A disturbing story of the callous treatment of illegitimate children’s deaths in Ireland, dumping their bodies in a septic tank without burial or a marker, was reported in the respected and powerful Washington Post.
Yet there seems to be an editorial decision not to tell the whole story. Who ran that establishment (SOYMB declines to call it a home) for unwed mothers? The Washington Post article does not say who operated it.
Other newspapers were less reluctant to name the culprit the Bon Secours Sisters — a Roman Catholic religious order of nuns that today operates in US, Ireland, Peru, France, and Great Britain.
This from a church that claims a special role in preserving the sanctity of life and protecting the unborn. Yet heartlessly discards those it considered the result of "immoral" behaviour, not "deserving" of a proper christian burial. And a major newspaper can only be described as taking part in a cover-up of the guilty.
Yet there seems to be an editorial decision not to tell the whole story. Who ran that establishment (SOYMB declines to call it a home) for unwed mothers? The Washington Post article does not say who operated it.
Other newspapers were less reluctant to name the culprit the Bon Secours Sisters — a Roman Catholic religious order of nuns that today operates in US, Ireland, Peru, France, and Great Britain.
This from a church that claims a special role in preserving the sanctity of life and protecting the unborn. Yet heartlessly discards those it considered the result of "immoral" behaviour, not "deserving" of a proper christian burial. And a major newspaper can only be described as taking part in a cover-up of the guilty.
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”.
ReplyDeleteFood was poor, malnutrition common. 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.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-mass-graves-unearthing-one-of-the-darkest-chapters-in-irish-history-9503897.html