaccounted for and how many actually survive to age out.
11
While the injustice, cruelty, and horror of this story, and the revelations of equally inhumane behavior in the films "The Magdalene Sisters" and "Philomena" are heartrending, these facts should make Americans today focus less on what's wrong with the Catholic church, and more on the perils faced by any nation where church and state share the same bed.
This union of religion and government, which the Founding Fathers sought to prevent, is perhaps the gravest danger our democracy faces today. We may bridle at the manner in which pedophile priests have been protected by the church from civil prosecution, but how much worse is the notion seeping into our courts that it is an assault on "religious freedom" to require that not only the Little Sisters of the Poor, but lay people who run corporations like Hobby Lobby be exempt from participating in national health programs which offer coverage for contraception or abortion -- both, we must remember, legal in this secular republic.
Our right to be free from the religious beliefs of others is under heavy assault. The Vice President, a true believer, tried when he was the governor of Indiana to mandate that every miscarriage, every abortion, be followed by a burial. While this monstrous idea may seem the opposite of what happened at Tuam, it is in fact just the flip side of the same counterfeit coin. Religious hypocrisy, misogyny, racism, contempt for the poor -- all these threaten the ideals of American democracy.
11
I recommend following the link to Mrs. Corless' original article, which includes more individual stories. Here is one: "It is interesting that in Paddy’s
case, his mother paid for his keep in the Home right up to when he left
at the age of 16. As Paddy was to discover in later years, his mother
worked two jobs in England, presumably to ensure her son’s welfare in
the Home in the hope that he would have the best options open to him.
The Sisters however did not inform her that Paddy had been fostered
out but still graciously received and kept each instalment that she sent
them." It's obvious that much of the evil visited on these poor children, and their mothers, had its roots in money.
9
With respect to Mr. Kenny, claiming "In the “so-called good old days,” he said, Irish society “did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings.”, is ridiculous. It seems you did exactly that.
Such is life in a theocracy.
4
Would that all of the authorities, religious and secular, had practiced what Jesus actually preached: "At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea...
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 18:1-10)
1
Thank you Catheen Corless and NYT for bringing this story to light.
5
So much to say about why the Church is awful BUT the Irish have perfected the most horrid perversions of Catholicism. It's amazing to me that folks in the US do not call this out. This was not going on in Italy in the 1950s I can assure you! Also, note that whenever you read about a predator priest in the US they are almost always Irish American. I know the PC police hates these observations but there is something unique about the way the Irish interpret Catholicism. Finally, while all of western Euorpe is super casual about going to church, it's standing room only in Dublin churches on Sunday. They are an EU outlier.
6
I hope that the Catholic Church is held responsible for this barbarity. Where was the "Love of Christ?" More like the evil of the Devil.
3
My mother was born out of wedlock in 1927 in Ireland. She and her mother were saved from this fate by my great grandparents. The shame my mother carried around with her was heart breaking. Dan Barry's description of the women and children's low self esteem really hit home. My mother informed my father of her history after they were married. She was sure he would leave her. My siblings and I didn't hear the story until we were well into adulthood. She died with dementia, terribly frightened she was going to hell. Though not stated explicitly, we believe she thought this because she was born out of wedlock. My siblings and I now wonder about our great grandparents. What strength of character they must have had!
13
Abortion is a sin, but apparently letting children die of neglect, starvation, and disease, not lifting a finger to stop it, and covering up the fact, are all A-OK.
Sickening.
11
This is an extraordinary story, so tragic yet so beautifully told. "Eternal whereabouts" is a phrase I will never forget. Thank you.
5
This sad story reminds me immediately of Philomena. It strikes the same chord of heart break and tragedy. The past has so much horror in it. It is apt to bring out this story at Halloween to remind us of that. I hope their souls truly rest in what peace they can have.
2
While I agree that the society in those times (and perhaps even now to a lesser degree) allowed this to happen, I place the greatest part of the blame in the Catholic church. It had the power to stop this. No, it had the obligation to stop it, yet it did not. This is but one of the reasons that as articles such as this fine piece by the NYT, and other publications bring this past to us, more and more individuals are questioning the church and parting ways with it. I know I have.
3
Heartbreaking article. My first response was...how could so many people including the Catholic Church participate in such barbarity?
There's another perspective though that I haven't yet seen in the comments.
If allowing 700+ young children to quietly die over several years is a tragedy, what about the 700,000 children killed legally every year in the United States in the abortion clinics. How is dying a few months after birth different than dying a few months before birth? We have no further to look than ourselves. As long as abortion continues, we are all complicit in the same barbarities described in this article.
2
Thank you for the beautiful, elegiac story, the photos, the video. Thank you, Catherine Corless for the simple and courageous act of pursuing truth and telling it. My tears are for the poor babies, the poor mothers, and the witnesses who didn't see the cruelty in their midst. We all suffer together.
2
Thank you, Dan Barry and The New York Times, for a superb article that, as Angela A. says below, "is remarkably poetic in its description of unthinkable, collective cruelty to children and their mothers." One must marvel at the journalist's capacity to weave the results of her own investigation with that of the woman who doggedly pursued her solitary research in spite of all odds in a small place in Ireland, perhaps to attune for her mother's traumas. As Dan Barry's article makes clear, one cannot accuse the Church only for such inhuman behavior toward these disgraced women and their babies. The whole of society was implicated in the unofficial extermination of these babies and sometimes, literally, of their mothers, who had no hope when they became pregnant out of wedlock. Thank you, again, for an extraordinarily enlightening and poignant piece of literature. The faces of the little children, dressed in First Communion attire, speak to the terrible dramas of their lives!
3
Dan Barry describes Catherine Corless as "that woman with no credentials." Untrue. Her reportorial diligence and dogged pursuit of the truth are what made this story possible. At the very least she should have received a byline credit along with Mr. Barry.
13
Ms. Catherine Corless is now a Good-Will Ambassador for the Children of the World. In 1979, the UN Special Representative for the International Year of the Child was received by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, awarded the Third World Peace Award by the UN Secretary General and honored for women helping women across the borders.
UNICEF celebrates Halloween in America and the International Organization for Children is known for its global efforts world-wide. Ms. Catherine Corless should be honored by All of Us who put Children First.
A hard and difficult journey for Dan Barry, probably far worse than he could have imagined, he is to be highly commended for unearthing these young souls and the plight of their mothers shunned aside and forgotten.
The Shame of Tuam is the shame of us all, and sorrow is my Irish name.
3
Thank you, Catherine Corliss, for doing God's work where others failed despite their vows.
20
Shouldn't murder charges be pressed against these so-called nuns. Shouldn't the convent be held accountable and closed. This is a crime scene.
17
A remarkable story. We should be grateful the NYT still commits resources to deep reporting.
21
I was born in the late 60s to an unwed mother.
She told the hospital personnel she was married and gave them my father's information. His last name is on my birth certificate (she married him, unwisely, 10 months later).
She lied because she didn't want my birth certificate to have ILLEGITIMATE stamped across it. I was not born in a Catholic hospital or in the South; I was born in the midwest.
It's not only the Irish who tolerated unkindness and cruelty to unwed teenagers and their newborns.
21
Right here in the United states we have had and probably still do have institutional child abuse. I was tortured abused and the Social Workers meant to protect me when I was sent on to foster care made sure to pick the worst families and then conspire with them to abuse me because I deserved it.
The evil perpetrated was never addressed though everyone knew. It was common knowledge and the source of legends and fearful warnings to make children behave. The people who did it are mostly still working for the State of NJ or retired collecting state pensions. The people who are supposed to do something about it worked very hard to suppress me and got so far as to get a judge to deny me access to my own medical records.
The children of Taum and Ireland are worthy to be pitied and mourned but how about we finally do some America First reporting and uncovering of the evil in every county in every state that used child welfare as cover to perpetrated crimes that affect a very large proportion of the adult population to this day?
10
To make it clear how the medical record thing was wrong in case someone imagines there may be some good reason to deny a normal adult their own records. The DAG who represented the state against me told my lawyer when they first met "I don't know why we are fighting this, we have no case." and yet I lost after spending $12,500 on lawyer fees.
Bravo for Catherine Corless and her lifetime of work to give these mothers and children names, recover their stories, validate their existence and humanity, and expose the ravages of this system. Bravo to Dan Barry for a superbly written piece.
In a culture where shame and blame for "sin" were used as weapons, an entire country systematically turned unwed mothers and their children into scapegoats and outcasts. They were literally the lambs of God, made to suffer and die so that a whole culture could have somewhere to externalize their own guilt and shame.
The root of the problem is a religion and a culture that condemns sexuality as sinful, and puts the entire moral burden of that sin upon women.
22
A lot of that culture in Ireland just as it is here in the US is based in the British system that ruled Ireland which considered all Irish to be third class human beings most of whom lived as virtual or actual slaves to the British. Thus the upper classes in Ireland were used to having a class of people they treat savagely and look down upon. The Churches minions were/are part of the upper class. My own experience of the Irish part of my family one being a nun is of horrible evil deeds done to me as if I existed to serve their needs and desires and had no humanity or worth on my own outside the context of how they wished to profit off my existence. They intentionally underfed me and physically weakened select portions of my body to set up an "accident" where I might be injured or killed so they could sue to get rich and play the sympathetic role in society. This included a memorized script of things to be said to every stranger they met in my company about me and my behavior. If you are alert notice how abusive people speak. They will repeat themselves regularly. Look at our president and his limited vocabulary and ability to describe reality in ways that prevent direct questioning of his premises.
1
Please state a little louder, and repeat until the lesson sinks in--women were the Church's brutal enforcers against other women; were the murderers, by commission and omission, of those women's children.
Mothers refused to protect their own pregnant daughters and contributed to their shaming. Mothers of other children participated in the shaming and neglect of the enslaved women of these "homes" and the Magdalen laundries.
Evil men can do nothing against women without the complicity of other women. This is true everywhere, in every culture; as much in Hollywood as in Ireland, as in Saudi Arabia, as in Afghanistan.
Women are not and have never been powerless beings. They often use their power to destroy other women.
When that changes, everything else will change too.
16
This story made me sick as I read about the suffering of the babies and their mothers. Did their tormentors, societal and individual not know that Jesus said "Let the little children come unto me"? Did they not understand that the message of the Bible is God's love and God's desire that we show love to one another? And it makes me ask ask where we are hurting others now. "The line between good and evil runs through every human heart."
This is very true; craven women frequently betray other women. If I believed in the afterlife, I would say they all go to wherever Phyllis Schlafly is now.
1
This is such a sad story. The fact that Catholic nuns ran the house where children died from physical abuse, starvation, sickness, & neglect (murder) does not surprise me. Nuns, the "angels of mercy"? Hardly. Ask anyone who attended a Catholic school how wonderful the nuns were. From what Catholic friends have told me, nuns were brutal to children & were greatly feared. Some nuns actually despised children. Left-handed children were forced to write with their right hands. This was enforced by tying the child's left hand behind the child's back. Cruel raps on the back of the hand or head with rulers were common. Tuam in Ireland is but one of many of these homes for unwed mothers. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
14
Catherine Corless is doing the work of a saint. God bless her.
15
Thank you for this and thank you to Catherine Corless. I'm the American great grandaughter of a man from County Cork. This breaks my heart.
6
A terribly sad story. Just very hard imagine Jesus in all this. How about if all those poor unfortunate women had been treated with compassion, instead of condemnation.
8
This was a riveting story, and so sad on many levels. It is also outrageous on many levels. The shame inflicted on the unwed mothers, but no commensurate shame on the males who impregnated them. The collusion between church and state, which punished poor women and their children. The fact that these babies were treated essentially as so much trash because their births did not fit the constraints of the Catholic Church and society as a whole. Unfortunately the Catholic Church perpetuates many of these problems by still refusing to acknowledge contraception is an important tool in limiting unwanted births. If life is so sacred to the Church, then why were these children and their mothers treated in such a horrific manner. This question still needs to be answered.
14
Who should really be ashamed? The heartless torturers of these helpless women and their innocent children. Those are the only wrongdoers in this story.
1
List of baby names. RIP in Peace. Such a haunting, horrible story. Thank you for this well written article.
http://www.thejournal.ie/list-names-tuam-babies-children-3270019-Mar2017/
7
In 2012, a young woman in Ireland requested an abortion when it became clear that her pregnancy was unviable.
Because the church and the state are intertwined in that country, her request was denied and the miscarriage was made to progress 'naturally' by the law of the land.
She died of complications arising from that protracted, unnecessary 'natural' miscarriage.
Mind you, this was 2012 Ireland. 5 years ago. The woman was not even Catholic, but had to suffer - and die- to uphold Catholic law.
When religion and state join forces against ordinary women's health and wellbeing, women usually end up paying with their lives.
26
Yes, from my childhood in the '60's we females knew not to visit Ireland. The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the oppressive theocracy in the south, the equivalent of Sharia law, makes the Emerald Isle untenable.
Desi Daaru,
I remember this and it took place near Co. Galway. There was an uproar at the time in the News which now has been forgotten. A friend of mine from France who took her Catholic vows at an early age and her medical degree, now has a clinic in Ireland to enhance the welfare of women, their protection and their right for pro life when the time has come for planning to have a family with their spouses.
Thank you for reminding us never to forget these tragedies and to inspire us to do better.
Beautifully written and haunting.
10
This is a tough story to read but beautifully written. Thinking about it, however, I'd be interested to know - how unusual was Ireland? Illegitimacy was never an easy stigma to bear in any country, not until the past 30-40 years when social mores changed. It was viewed as a pernicious social problem and in Ireland and many Catholic countries was dumped on untrained, under-resourced nuns to deal with. Ireland was also a poor country, running a large social welfare system with a tiny budget.
So we need to stop and think before we assume there was evil intent on all of the people who ran these children's homes. Looking at that list of deaths reads to me more like a a tale of poverty and neglect, described in old-fashioned medical language, rather than deliberate cruelty or murder. These were very different times.
The biggest problem here is the silence on the fate of these children and the continuing failure of the Church to speak out and take ownership of the problem even now. The families involved deserve to have any information that they need given to them without inquiries or investigations. Just open up the records and let people be informed.
4
A fine read for a tragic story. Thank you.
4
There were thousands of “homes” for unwed mothers and orphanages throughout Europe and America - and other places - in Catholic countries and non-catholic countries. The women who were sheltered there were poor and usually in extremely bad health. The children born in these places were sickly and many died - without antibiotics high death rates were common. Nobody (except extreme poverty) killed them. When they died they were not usually buried in the local cemetery. Most were buried in a mass grave - somewhat similar to the one found at Tuam. Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Europe (it probably still is) - when these practices were abandoned on the European continent, they lingered in Ireland because of its continuing poverty and relative isolation (and the spectacular Irish power of denial). It has always amazed me that Ireland with its massive poverty managed to send so many missionaries and so much of its hard earned money to the poor abroad when so much want and need existed literally on their own doorsteps.
5
This is the most moving story I've read in a long time. My grandmother was an orphan in New York City in the early 1900's, and she spent a few years in a catholic orphanage, and her memories of it were not good. The nuns were harsh -- if the girls held a sewing thimble the wrong way, the nuns would smack their hands with a ruler -- and reading this article reminded me so much of her.
And may I comment on the presentation? I don't normally like reading long articles online. But this was one of the best online presentations I've ever read, with the black and white photos and videos, and the elegant subheads. This is such a wonderfully written piece, and everything about it was perfectly suited to the serious subject and incredibly moving stories. Life can be so heartbreaking, and the heartbreaks deserve the empathy given them by Dan Barry and others who contributed to this article.
10
Thirty years ago, my sainted father-in-law described a similar situation at a Roman Catholic church in Milwaukee, WI, with a few differences. 1) The unwed mothers happened to be novices/nuns assigned to the church, 2) the fathers were Fathers, assigned to the church, and 3) the dead babies were placed in the catacombs of the church. I will be the first to admit that I make a poor whistle-blower, but if you felt the need to to send someone to Ireland for the story he just brought back, perhaps Milwaukee could provide a good follow-up opportunity for him.
10
I've been haunted by the lead photograph for this piece of the 5 children. My husband and I have hosted 2 foster children in the past, and I can immediately see that these kids need love. If they are/were alive, all would probably be older than I am now. Still, the photo makes me want to reach back in time and make sure they know they are beautiful human beings as welcome in the world as anyone else.
14
The Catholic Church teaches no birth control...it's a sin. A mortal sin, at that. Abortion is "murder," they say. If you're preventing a "murder" by using birth control, a woman is living in sin. In this backward thinking, these poor women who didn't have access to birth control, and didn't want to "murder" the unborn were punished beyond belief for bringing life into the world. The men, often relatives, got off scot-free. Where is the justice?
50
One of my favorite novels, Cider House Rules, addresses just this fact. "An orphan or an abortion." Without access to birth control, desperate women had very hard decisions to make and they suffered back alley abortions or turning to orphanages run by patriarchal religions intent on punishing them and their innocent babies for their "sin." This is a heartbreaking account of the resultant generations of grief stricken survivors of their heartless policies. What would Jesus do, indeed.
6
I believe that this article is a shortened version of the The Globe and Mail article about the so called childrens' home in Tuam, published on September 29, by Sarah Hampsom. I would recommend the article.
The facts about Tuam leave me speechless and yes, ashamed, that my ancestral country and Church treated innocent women and children like this. Must be why so many Irish immigrated. And the difference between Tuam and a concentration camp was what?
29
Not much. (And I say this as a Jew.)
2
May we all take up our 'empty candy wrappers' and diligently pursue justice.
21
Catherine Corless is a true heroine. I give thanks for her listening heart, and her willingness to challenge the RC Church and the Irish State's horrific treatment of the little ones. I give thanks that the concept of "illegitimate children" is fading.
I give thanks that the Sisters of the Bon Secours are now exposed as the abortionist wing of the RC Church in Ireland at that time, killing children through abuse and neglect, disrespecting their tiny bodies, and denying those children the comfort and love in their mothers' arms. Isn't it far kinder to mother and to embryo for the abortion of unwanted pregnancies to take place in the first trimester??? Yet still today the women of Ireland are poorly served with abortion services.
The nuns that starved, neglected, and abused the Children of Tuam to their unrecorded deaths in a septic tank are the moral and ethical peers of the multitude of sexually abusive Roman Catholic priests who have been exposed as wrongdoers in the last few decades. I await the national report forthcoming in 2018, because Tuam is certainly not the only "concentration camp" for unwed mothers and infants in which dark murderous deeds were done in the names of Respectability and Religion.
For Shame.
33
Caroline, You note, "I give thanks that the concept of "illegitimate children" is fading." But there never were "illegitimate children". Only illegitimate parents or, more likely, an illegitimate "father", who took advantage of a poor young woman and left.
7
Tell it to the mothers, tell it to the children, JerryV. It's easy to write "there never were "illegitimate children" when all over the world, every day of the week, fathers deny financial support to children they've fathered, married or not. It is part of the human condition.
1
Caroline, You misunderstand what I wrote. I simply object to the terminology, "illegitimate", when applied to these children. They should not be called illegitimate because they are as legitimate as any other children. It is as offensive as calling them "bastards", as though they themselves did something terribly wrong.
1
What is contained in the following sentence is the very real bane of all the terrible abuse of women and children in the name of religion:
" But perhaps the baptismal cleansing of their “original sin” was not enough to also wipe away the shameful nature of their conception."
This so called "original sin" was invented by MEN who have always sought power and control over those they have always seen as the less powerful and vulnerable.
These repulsive and evil controllers have always used guilt to echieve their terrible ends.
26
This is a great piece of journalism and investigative writing – but you can do so much more… Incredible misogyny under the guise of ‘religious freedom’.
It’s about time the NYT and other media starts portraying women as actual human beings with the right to a dignified existence and freedom – in all aspects – including sexual freedom, the right to a public identity, and equal value in every society.
I find it hypocritical that at times the NYT positions itself as a progressive and feminist paper – while when it comes to ‘religion and culture’ it actually helps oppress us in the name of its favorite
cultures, or general ideologies (such as immigration in Europe).
I believe I tried to speak/post against FGM on your comment section over 100 times - the fact that there are over 200,000,000 women and girls mutilated for the sake of ‘modesty’ and you refuse to publish any information on this bodes very badly for your self-described free press and voice of equality.
The fact you refuse to further investigate or analyze the exponential rise in gang rapes in Europe shows that you feel comfortable with a certain level of misogyny.
Please stop seeing and portraying our bodies, our freedom, our intellect, our dignity as simple collateral damage to your favorite ideologies.
Humanity should always come before religion - any religion.
We should unite and loudly speak against any ideology which condemns the sexual freedom of women and/or treats us as second class citizens.
13
To paraphrase Steven Weinberg, there will always be good people who do good things, and bad people who do evil things, but for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.
21
The Church’s crimes throughout the medieval, renaissance's times have probably been more documented than the deeds of the Church in the Industrial age – and since. I cannot conceive of a religious belief that does not espouse the basic tenet that EVERY person and their soul matters equally.
Christians (of which I used to count myself) are fond of saying “Christ died for the sins of all.” Lip service only to so many. Death to so many, from the Crusades to Tuam. Pain to uncountable people who crossed the church, or other religion, in power at a given place and time. How can I believe in a ”Saviour” or “Prophet” in whose names countless abominable acts have been committed, condoned or justified?
Like Lennon, I just “Imagine there's no religion.”
13
"...there were swings and seesaws and donated Christmas gifts from town, but no grandparents and cousins coming around to coo. They lived amid the absence of affection and the ever-present threat of infectious disease."
[Sounds like the perfect recipe for developmental trauma... which manifested in adulthood, when...]
"Before long, some of these survivors were gathering at the Corless house for a cup of tea and a chat [...] They all have a kind of low self-esteem,” she said. “They feel inadequate. They feel a bit inferior to other people. It mirrored, really, the way my mother was.""
~~~
[How, thankfully, albeit slowly, times change and collectively one can reflect of that recent past:]
"The baptism of these children entitled them under canon law to a funeral Mass and burial in consecrated ground. But perhaps the baptismal cleansing of their “original sin” was not enough to also wipe away the shameful nature of their conception. Perhaps, having been born out of wedlock in an Ireland of another time, they simply did not matter."
[One hopes that there will always be decent people wanting to do the right thing and not forget:]
"Deep in the distant future, Catherine will expose this property’s appalling truths. She will prompt a national reckoning that will leave the people of Ireland asking themselves: Who were we? Who are we?"
[That's the ontological question that each one of us has to confront and answer individually - and, collectively, as a society - at some point in time.]
9
'Never Let Them Go' comes to mind.
Catherine Corless and Dan Barry, thank you.
33
I look at these little children dressed in hand me down rags, basically and wonder how the little girls can be smiling, yet the little boys scowling in what is obviously a First Communion Picture--a very important time for these youngsters; someone cared enough to dress the children up -sort of, even if in old ragged hand-me downs--and take their pictures. This is such a tragedy just looking at the little faces. It begs the questions: who were these nuns caring for these children--I can't believe they were malicious women at heart, and I wonder what happened in their lives that they needed to treat the children like this. I wish the nuns who ran this place would speak up, speak out and let us know who they are now and who they were then that could develop into such a tragedy for the children and for the children's mothers. And, I do wish the catholic bashing in the new York times would stop
8
Their clothes don't look like rags to me; I actually wondered if Catherine Corless is one of the children pictured.
The smiling one looks like me at that age and especially my daughter and my niece, but my family is not from the same county in Ireland where Tuam is.
Joni Mitchell wrote, in her song The Magdalene Laundries:
they wilt the grass they walk upon,
they leach the light out of a room
That captures who those nuns were. I will say that in my youth I knew nuns who were caring and compassionate. Not one of those kind souls taught in the Catholic school I attended in Boston, though.
1
Because God forbid we hold them responsible for their crimes? Please. It is not Catholic bashing to point out what these nuns did, and you know it.
5
I am quite certain none of the nuns suffered from starvation or the diseases that seemed to run rampant. It almost appears that this was state/church sponsored murder of these defenseless children. I even question what was listed as why they died.
14
This article explains why I am not religious. The basis for all ethics should be the golden rule: 'Do unto others as you would have others do untio you". Is there a religion that follows this rules?
18
Strange that the nuns - they must have had some knowledge of the Bible - didn't think of Jesus having taught "Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, you did it unto me." The story of the Good Samaritan also comes to mind. I cannot imagine how they could possibly justify such cruelty to infants and children when they were alive, and have maintained a policy of tossing their remains away when they died, like so much garbage. It has no relation to the Christianity that I know of.
6
This beautifully rendered story left me in tears and deeply grieving those poor babes who had carried the phony shame of their mothers to their own wretched graves in tanks for sewage. These sweet innocent children deserve to be lifted out of that stinking hole where they are hidden, given decent burials, and be known for the precious individuals that they were.
Catherine Corless teaches that, rather than rant on about where to place blame, it's more important to persist in finding the truth. A fine human being indeed she is. Thank you, Mrs. Corless.
18
I was raised Catholic and feel their hypocrisy is an epic sin. Reverence for life? There is no denying this religion has a long history of oppressing, harmin, even killing countless women and by extension children too. How about #MeeToo for all Catholic girls that aspired to be alter girls or priests and to be true participants in a fundamental institution that governs their lives? How about #MeeToo for all the women who've died from desperate home abortions to avoid ruining their lives and the for the women who were ostracized for going through with delivering an "illegitimate" child? The church surely would have benefited and many innocent people would have suffered less cruelty and violence if women were able to be leaders in the organization. How about providing women with birth control education instead of punishment and more hypocrisy? Behold the mother, the Catholic church owes women a long overdue apology.
14
The Catholic Church. When has the Catholic Church ever protected its own children? Think about it long enough and you will see this institution in a different light.
11
There have been so many negative stories in the press recently about Catholic Ireland, it really sounds like a horror to grow up there. Here is the thing, though. Unwed mothers all over the planet were shunned or thrown out of their homes for centuries, ditto, their illegitimate children. Abigail Adams wrote sympathetically in the 1700s of all the poor children on the streets of Paris the product of Dangerous Liaisons. John Locke in Britain in the 1600s sending all poor children (partly the result of thousands of brothels) to barbaric workhouses. The poor houses in Britain and Ireland were largely populated by unwed mothers. Very little mention of the fathers of those children though. In America in the 40s and 50s, women were usually forced to give up their babies, too. Some of those women wanted to keep those babies, others didn't. Why doesn't anyone write about why the babies died so young? Why didn't the surrounding cultures adequately support (emotionally and financially) them? Before we have had adequate birth control, every society, especially subsistence societies, have been interested in controlling the birth rate. They used guilt and shame to keep people, especially wild wilful women in line. It is a tragedy all around and not limited to Catholic Ireland.
23
I don't know any other western nation that acted this way, this recently. If you do, speak the names. I'll be happy to call them to account too, as I'm sure will others. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the guilt in this case. "They did it too!" Is no excuse, and any adult knows it.
This is not the distant past--people who still live were affected by this. They have a right, the obligation, to demand justice. You have an obligation to stop giving excuses for what should not ever be excused.
8
Nowhere in the article does it mention that the US had its own vast network of Magdalene Laundries run by the same Catholic orders that ran them and the closely related Mother-Baby homes in Ireland. Incarcerated students at the Indiana Women's Prison have done award-winning research demonstrating that these institutions were the first prisons in the US and for nearly a century were far more numerous and important than state prisons for women. And they were every bit as brutal as their counterparts in Ireland.
The NY Times story is about one such institution in Ireland, but the author should have made clear that the US shares in the shame. See these outstanding articles by incarcerated students Michelle Jones, Lori Record and Christina Kovats: http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&co... and https://www.manchester.edu/academics/colleges/college-of-education-socia...
13
I was adopted at the age of 2 and a half from St Patrick's on the Navan Road, Dublin. I found my birth mother in 1983; it was a difficult reunion with my being unable to continue the relationship because she was not able to acknowledge me to her family. She died in 1996, the year the information about the baby and mother's homes were being more widely reported as was the existence of the Magdalen Laundries. I felt the collective trauma again reading about Tuam and felt a cosmic wave realizing how deeply entrenched the stigma really was towards unwed mothers and their children.
I am saddened I did not have this clarity when I spoke with my birth mother; it would have increased my understanding of her pain and externally imposed sense of shame. She was a gentle sweet woman; similar to Philomena as portrayed by Dame Judi Dench.
It is healing to know that people are willing to speak out and not allow this open secret to be used in the cruel manner that occurred for far too long
153
I went to Catholic grade school in the US and the nuns were brutal. I can laugh about it now but at the age of 13 I was told I was "bold and brazen, would end up in the gutter and never amount to anything." I tuned out quite well, thank you. But the shadow of those comments lingers and even in middle age, those comments can reverberate in my head. I have no doubt the nuns were warped by their own upbringing but the cruelty they visited upon us was unforgivable. And we were from 2 parent, Catholic homes, imagine if we hadn't been....
16
This story is heartbreaking and I'm thankful to Mr Barry and all the Times contributors.
But I am most thankful to young Catherine, the shy introvert, who grew up to tell the world about this sad, deplorable situation.
My mother was born to an unwed teenaged mother in Canada in the 1930's. We have her birth certificate, and in the space for the father's name says "Illegitimate". Had she been born in Ireland, perhaps none of the rest of us would have been born at all.
The apologists who say "that's the way it used to be", particularly among the religious orders, sorry, not good enough. Why is it that religions allow the most horrific treatment of others while they hold onto their bible while forgetting "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
Those that stand idly by while children in our country receive poor treatment by legislators who fail to renew the CHIP healthcare plan, take funding from the ACA, or food stamp programs. or K-12 education, or Medicaid are no better. Hopefully their day of reckoning is coming when the deaths of those affected become statistics that, large or small, are impossible to ignore.
24
Those fake Christians in Congress will have to answer to God about why they denied essential services to the poor, vulnerable and and disadvantaged, as well as destroying God's natural resources on Earth, while they fattened the wallets of the rich. They are no better than the Pharisees who denied Jesus, who will call them out for doing Satan's bidding. Their sin might be washed away after a few centuries in purgatory.
1
It seems humans are capable of any atrocity. What can possibly amend this?
Surely not a playground built over bones.
7
The grounds are cursed and haunted. A beautiful bird sanctuary with a statue in remembrance of The Children of Tuam.
2
Beautifully written and heart wrenching story of true crimes against humanity.
Also brought to public awareness by the films, "The Magdalene Sisters" and "Philomena". I am not aware of anyone prosecuted for these unspeakable crimes - including sexual abuse- known to have been committed by the Catholic Church.
Why?
13
The single reason I can imagine that this painful, tragic story hasn't elicited more comments is because it is truly so terrible and horrifying. How could any society relegate iinnocent children to lives of despair, loneliness, illness and death? How could any institution—the Catholic Church in Ireland, the Beau Secours nuns, the townspeople, the society at large—have been so heartless as to abandon and literally bury these children without a thought? Catherine Corless is heroic in her llabor to unearth this story and stand with the victims, both dead and alive. She is a true conscience for all humanity.
20
There is no redemption for these crimes. 'Of mothers and Children', a friend from Ireland sent me the following BBC series earlier this week:
https://youtu.be/SoNhz0WJZsI
Although I am an Irish-American, I have no wish to visit Ireland. That is because I am very aware of that country's past treatment of women and of "illegitimate" offspring. Unfortunately, we have similar. attitudes right here in the USA. If there is a God, and if he/she is a just God, that God will view such "religious" attitudes with horror.
6
Someone posted: This article demonstrates exactly why women need personal agency over our bodies. The same personal agency that every man alive is allowed, without legislation nor discussion, nor declaration of what medications or procedures they are allowed for their health and the course their lives might take.
You can't have it both ways. You can't say a baby has two parents and demand child support from the father (or the taxpayer) but then pretend the father (or society) don't exist and should have no say when you want to kill the baby.
6
If men don't want abortions to occur, let them grow babies inside their own bodies.
3
Thanks for this superb piece Mr. Barry. Some of us who occasionally read the UK and Irish press knew the outline of the story.
You brought Catherine Corliss to life. All too predictably the comment stream has devolved into a rant against religion and the Church of Rome. But Irish history and Irish society are indelibly interwoven here with this tragedy. A poor country without well-developed institutions (and a civil war at the start to boot) contracts out social services to the church and untrained women. Then and even now (mostly) the same church runs the schools in Ireland.
The ranting atheists give the Irish government a pass, and then overlook the realities of a colonial existence before independence. Even today I'd bet social services in developing countries rely heavily upon NGO's secular and religious. The RC church must rightly assume a portion of guilt. But so must the Irish state and society.
13
That is exactly what I thought. The hopelessness that affected so many lives under the Empire which like the Irish State and the Church is another patriarchal institution. This sad piece shows how deeply patriarchy can destroy humanity .... and to enlist women to do its bidding. Sad, very sad. I know many will howl, and I don't mean to equate the suffering of the poor mothers and babies, but in many ways those nuns were victims of the same patriarchy that forced those poor girls to the door of the Home.
2
Mr. Barry: You will hear this many times, and you should. This is a phenomenal piece of reporting. Thanks so much for writing the story, and for introducing us to Catherine Corliss, a shy and unobtrusive person, who forced a country to own up to its sins. Hats off to her, and to you.
17
An amazing (and tragic) novel about an unwed Irish Catholic teenager who becomes pregnant is "Felicia's Journey" by William Trevor. It's well worth reading, though I should warn you that you'll be in tears by the end.
8
Tuam, the Magdalene Laundries, other 'mother and baby homes' where crime was rife; horrible crime, and the perpetrators, the Bon Secours Sisters, their organization seem to think they can get away with a brusque 'No comment' when asked to respond.
Vile criminal acts for which there appears to be no answering, no judgement day, no punishment. 'No comment' indeed. Lost for mercy, lost for care, lost for words.
The depth of our sadness cannot even be even be mitigated by saying 'rest in peace' for how could that be wished on a child buried in a sewer?
16
I first saw the picture of the children several days ago. I could not help thinking that they were wearing borrowed clothes--kept for occasions like the one in the photo and then returned to a storeroom where they were kept boxed by size.
I also couldn't help thinking about their faces. The little girl in the bonnet with her hands folded as if in prayer. And the poor little guy on the right, who looked so sad and in such poor health.
It's hard to believe such practices ever took place, let alone within memory.
I'm glad this story is being told, but these children and their story must not be forgotten ever.
23
So much of the Irish story is, correctly, about their victimhood - the Famine, the English inhumanity - but now this. Will Ireland own this monstrous cruelty to its own tiny, defenseless, vulnerable children - and their mothers. I have enormous difficulty comprehending this heinous violence perped by God's servants in connivance with the Irish State.
I had to wipe tears from my eyes to finish reading the story. This darkness ought to be remembered next and every St. Patrick's Day by one marcher pushing an empty black pram.
36
A horror. I kept thinking of my neighbors growing up, a family of adopted children whose parents treasured them as the gifts they were, then I'd go back to reading about these poor babies who were literally stolen and neglected to death.
Catherine Corless is a saint.
29
Absolutely heartbreaking for the mothers and their children. At some point I hope the people of Ireland can come to a reckoning of their past. I don't pass judgement on the people of Ireland, our treatment of the Native Americans living here, relocating them, and ripping children from their families is no better. My sister was adopted from Greece in 1962--unwed birth mother, no father, and poor. Not that different than Ireland. My parents took her to the US when she was seven weeks old and even then my mother often spoke of the conditions in Greece. The babies were cared for, fed, diapers changed, but no extra holding, snuggling, rocking. My mother noticed after having two biological children subsequently that it took my sister a longer time to bond with her than the bio kids. And that was seven weeks. I shudder to think of what years of that kind of neglect can do.
103
Wretched but sublimely written piece. The depths to which women and children must sink in the face of patriarchal oppression is staggering. But so is the force of denial -- the strongest force in the universe, it would seem. May the departed urge us all onto a better path.
I recommend J. Courtney Sullivan's recent novel 'Saints For All Occasions' for American readers (particularly in the Boston area) for a modern American variation on this tale, btw.
10
most haunting story. I cannot get those babies out of my head.
Thank you Dan Barry and the New york TImes.
11
Horrible, not unbelievable. It looks as though the number of children "dying" increased over time. It would help if the authors had included what percentage of total children per year died. I'm afraid I come to the conclusion that it was more convenient and economic to feed fewer mouths.
RIP little ones, you deserve it.
10
A powerful story and very sad...
5
I couldn't put this down yesterday morning. I'm grateful that people are doing this work and telling these stories. Thank you, Catherine Corless. Holding institutions and people accountable for their actions is appropriate. Asking folks to forgive and move on is akin to the racist remarks to "get over slavery."
6
What's to be done with a prodigal son?
Welcome him home with open arms
Throw a big party, invite your friends
Our boy's come back home
When a girl goes home with the oats he's sown
It's draw your shades and your shutters
She's bringing such shame to the family name
The return of the prodigal daughter
40
Praying that the Irish Government does the right thing for the children by investigating all the homes where the children were housed and finding all the remains and give them a proper burial and Momorial
3
We cannot just blame the church. Yes, they were implicated. But in order for this system to work, the entire society needed to be complicit. Including and especially the government. In addition, these young women had mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. The Guards (the police) would bring escapees back if they fled. In the laundries, the citizens of Ireland brought their clothes weekly to be washed. As Irish people, we have to confront the fact that this was not a secret. We all knew about it, and let it happen. Thankfully, our society can produce a Catheen Corless. A living national treasure. We need to think carefully about how we in Ireland approach the overall rights of women, sex eduxation, the sexual abuse of women, and women's reproductive rights, and then act. This is the only way that we can atone for this atrocity. Please remember that just blaming the church let's everybody else off the hook.
244
Well said Thomas. Yes, Ireland, all of it, needs to own this appalling cruelty.
6
In talking to my husband about this article, he pointed out that the church in Ireland and the government were one and the same for much of its history. I know from our Irish Catholic cleric ridden experience in grade school in the U.S. that girls were okay until we reached about 12yrs old. Our priest had nothing good to say of women. He made it clear there was something bad, evil about us, pretty much leaving us mystified. Society is a top down proposition, the people in power set the rule. If you're raised to not question authority, especially, from people near the Almighty, who claim to have the inside scoop, who at one time were the only ones who could read/write, your conditioned to be compliant, afraid to be otherwise with good cause.
7
Agreed, we should not JUST blame the church. But we should blame the Church first and foremost. It is the black hole at the center of the universe created when religion and state are conjoined, a prospect anticipated by many Trump supporters on this side of the Atlantic.
3
I wish devoted religious people should start paying attention to all that has and still is being done by their self appointed representatives pursuing their self-rightous agenda of grotesque cruelties. God is obviously not present anymore. An if he ever existed, he probably gave up the human race long time ago and moved to another Galaxy.
16
Dear Mr. Barry, Thank you for your work. You join the ranks of numerous reporters who bring critical attention to deranged social behaviors that have infected communities and countries around the world. Brave Catherine Corliss is to be honored for her persistent research that documents the children and mothers who were victimized by villainous religious and societal norms. The pompous and powerful took it upon themselves to destroy emotional, familial, and most reprehensibly, physical lives. The silent witnesses and apologists for such systematic abuse colluded. Congratulations on a well-written, breathtaking story interwoven with haunting graphics.
I write not only to laud your work, but to make certain that you know about the Canadian residential schools for Aboriginal children unwillingly yet legally taken from their homes. 50,000 dead school children and innumerable injured survivors resulted. Kevin Annet, an Anglican minister exposed the secrets of the government-sponsored, Catholic- and Anglican-run schools. His work, similar to that of Ms. Corliss, was viciously condemned. Find the award-winning documentary, "Unrepentant: Canada's Residential Schools" on YouTube. It will expand anyone's comprehension of the evil committed by those who are certain of their own superiority. It is gut-wrenching as are the testimonies of numerous U.S. and Canadian residential school survivors who tell their stories on this and other YT videos.
42
Even with this story and many like this, people continue to be members of the Catholic Church. Looking the other way so that they do not see the crimes that are being committed. I don't understand how they can justify their faith in this organization.
31
Written with reverence. Stark horror of the subject matter - contrasting with the pure eloquence with which it is presented.
A fitting tribute to the harrowing memory of these tragic lives and deaths.
Even the Nobel Peace Prize might not be enough for this humble, amazing woman.
I cried most all the way through. (Thank you, Times.)
38
I have read earlier stories about what the Irish establishment, both government and the Catholic church, did to young "fallen women" but this takes the cake. I read the story with a knot in the pit of my stomach. Thank heavens for investigators who persevere.
BTW, We have hospitals in our region run by Bon Secour. Hope they have changed their approach.
22
There were places like this in the US, as well. This is the world when abortion is illegal, and the church is in control of the law. How un-God-like and un-Christian so many political "Christians" truly are.
43
Thank you, Dan Barry and The New York Times, for such a hard-hitting piece that is remarkably poetic in its description of unthinkable, collective cruelty to children and their mothers.
I join the hope of many others that as much light as possible is shed on these crimes against humanity, and that as much reparation as possible is provided to those who survived their stolen childhoods under such heartless conditions. For those poor little ones who died so young, at least let us know their names. They deserve to be remembered.
131
This summer last my nephew and I discovered a statue of a young boy in the garden and we called it 'The Lost Child'.
Perhaps Pope Francis will visit Ireland and give a Mass for the Children of Tuam, inviting other Catholics around the world to join in prayers for the Lost Souls responsible for these atrocities against Humanity.
4
I knew before I read this story that it would make me profoundly sad, and it did. But the story must be read, and we must never forget how things were back then. Thank you for sharing this with us.
32
Catherine Corless: thank you. For telling the stories of these poor children. For standing up.
And thanks to the New York Times writers. This story is a lesson for modern times...we need MORE separation of church and state than less in the United States, and women deserve to control their bodies and their futures.
45
My mother grew up in Ireland in the 20's and 30's. She left in 1945. These young women could have been her. I didn't weep reading this story. I sobbed.
4
My family (Boston Irish Catholic types) shared this article around with horror. I was glad that they were able to see that forcing young women to give birth has real consequences, and that aligning church and state can be a dangerous combination.
And then I reminded them (some of them Trump voters) that the current administration tried to force a teenager to give birth just in the past couple of weeks. They got really quiet after that.
161
Good one, mem !
21
From a Boston Irish ex-Catholic, well said.
6
What an amazing piece, and yet so few comments. Here goes: I grew up in the 60s, in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. There was no sin more unforgivable for a woman than pregnancy before marriage. The parents and siblings of the single women in these times, and the men who impregnated them, bear as much responsibility for the fates of those children as the nuns who could not care for them. This is not a stain on the Church, as I see it, but a condemnation of prevailing attitudes - that children born to women who were conceived outside marriage were less deserving of love and acceptance than those born into nuclear families.
12
It is a stain on the church, and the government of Ireland. These were the teachings of the church: that children born out of wedlock were somehow "less than" other children. Those two entities made and enforced the rules and mores of the time. They turned a blind eye to what was and is an ethical and moral stance on human life. It was those policies that accounted for the fact that so many innocent children not only lost their lives, but their families, and a chance for a better life.
It took a very brave and dedicated woman to bring this matter to light. Catherine Corless is a hero in my eyes.
13
I disagree. It was the church that preached the sinfulness of unwed mothers. It is important to take note of the fact that the fathers were allowed to go on with their life, unscathed by the shame of an unwanted pregnancy. The priests knew what was happening and kept quiet. Just like they kept quiet about the thousands of young boys that were being abused. I too am Irish and was raised as a Catholic. How anyone can continue to support the Catholic Church is beyond me. In my high school in southern California, a pregnant 10th grader was kicked out of school while the 12th grad father was allowed to continue his year and graduate. This occurred in the late 70's. The nuns, the priests, and the government are culpable for Tuam. The Catholic Church is nothing more than a bunch of men who still feel that they have the right to dictate what women do with their own bodies. Count me out. What the Church allowed to happen in Tuam, and probably in other places, was the antithesis of Christ-like behavior. I am ashamed that I ever considered myself a Catholic.
16
I think you are prevaricating. This is a huge stain on the Catholic Church since the cultrual mores and strictures of society stemmed in no small measure from our religious beliefs or rather brainwashing.
I also grew up Catholic, My mother bless her soul always told us to question everything and you are not a bad person if you do. While she had a healthy respect for authority and loved to practice her faith she was ruthless in taking off the blinders - especially since the first man who tried to kiss her was a priest. She cracked us up with how she ran as if the devil was at her heels - heck he was....
The Catholic Church like so much of religion has much blood on its hands.
10
I was an adopted child. In 1959, my eighteen year-old birth mother was sequestered into a home for unwed mothers in San Francisco. Her parents were new immigrants from Hungary, steeped in Old World ways, and felt shame that their teenage unwed daughter was now pregnant with an "illegitimate" child. I was born, given to an adoption agency and then placed with a loving couple.
This story of the Tuam home absolutely devastated me. My personal story in no way compares, yet reading this exquisitely written story shook me to the core. I couldn't speak after reading it. It re-opened wounds within me I have long thought were, if not healed, at least were intellectually understood and now benign. I was wrong. The truth of our birth and the bond between mother and child sits at the heart of who we are as a human being.
Dan Barry and the NY Times deserves a Pulitzer Prize for this unforgettable story.
146
Brave reporting. The still silent community that allows this is here & now, too.
25
It seems the Catholic Church can now hold its head up even more proudly than it ever has over the last 2000 years or so.
Its transgressions and oppressions get ever more egregious (a far too mild word for the horrors it has instigated for almost 20 centuries).
21
A few months ago I read about this terrible episode (one of so many!), in Irish and British publications. Some of those reporters did an excellent job, but Mr. Barry has taken the story to a whole different level - making it both very specific, local, personal, and also pointing to the universal human failings and prejudices that allowed this to happen in Tuam and continue to allow such "inhumanity" (if that's the right word, and I'm afraid it's not) all over the world. It helps to have the voice of the heroic Catherine Corless front and center. I hope in future we can hear from more of the survivors.
40
Catherine Corliss is a national treasure.
Here's a link to the names of the 796 babies and children who died in the Tuam home. We remember them: http://www.thejournal.ie/list-names-tuam-babies-children-3270019-Mar2017/
31
Thank you. What is stunning to me is that the researcher, amazing writer, is ONLY ten years older than me..... which means babies born ten years earlier than me, and I'm not that old, were in this horrible situation. It is amazing how time passes. Let us not forget this reality.
4
A moving account of a heartbreaking past. The comments though are mostly about outrage, lashing out at selected groups who performed those reprehensible acts. Rehashing their bad deeds is pointless and easy to do. Violence have been and is committed in all cultures at some point, no single group is immune.
The lessons of this remarkable reporting are about the present. As individuals, in our daily lives, let us channel our energy and compassion towards tolerance and awareness of each other. This is harder than outrage at the past.
12
The lesson of this reported horror show are about truth, truthtellers, denialists, religious fraud, man's inhumanity and reconciliation (to the extent that is possible).
Outrage is the proper frame of mind and the proper response.
51
The piercing, haunting, heartbreaking truth of this story only came out because one woman continued to ask, 'Why?' Catherine Corless is a humble seeker, giving her time unselfishly to help the children and the women who were crushed by this oppressive secret. May each of us speak truth to power and protect the vulnerable right where we live...
32
It hurts my heart to read this.
However, it does not surprise me that the Catholic church could easily justify throwing away women and children in this manner.
The church has been doing it since its founding. The greatest sins are their own.
Why they use fear and terror in the name of God is beyond me.
They lost me when I was in third grade.
36
This is this is a portrait of a society where contraception and birth control were fiercely opposed by the entire society - the government and the church and by most common people. Frank McCourt’s mother - of Angela’s Ashes fame (or infamy) boasted that she opposed contraception - she had seven kids - three died in early childhood. Do those people who are making a political and a religious crusade to eliminate the contraception mandate really believe that what happened in Tuam and elsewhere on our planet is something to be encouraged?
35
I can hear almost hear the voice of the late Christopher Hitchens pointing out: This happened in a country that was a de facto Catholic theocracy, a country that wore its "Christian" piety on every sleeve and stocking.
The New Testament is really really clear on this point: Jesus believed passionately that outcasts, the vulnerable, and children (and these children were all three) were the closest to God and deserved, more than anyone else, the protection of people on earth. Christian Ireland did just the opposite of what Jesus tells them to do.
And here's why this story is relevant to 21st-century Americans. So-called "Christian" Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States are even worse. They vote for Repubican politicians who kowtow to the rich and revel in their cruelty to the poor and vulnerable. They talk only about abortion; they are silent when their beloved GOP strives to take away health care access for 50 million people in order to give billionaires another tax cut.
What would Jesus say to American Christians today? Read the New Testament and the answer is there plain as day.
90
The bible is fiction, if Jesus ever existed no one wrote anything he said down for two hundred years, it is all a creation myth, nothing more. 70 billion stars in our galaxy, a small one. 100 billion galaxies. Do the math. Get real humanity, this is all invention, nothing more.
6
Remember USA for UNHR and UNICEF for today's neglected little ones - just
as sweet, just as much in need. Each one can help one. Perhaps in
thanksgiving to Catherine Corless, this very day.
8
Excellent and so very saddening.
My only hope is that those who perpetrated this atrocity actually meet their loving deity, and are dispatched by such appropriately.
13
A picture says a thousand words. It boggles the mind that these these beautiful, innocent children were put in a penitentiary for life and degradation and even killed, buried in unmarked graves. And for what?
To avoid the stigma of being born out of wedlock - a stigma wrought upon people by dogmatic, supercilious, sanctimonious people who decide on what is morality. But all they are - are religious, cruel Zealots.
That was early 19th Century. Seems like nothing much has changed in the 21st Century either! No oral contraception, no abortion or make it very hard. A few cells being more important than two full humans... humans destroyed for the rest of their lives. Religious Zealots then, Religious Zealots now. No wonder, the greatest messiah, Jesus Christ joined His Father in Heaven. He just could'nt take the cruelty on Earth anymore.
14
Ask yourself if the treatment endured by the mothers and children at Tuam came from a Catholic Church that celebrates life and values babies, or a Catholic Church that controls and punishes women's sexual behavior. All this while it allows men's sexual behavior to do what it will to women (or children), unfettered by shame or responsibility. That was the Catholic culture then, and that is the Catholic culture today, regardless of the words that get said about choosing life.
Catholic parishioners who love their church, and who are people of integrity and justice, should demand church reforms which recognize and seek to correct the church's historic denigration of women, including the expectation that married women will serve as breeding stock, and the treatment of nuns as second-class citizens.
The first thing on the reform agenda should be the elimination of the church ban on artificial birth control for women throughout the world.
349
As as a descendant of Irish imigrants driven out by English colonialism in the Potato Famine from County Kerry, and deeply scarred by Catholic education in the 1960s I find this excellent story deeply troubling. When we buried my mother I told by siblings I would not set foot in a Catholic Church again unless I wen in a Postal fashion.
Religion's insistence on overwhelming control and complete lack of understanding in terms of sexuality is destroying this world even today.
Seventy billion stars in our galaxy, 100 billion galaxies. How anyone can believe the guy who built all of this listens to your thoughts and acts on them, cares about who you have sex with and then when you die magically takes you somewhere we, who have mapped every rock within ten light years of earth can't find is beyond me.
30
"The guy who built all of this"? There is your problem right there -
4
Ireland, being an impoverished country made the church and primarily the nuns responsible for social work. They were untrained and most likely unwilling. Then it just steamrolled over puritanical views on babies born out of wedlock; ironic since the church adores Mary as no other religion does. These women were uneducated and had no resources so things went badly over and over again. Our hearts break over this tragedy but tell me how things have changed. St. Joseph’s Home for Children in South Minneapolis takes in thousands of children of all ages every year who have been thrown away by their “parents. “ This safe haven is run by Catholic Charities and the people who work there are modern day Saints who care profoundly for these children and are highly trained and devoted. So our care givers have evolved but children are still cast aside for drugs, alcohol, and other unspeakable abuses. How has society evolved from this sickness of neglect for our youngest and most vulnerable?
11
Did you even read the article? The Tuam children weren't "cast aside for drugs, alcohol, and other unspeakable abuses." These are children who were born in the home and forcibly separated from their mothers, who were only deemed unfit because they were unwed. Mothers who attempted to reclaim their children were rebuffed by the nuns. The children weren't neglected by their parents, but by the society that insisted on "caring" for them.
12
While they were doing this in Ireland with their myths about abomination, religion was also doing it in Canada.
I was a researcher on the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions report in Canada. That was unbelievable. As an American Indian my heart screamed as the report was ripped from our consciousness.
When American journalists in the NYTimes preach at the Russian Communists for starving the Kulaks, the Russians were just repeating what McDonald did with the Indian Plain's Peoples in Canada to clear the land.
In the US it was the government taken over by myths of superiority and original sin that created the schools that replaced the original American Indian Academies, (like the Choctaw Academy) that the Indian Nations themselves started to train their own children.
What happened in Ireland then was happening here under the tutelage of people who now scream murderer at people who practice birth control.
Guilt? "Repressed Rage" as I was taught in my training as a therapist.
There are so many unconscious rip tides rolling through the American psyche that it's a wonder that we can look our neighbors in face when we claim to "love them in our prayers."
Look at what this Irish religion called these children who were accidental births.
13
In the 1990's I worked in a Catholic Hospital in India. I was shocked by the cruelty and barbarism I saw displayed by the nuns working in the maternity ward. Later, I learned they were almost all foundlings who were turned over to the nuns, brought up in poverty and unloved. There are few true villains, only the repeating story of people in power who perpetuate their experience of a cold and cruel world.
185
Even though this is a tragic story, it is wonderfully written by Dan Barry. I grew up not far from Tuam and thought I knew all there was to know about Catherine Corliss and the Tuam babies but Mr. Barry and his crew provided additional insight, particularly into Ms. Corliss's own background and that of survivors of abuse. I think a new day has dawned and don't believe this type of thing would go in in Ireland in current times. The Catholic Church doesn't have such a stranglehold on people as it did in the past.
25
I wonder how the upcoming referendum on legalizing abortion in Ireland will turn out. Will some Irish vote yes just to save children from both the Church and the State?
2
"Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"
Latin for "So passes the glory of the world [into oblivion]." It’s a Catholic saying that has usually been interpreted as something similar to, “worldly things are fleeting”.
Yet there are sins of pride and idolatry, and there are sins of pride and idolatry, some of them committed by entities that consider themselves to be “infallible” and to be “one, true religions”.
I grew up a Roman Catholic; I can still recite the "Our Father" in Latin. With my own experiences with Roman Catholic priests and nuns and with stories like this one, so has passed into oblivion the glory of something that once, through its unrepentant sins of pride and idolatry, called itself “the one, true religion” in my life.
Yet these “sins” are not confined to Roman Catholicism. They are, in many ways, the workings of world religions: Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist. In the latter case, we currently see the usually easy-going Buddhists in Miramar slaughtering Muslims in the name of their non-deity.
Religion in general needs to learn humility, particularly when it posits an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal deity, something that is incomprehensible, and then insists on equating itself with that deity. Again, there are sins of pride and idolatry, and there are sins of pride and idolatry.
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
17
It makes you cry....
11
Yes indeed Mary, hang your head in shame for your church and these poor, poor little babes tossed into the muck for the failure of your precious, pedestal virginity. Of course men are innocent of any carnal sin here (poor Adam) and continue so. DNA testing and data banks for all males and we will have a lot fewer 'unwed Mothers' on the welfare roles.
15
What do you expect from religious & cultural beliefs that we humans are made in "God's image & likeness" and that image is that of a man?
10
When ever people venerate the Pope I always think about how the Catholic Church has treated women over the ages. It makes me very ill and I loathe the entire institution. This is just another unearthed example of the misogyny and hatred these men have towards women. Evil is an understatement.
31
This article is the proof that our nation is off the tracks.
The trumpian world of, No Proof Needed, has dictated women's reproduction will be dictated by any poser claiming "morals", "ethics" or "religion".
Well, here's those "morals"at work: "The Dead of Tuam", dead children, children who were selected to die because of someone else's definition of "morality".
These were actual, living, breathing, autonomous individuals and so the charge here is "murder". Secretly killed, secretly stuffed into a septic tank.
Ah, what "morals", what "ethics"..... what murderers.
We have our own version of the "Bon Secours". They are called "The Little Sisters of The Poor". Both are agents of the Catholic Church.
These women are of a specific type:
They are childless.
They are sexless.
They are single.
They are celibate.
They are like the men of that specific religion.
I have to wonder how many of these "moral" women stood by and watched these "moral" men rape the older children.
I have to wonder how many of these "moral men" sat by and watched these women starve off those living babies.
These are the people that trumpites are passing off as our "moral" superiors.
These are the ones running this nation.
We have Lloyd, a religious zealot in Texas, denying legal specifics to captive minors: No birth control, no abortion.
He's another "Mother Hortense".
Charges must be brought against every zealot... for we have our own septic tanks that could be filled.
Thank you, Catherine Corless.
16
If there is a human institution that has done more harm over the centuries and all over the world than the Catholic Church, I don't know what it is. And it continues today: the Vatican is still sheltering child abusers such as Cardinal Law, retains almost all of its wealth and continues to contribute to the global subjugation of girls and women.
35
I'd sure be curious to hear what the current pope has to say about this....
16
Behold the Catholic abortion factory. Thank you for exposing yet another crime against women and children that the church has NEVER really apologized for.
17
This short film and others like it, along with the New York Times' stellar news reporting on a daily basis continues to validate the worth of my online subscription.
19
In the late 1960s I was born a daughter of an unwed mother and ended up in foster care as a teenager. I saw my future options: go to college or go to the military. I went to college, travelled the world, including Ireland when I was 19 traveling alone. I made my own choices, constantly realizing that had I been born but a few years earlier, I would have been forced into manual labor, or forced into marriage, or forced into the church. I have counted these blessings every day - feeling the freedom of being a modern American woman, being my own person with no one telling me what to do or who to be. It's sobering to realize that may have been much more a momentary exception than the evolving rule.
158
You might have been my younger sister’s daughter.
Thanks for your comment. Thank goodness times have changed!
8
This is why I subscribe to the New York Times - in-depth, highly researched and well-written stories like this one. Thanks to all who worked on this story. It is very haunting. Of course, there is no rectifying what was done in the past. It is up to society to see that such cruel, inhumane situations such as this do not occur again. It is too simplistic to just lay blame at the feet of the church or the government although both have much responsibility for the actions of the subject institution. No, it seems more of a failure of Irish society at that time - to let guilt and shame over a perfectly normal human act drive people to hide their own flesh and blood behind cold, gray stone walls. One take-away from this depressing piece of history is that it is truly terrible to combine church and state. Keep religion out of our government.
74
Thank you for opening this article up for comments.
It's not surprising that something like Tuam happened under the teachings of a strictly patriarchal system that views women and child as property. With no man to claim them, they are unwanted and disposable.
28
As I read the horrific account of these children I harkened back to the book by Frank McCourt, "Angela's Ashes". His account of his Irish impoverished upbringing chronicled in many instances the insensitivity of the church toward children and poverty. Priests and nuns ruled without challenge. Now dead, Mr. McCourt might weep in his grave to read of the children of Tuam. Perhaps he would not be surprised at these crimes.
14
In 2015, watched the personal account "Since Maggie went away" which was turned into a play. It was one of many, including films and books like "The Baby Thief".
What the women, the children, the families had to go through is simply unforgivable. Many still suffer. Yet, what has been the response so far - from governments, religious leaders, communities?
7
"Catherine Corless, née Farrell, 63, a grandmother with a smile not easily given, and any fealty to Catholicism long since lost."
Catherine teaches us all that It's never too late to be a hero in life.
Thank you for uncovering the truth and the wickedness of humanity and organized religion that tortured and abused so many souls "in the name of the Lord".
This story is why so many people hold religion in complete contempt.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg
A human horror show revealed by a woman with more honesty and humanity in her eyelash than the entire medieval Catholic Church.
109
This article demonstrates exactly why women need personal agency over our bodies. The same personal agency that every man alive is allowed, without legislation nor discussion, nor declaration of what medications or procedures they are allowed for their health and the course their lives might take.
Remember - Viagra is covered, but birth control is not necessarily( allegedly for religious reasons but this is a lie - it is all about control). ... abortion is not covered, and it is open season on the question of whether or not insurance coverage for maternity care is mandated. Really?
All of us are born of woman. At least so far.
This particular story played out in Ireland, but it could be anywhere. Even here.
All of this suffering, of the mothers, of the children, is because these women had no personal agency over their bodies. They were shamed while their male partners were not. And because they had no access to birth control. They were punished to warn other women, other girls. Because for a woman to do the same as a man is a crime.
This is why we need access to both birth control and abortion. To mitigate human suffering.
All of this was so unnecessary.. and look at the lives lost and needless suffering of both the young mothers and their offspring..now elderly but still carrying the trauma of what they endured as children. Look at them shed tears even now.
256
The deplorable fact is that these scenarios played out globally. Children were routinely abandoned in orphanages because the mother was “unwed”. It was a common occurrence. Charles Dickens noted this as well. It also occurred in America, too. When I was growing up in Brooklyn (many years ago) there was a singularly forbidding building that was run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd that housed pregnant unmarried women.
17
Thank you to both journalists responsible for bringing this moving story to the Times. The historian who uncovered the truth does not sound like an "amateur" to me. She sounds like a woman of integrity, diligence and faith.
204
As I read this powerful story, I recalled Dan Barry's words, spoken at a recent college commencement, which explain why he could do this reporting and put into words a heartbreaking cruelty that needed to be exposed: http://www.sbu.edu/about-sbu/news-events/latest-news/news-release/2016/0...
Fr. Dan Riley taught Barry “the gaping chasm between cynicism and skepticism.” Jean Trevarton Ehman taught him the “excitement of going out and finding a newspaper story.” And most important, Custodian Tony Villani, a man others often belittled, helped him recognize the “‘otherness’ that exists in society — the segregation we impose on people we think are not like us.”
11
Yet another shameful and horrendous example of the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. The term pro-life is laughable in the face of the resounding evidence of the suffering of women and children, not just in Tuam, but all over the world, by this patriarchal bastion of greed and misogyny. Lies. Lies. And more lies. Shame on them.
230
There should be more than shame on them, there should be indictments and other legal ramifications. Is this any different than the atrocities of the Nazis?
17
It's not just the Catholic Church - many pro-life supporters can also be found among those who call themselves Christians but adhere to the Protestant Faith. Bet the same goes on in any religion the world over, where women are deemed lesser beings and treated as such.
It is not just Catholic church leaders who are hypocrites, liars, but their followers who enable such circumstances and societies to exist - and heaven help anybody daring to go against it, to dare challenge their ideas and ideals.
14
According to the Christian interpretation of Genesis. during the last 2,000 years God has created each and every newborn baby as a sinner in need of salvation to avoid burning in hell. Well, God should spend the next 2,000 years begging for humanity's forgiveness for all of the pain and suffering he has inflicted on all us, especially the children.
Of course, that won't happen...mere humans like me are far less vain and less violent, and more forgiving, than any "God."
In fact, American Christians (Catholics as well as Protestant) are in love with the Lord Donald Trump, the fire and fury, locked and loaded Christ, who has replaced the sandal-clad, bearded peacenik in the robe from Galilee.
Riddle: What's the difference between a suicide bomber and a clergyman or woman? One kills you instantly for God. The other dedicates her/his life to killing you during your entire life...as a preparation for your death.
42
Finger pointing at the Irish for mistreating the infants at Tuam is easy, but if we investigated homes for unwed mothers in the US we would find the same thing. Unwed mothers in the US, told their babies died found out the babies were sold to childless couples. Spain had a big scandel also with nuns selling babies. Anywhere there are large numbers of children being warehoused there is room for physical abuse, sexual abuse, starvation, barbaric punishments and lack of medical care.
Many Catholics look back fondly on their nun teachers while telling stories about punishments that are hair-raising to non-Catholics. People forget that back in the good old days, many women were forced into the convent by their parents whether they wanted to or not. It was the custom to send their older girl into to the nunnery with no escape because it would shame the family. My take on this is not a group of holy women being closer to God, but a group of angry women who took out their resentment on the children in their care. Even though all the children at Tuam were baptized, they were considered property to sell or discard as garbage if they died. Just the idea of putting them in a septic tank is disgusting and was a violation of the church law.
Is this all that different from Georgetown University selling their human property to slave-holders in the south with their only worry being they had to be able to go to mass? They didn't care they would be discarded as garbage when they died.
93
Have thee been kinds of homes in the United State in the late nineteenth century or the early twentieth century. I seem to remember some thing similar
13
You might start reading "The Baby Thief" by Barbara Bisantz Raymond if you can find it; there must be many more book, films etc available who focus on the US-side of stories
5
This is truly heartbreaking.
33
Mentioned briefly, but what written all over is the fact that the men who fathered these children received absolutely no punishment or stigma whatsoever. It has little to do with the sin of premarital sex per se but everything to do with controlling women and their sexuality. This is what the GOP means when they say they want to bring us back to the good old days when men were men who could do as they pleased and women were either tied to the home or wanton sluts worthy of punishment. If women have access to birth control, how will you know which women are "pure" and which ones are human refuse? How many more women and children have to suffer because powerful but small men, be it in the government or in the Catholic church, refuse to relinquish control over our bodies?
219
Why would punishing and stigmatizing the fathers in any way relieve or redeem the sufferings of the mothers and children? It is quite likely that in many cases the fathers would have gladly taken part in raising the child, but the Church and State would not allow this.
Clueless. It could go on, and still does because men faced few consequences. What an excuse for misogyny you give.
14
Paul, I suspect that you missed the part where these children were put in the septic tank because they had no 'fathers'. The two that Corless found who were properly buried had been legitimate. Not so the ones who were "born on the other [wrong] side of the blanket". They were neglected and starved.
Sure, it would have been nice if these children had had a man's name to back them up, but until you offer some proof that there were scads of men begging to marry these women, to claim their child, then I will suspect that every one of them ran, sneered at any woman so stupid to lay with a man, even them, without the marriage sanction of the Holy Church.
Truth? I see the Church and the "fathers" in collusion, always have been and always will be. In fact, I suspect that the priests knew exactly who the "father" in 99% of all cases. They knew because the pregnant girls/women told them. They knew because the men confessed such in the confessional. And, I suspect that the priests told the men to walk away from such a tramp. And, I also suspect that those men remembered the Church fondly in their wills, decades later, long after "their child" had been stowed away in a septic tank.
Who was creepy in all this? The Church, the priests, the dna fathers, and the nuns. They all colluded on these dead children.
Please provide some proof on your claim that a man, any man, was begging to protect his child.
Also, provide proof that the Church and State were standing in their way.
13
This is really a tragic story. I wonder how many times this was repeated throughout the world where the children of unwed mothers in the care of religious organizations were neglected to the point of death.
59
Not just unwed mothers - what to think of children born of mixed race and the mother dying or the father divorcing her to marry a white woman? Plenty such children ended up being abandoned as 'orphans'; being 'taken care of' by nuns.
9
This is an ongoing tragedy. Not past tense.
12
I lived abroad for many years. Our civil rights movement inspired others to to confront deep problems in their own countries, look at them critically and work toward resolving them.
I think it speaks highly of the Irish people that this painful issue has been carefully researched and presented in a factual manner. I hope this brings peace to some of the affected families.
Note to John Kelly and "respect for women" -- this is of a piece with what I experienced growing up in an Irish neighborhood in Brooklyn in the fifties. "Respect for women" doesn't align well with unwed pregnancies. What to do? The answer, in the fifties and sixties at least, was to send the girls away, squelch any rumors (e.g., say the girl was sent to help out a faraway aunt with many children) and pretend that nothing happened.
Ironically, the lesson I took was to work and put away enough money to be able to go to England and get an abortion if I needed one.
90
Dear God. This is so distressing. So many died without names, without care.
62
reading about the bleak, lonely lives of these children and women was so very sad. I don't even know how it can ever be compensated for, but I am glad it was exposed.
65
So much for the sanctity of life and the Catholic Church.
146
Thank you for a beautifully written and devastating piece. It engendered a restless sleep haunted by the pale ghosts of these poor unloved souls.
70
No human being should ever be branded illegitimate, without rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and no person shouldl ever be treated the way the women and children were in these mother-and-baby concentration camps. This is nothing less than mass murder in the false name of religion
203
In the '90s I worked in genetics, a world leading genotyper told me that 10-12% of people are not sired by their father. And it matters not where they are from, those rates are the same in all cultures.
There are two lessons there, first it's a biological drive and second go back three or four generations and we are all illegitimate. We are animals, not angels. Religion is way past it's expiration date, it is doing more harm than good.
11