Sorry about the triple post. I tried to eliminate 2 of them with no success.
800 Infant Bodies Found in a Septic Tank at Roman Catholic Children's Home
by cofty 43 Replies latest social current
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fulltimestudent
The UK Independent has published these images. How peaceful the scene looks, reminiscent of the present scenes of the Nazi holocaust. How is the actions of these Christians different to those of the Nazi SS.
And the Idol of Jesus in a similar home, looks on impotently, doing nothing to alleviate the suffering of these young children, who it seems, lived their short lives in terror and abuse. What inhuman monsters these women must have been.
But the greatest monster is Jesus himself. Where was he as these kids suffered?
I am reminded of the sarcasm of Elijah. A slight adjustment to the text describes Jesus' inaction to the suffering of these children. Was Jesus also having a sh*t?
27 About noontime, Elijah began mocking them.
“You’ll have to shout louder than that,” he scoffed, “to catch the attention of Jesus your god! Perhaps he is talking to someone, or is out sitting on the toilet, or maybe he is away on a trip, or is asleep and needs to be wakened!” 1 Kings 18:27 (TLB)
The site of a mass grave for children who died in the Tuam mother and baby home, in Tuam County Galway.
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In another similar home, a statue of Jesus reminds us of his failure to help these torture children
A statue of Jesus in the grounds of the Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Tipperary, which was mother and baby home operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary from 1930 to 1970
Ireland mass graves: Unearthing one of the darkest chapters in Irish history.
The "Irish Holocaust" saw hundreds of babies left to die – and the practice may have been more common than first thought
AThe first glimpse of the horror came in the 1970s when two boys prised up some cracked concrete slabs in the grounds of a home run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, County Galway. One of them, Barry Sweeney, then 12 years old, vividly recalls the moment: “There it was,” he says, “skulls piled on top of each other. It was just bones and bits of rags and whatever, just a jumble.”
He and his friend took to their heels. “We just ran,” he recalls. The adults they ran to were also shocked, but at the time it was not regarded as a sensational discovery, for Ireland holds many unmarked graves, often containing the remains of victims of the 19th-century famine.
The bodies of the infants had been stacked – buried is too formal a word – in a disused septic tank. The scene was sealed, a priest gave a blessing and locals erected a grotto.
Only now is the realisation dawning that for decades the Galway earth has held the skeletons of 800 babies and toddlers in “a jumble” that is one of the country’s most unthinkable secrets.
Each new detail of what is being called the Irish Holocaust brings fresh horror. The children were the offspring of unmarried mothers who were housed in a nearby home run by nuns. Many died of malnutrition, at a mortality rate suspiciously well above the national average.
They were stacked on top of each other, in shrouds not coffins, their bodies consigned to the septic tank over a period of decades. No one yet knows whether they bear any marks of identification: it sounds unlikely. If not, they may never be individually identified.
The episode has already produced shock but worse may be to come: there were numerous similar homes throughout the country, and it is not known what kind of burial arrangements applied there.
Irish nuns have in recent decades gained a reputation for harshness and cruelty towards unwed mothers and their offspring.
Institutions they controlled, such as the Magdalene laundries, were described in official reports as frightening places where inmates were subjected to “rigid and uncompromising regimes with harsh and physically demanding work”.
Food was poor, malnutrition common. In a loveless atmosphere, many children were separated from their mothers and subjected to forced adoption – a story told recently in the film Philomena, starring Judi Dench. about Philomena Lee’s experience.
The Catholic church has taken a pounding from revelations of child sexual abuse by its priests and cover-ups by their bishops. But the burial site at Tuam has conjured up fresh nightmare visions and allegations of nuns behaving with disregard for life: one politician has said what happened was manslaughter.
“They were allowed to die of neglect,” is the accusation from campaigner Susan Lohan. “We have anecdotal evidence from women that babies who had an obvious disability or frailty at birth were not nurtured. They were set aside in a separate room and were just allowed to pass away.”
The contempt of the nuns for the children appears to have extended not just to their physical health but also their spiritual well-being. Even in death they were not given Christian burials: their funerals, it is said, were perfunctory affairs before they were put into the septic tank by workmen.
The records show that the children often died of disease in the Tuam orphanage while it was in operation between 1926 and 1961. It came to light by accident when Catherine Corless, a local genealogist and historian, was researching the home.
Today a local committee has been set up to press for a proper memorial which would bear all the children’s names.
Church figures have been quick to respond. The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, said it would be a priority to obtain “a dignified re-interment of the remains of the children in consecrated ground”.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, went further, calling for “a full-bodied inquiry” into such homes, describing what had emerged as “sickening.”
The Bon Secours Sisters said they were shocked and deeply saddened, promising to cooperate with any investigation “to establish the full truth of what happened”.
Note the hypocrisy in the statement by the Catholic order responsible for the atrocities. How can it be that no-one in the order no knows what was happening in these homes?
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rebel8
I guess I'm missing how the OP relates to Hitler, slavery, ritual human sacrifice.
The story mentioned in the OP states:
County Galway death records showed that the children, mostly babies and toddlers, had died, often of sickness or disease, during the 35 years the home operated from 1926 to 1961
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The researcher, Catherine Corless, has said her discovery of child death records from the home run by Catholic nuns in Tuam, County Galway, suggested that many of the children's remains lie in the site of an old septic tank.
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A 1944 government inspection recorded evidence of malnutrition among some of the 271 children then living in the Tuam orphanage alongside 61 unwed mothers. The death records cited sicknesses, diseases, deformities and premature births as causes. In the first half of the 20th century Ireland had one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe, with tuberculosis rife.
So neglect resulting in an early death rate greater than that of the rest of the country (which was already one of the worst rates in Europe), and a "suggested" disrespectful burial practice, along with admitted maltreatment of the moms. That's bad enough. -
rebel8
I noticed the article quotes a church official as saying he will organize a fundraiser to get a plaque in memory of the children. It kind of turns my stomach that he mentioned a fundraiser. I think they can afford a farking plaque without asking others for money, in this instance. Holy crap.
One would hope brainwashing would be counteracted when you're standing at a septic tank, getting ready to throw a body overboard. Just shows you how far people will go to do evil.
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snare&racket
My goodness....
These, the people that formed the bible and yet what a history! Systematic disregard for life and childhood.
Will the suffering of children ever know limits in this church and the many churches formed from its history and doctrines?
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nonjwspouse
LL as jeanette said, appalachia is filled with ancesters of the irish who were sold as house servants when they were children by the parents. There was also the potato famine that droe many here.
The Irish sold and brought here were indeed slaves. It's just not politically correct to remember them because they were obviously white.
http://pridecomethbeforeafall.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/the-irish-slave-trade-white-cargo/
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smiddy
796 infant skeletons have been found discarded in a septic tank at the former mother and baby home run by the Catholic Church in Ireland between 1925 and 1961.
Did the Roman catholic Church at that time , or even now .. think that a septic tank , was an appropiate burrial place , for babys and infants who had died ? Under their care ?
smiddy
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glenster
For balance:
Tuam mother and baby home: the trouble with the septic tank story
The deaths of these 796 children are not in doubt. Their numbers are a stark
reflection of a period in Ireland when infant mortality in general was very much
higher than today, particularly in institutions, where infection spread rapidly.
At times during those 36 years the Tuam home housed more than 200 children and 100
mothers, plus those who worked there, according to records Corless has found.What has upset, confused and dismayed her in recent days is the speculative na-
ture of much of the reporting around the story, particularly about what happened
to the children after they died. “I never used that word ‘dumped’,” she says
again, with distress. “I just wanted those children to be remembered and for their
names to go up on a plaque. That was why I did this project, and now it has taken
[on] a life of its own.”She also discovered that there were no burial records for the children and that
they had not been interred in any of the local public cemeteries. In her article
she concludes that many of the children were buried in an unofficial graveyard at
the rear of the former home. This small grassy space has been attended for decades
by local people, who have planted roses and other flowers there, and put up a
grotto in one corner.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-mother-and-baby-home-the-trouble-with-the-septic-tank-story-1.1823393Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home
In early June 2014, a local historian, Catherine Corless, studied the state
death records of 796 children who had died at the home from a range of ailments,
including gastroenteritis, malnutrition, and disease. She then cross-referenced
the names with those in local graveyards and found that only one (a child who had
been interred in a family plot) had been buried in any of those cemeteries. Based
on mapping of the former home and her findings, she concluded that the only possi-
ble location for the corpses was the site uncovered by the boys nearly four de-
cades ago, which is located at the edge of the grounds of the former home. The re-
mains of the victims were mostly within the septic tank. Victims were placed in a
grave without interment records being kept. Corless is now campaigning for a grave
marker to be placed at the site.Inquiry
Susan Lohan, co-founder of Adoption Rights Alliance, has called for an inquiry
into mother and baby homes.[16] On 4 June 2014 the Irish government announced it
was putting together a number of representatives from various government depart-
ments to investigate the deaths at the home and propose how to address the issue.
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Charles Flanagan said that a government
inquiry would not be confined to the home in Tuam and that officials would advise
the Government on the best form of inquiry before the end of June 2014.Qualification of the narrative
On 5 June 2014, an RTÉ Prime Time television report by Mark Coughlan called
"Home Babies" stated, "We don't know for sure, as yet anyway, if the babies who
died in the Tuam home were buried in a septic tank: no burial location is listed
on the death records." On 7 June 2014, The Irish Times quoted Catherine Corless as
saying that the story "has been widely misrepresented" in the the few days since
it broke nationally and internationally. Corless was described as thinking that it
seems impossible "that more than 200 bodies could have been put in a working
sewage tank". The newspaper report echoed the RTÉ broadcast by casting serious
doubt on whether the childrens' remains were actually interred within a septic
tank, and also quoted a man who, as a boy, discovered skeletons there in 1975, who
said that he saw only about 20 skeletons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Secours_Mother_and_Baby_HomePhilomena
Accusations of Anti-CatholicismThe New York Post characterized the film as "another hateful and boring attack
on Catholics." The Post's film reviewer, Kyle Smith called it "90 minutes of or-
ganized hate". Smith further asserted: "A film that is half as harsh on Judaism or
Islam, of course, wouldn’t be made in the first place but would be universally
reviled if it were." In response to this review, filmmaker Harvey Weinstein posted
a full-page ad in the New York Times protesting this characterization. Smith has
accused Harvey Weinstein of making numerous anti-Catholic films, including The
Magdalene Sisters (2002), The Butcher Boy (1998), Priest (1995) and Philomena.The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights issued a report which it says
debunks Philomena, taking issue with factual representations in the film. The re-
port calls it "a cruel caricature of nuns that is based on half-truths and out-and
-out lies. That it appeals to the worst appetite in anti-Catholic bigots is not
debatable." The congregation of sisters depicted in the film said that they were
denied a copy of the script, that the film was "very misleading" with the facts,
and "twisted the truth".An article authored by Martin Sixsmith and published in the Guardian supports
much of the portrayal of a scheme carried out by Catholic organizations in Ire-
land that enriched the Church through coerced adoptions and forced labor of unwed
mothers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philomena_%29film%28#Accusations_of_Anti-CatholicismI appreciate this and also the contribution Sixsmith has made to human rights
for Irish women but his piece here is full of errors (which don’t appreciably de-
tract from the bulk of his comments).In today’s Irish Times, Catherine Corless has drastically revised what appears
she said initially (http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam...There is NOT a shred of evidence that 800 or so infants were tossed into a septic
tank. The two boys who saw some skulls in 1975 now say maybe there were 20 skulls
at most!If there was a septic tank (a map from 1892 copied from a map in 1840 when it was
a Famine-era workhouse indicates so), it was not a septic tank for the Bon Secours
"Home". The misreporting has been so shockingly misleading that when the news
fabrications are disclosed, it will very unfortunately be a propoganda coup for
the RCC in Ireland.4. The usual fact checking expected from the WaPo,the Guardian for the McCoy,
O’Toole reports were completely absent (maybe the names are Irish so they know)5. There were usually 200+ children in the "Home" over 40 years; from death cer-
tificates, there might have been 22 deaths/year. This would give the HOME a
"respectable" infant mortality rate of 10-15% - phenomenally better than other
"HOMES" and no different from non-institutionalized babies in impoverished third-
world Ireland with third-world sanitation and third-world rates of communicable
diseases. Sixsmith like many others neglect that Ireland was a third-world country
for the first 5 decades of the 20thC, with immense poverty even if there was not
another Famine. Even in the 1950s, an astonishing 50% of the young people were
forced to immigrate to survive and it was their savings dispatched home that kept
the island above water.Tuam deaths need further investigation, says academic expert
Prof Liam Delaney says deaths cannot be explained by social conditions
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/tuam-deaths-need-further-investigation-says-academic-expert-1.1822219 -
FlyingHighNow
I'm trying to remember whether it was the movie or some articles I read about the Magdelene laundries, but local authorities enjoyed some of the profits from the laundries. They turned over the girls and women to the laundries and received money for it. I recall, during my childhood, hearing girls say that their parents threatened to send them to live at the convent. We had no idea about the laundries.
My sister became pregnant at 15. She was sent away. My parents told everyone, including us younger siblings, that she went to Atlanta, GA to have her shoulder rebroken. Years later I found out that my parents placed her in a Roman Catholic Home for Unwed Mothers in New Orleans, LA. She spent her pregnancy there, then gave her baby boy up for adoption. She said it was a decent place, in a stately, rather large Victorian house. She was given her schoolwork to do. She had chores she was assigned. She got to do hobbies and watch TV. She got to cook meals. She was given an allowance and pernitted to catch the trolley and busses to go downtown, on her own or with other girls and women from the home. They sent her to the doctor on her own. She said the only bad thing was that my parents insisted she give the baby up for adoption.
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KateWild
This is awful so many died. The care must have been inadequate, and likely abusive resulting in deaths. I suspect foul play without a doubt.
20th century Ireland is a testimony to what happens when religion is given secular power.-cofty
Yes sad but true, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts abusolutely. Even in non religious organisations, such as police and social services, especially if there is no regulating body to deal with complaints properly.
Kate xx
