CNA Staff, Jan 16, 2021 / 04:28 pm (CNA).- Catholic bishops have welcomed an Irish government report on 20th century homes for unmarried mothers and babies run by local governments and often operated by religious orders. They have apologized for the harsh treatment of unmarried mothers and their children, calling this a betrayal of Christ.
“Although it may be distressing, it is important that all of us spend time in the coming days reflecting on this report which touches on the personal story and experience of many families in Ireland,” Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh said Jan. 12.
“The commission’s report helps to further open to the light what was for many years a hidden part of our shared history and it exposes the culture of isolation, secrecy and social ostracizing which faced ‘unmarried mothers’ and their children in this country.”
He urged continued outreach to those whose personal testimony was central to the report.
“We owe it to them to take time to study and reflect on the findings and recommendations of the Report, and commit to doing what we can to help and support them,” he said. “We must identify, accept and respond to the broader issues which the report raises about our past, present and future.”
The Irish Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes released its report Jan. 12. The six-year inquiry concerned 14 “mother and baby” homes and four “county homes” in the time period of 1922 to 1998. The report examines individual homes and individual witness testimonies as well as providing historical context for the actions of the women, their babies’ fathers, their families, government officials, and religious leaders involved.
“Women who gave birth outside of marriage were subject to particularly harsh treatment. Responsibility for that harsh treatment rests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families,” said the report. “It was supported by, contributed to, and condoned by, the institutions of the State and the Churches.”
“However, it must be acknowledged that the institutions under investigation provided a refuge – a harsh refuge in some cases – when the families provided no refuge at all,” it added.
About 56,000 women and girls, as young as 12 or in their forties, were sent to these institutions. The county homes were government-run and -operated, while the mother and baby homes were generally run with government support by Catholic religious religious orders, technically under the authority of their local bishop.
About 57,000 babies were born in the homes over this 76-year period. There was a significant mortality rate, with 15 percent of babies dying before they left the homes. The high mortality rate was known to authorities and recorded, but there was no outcry and little effort to address these problems. The commission report said the high infant mortality rate was the institutions’ most “disquieting feature.” Before 1960, the institutions appeared to have “significantly reduced” survival prospects.
Some county homes had “appalling physical conditions,” as did the homes at Tuam, in County Galway, and Kilrush, in County Clare. Other homes were “considerably better.”
While poor living conditions were common in Ireland, poor sanitary conditions in the group homes had “much more serious consequences.” There was oversight and inspection reports were critical of conditions, but maximum capacity figures were not set for mother and baby homes until the 1940s. These figures were not enforced, because they would have massively reduced the homes’ capacity.
Archbishop Martin welcomed the report, saying, “as a Church leader today, I accept that the Church was clearly part of that culture in which people were frequently stigmatized, judged and rejected.” He “unreservedly apologized” to the survivors and all impacted for the enduring hurt and emotional distress.
“As Church, State and wider society we must ensure together that, in the Ireland of today, all children and their mothers feel wanted, welcomed and loved,” Archbishop Martin said. We must also continue to ask ourselves where people today might feel similarly rejected, abandoned, forgotten or pushed to the margins.”
“Mindful of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which calls us to protect life and dignity and to treat everyone – especially little children and all who are vulnerable – with love, compassion and mercy, I believe the Church must continue to acknowledge before the Lord and before others its part in sustaining what the Report describes as a ‘harsh … cold and uncaring atmosphere’,” Martin said.
While some 200 women who gave birth died while living at mother and baby homes, the report indicated that they likely received better maternal care than most Irish women through the 1960s or 1970s, as most gave birth at home with the aid of a midwife or even an untrained aid. Many Irish homes lacked running water. At the same time, county hospitals discriminated against unmarried women and would not admit them to maternity wards until the 1960s.
The report attributed the end of the homes to massive improvements in living conditions, changes in religious and moral attitudes, as well as gradual improvements like free post-primary education, the establishment of legal adoption in 1953, and an allowance for unmarried mothers in 1973.
Providing historical context, the report said that such homes were not particular to Ireland, at the same time the proportion of unmarried mothers admitted to these homes in the 20th century was “probably the highest in the world.” The group home system was believed to reduce the women’s risk of entering prostitution or committing infanticide. The system also purported to advance their moral reform.
“Some pregnancies were the result of rape; some women had mental health problems, some had an intellectual disability. However, the majority were indistinguishable from most Irish women of their time,” said the report.
In the first decades of the time period concerned, most women admitted to the institutions were domestic servants, farm workers, or unpaid domestic workers in their family homes. In later decades, women were clerical workers, civil servants, professionals, and schoolgirls or post-secondary students.
Many of these pregnant women had failed to secure support from their families or the fathers of the babies and were destitute. Some women entered the homes to prevent family and neighbors from learning they were pregnant. Some were forcibly brought to the homes by family members. There was no evidence that pregnancies among under-age women were routinely reported to police. There is no evidence Church or state officials forced them to enter, but most women “had no alternative,” the report said.
Most were financially supported in the institutions by the local government health authority. Many women were cut off from the world and assigned a “house name.”
Both Irish men and women were more likely to be dependent on their parents into their early twenties. Families tended to have many children and would be less able to support an unmarried daughter’s baby. An out-of-wedlock birth could destroy marriage prospects for both the woman and her siblings.
Irish men were also reluctant to marry, especially to marry young. The commission said it is possible that fewer men married their pregnant girlfriend than they did in other countries. Land inheritance customs and economic necessity meant land passed only to one son.
It was often impossible for pregnant women to prove paternity claims, and compared to other countries a low proportion of Irish men acknowledged paternity or provided financial support. Before 1950, many fathers were themselves financially imperiled, working low-wage jobs or unpaid jobs for family farms and businesses.
Most children born in the institutions were too young to remember, but some stayed after their mothers left through age seven. Legal adoption, which the report called a “vastly better outcome,” was not available until 1953, with farming communities still proving less likely to adopt. Children often ended up in industrial schools or were boarded out.
While the Catholic hierarchy evidently had no role in the day-to-day operation of mother and baby homes, religious congregations who opened such homes required the local bishop’s permission. Local authorities often deferred to the views of these religious orders or to the views of the local bishop.
“The Catholic church did not invent Irish attitudes to prudent marriages or family respectability; however, it reinforced them through church teachings that emphasized the importance of pre-marital purity and the sexual dangers associated with dance halls, immodest dress, mixed bathing and other sources of ‘temptation’,” said the report.
There is no evidence the religious orders running these homes made a profit, said the report, which added: “At various times, it is clear that they struggled to make ends meet.”
The report suggested that the mortality rate was higher than the Irish norm either because of the high risk of infection, or because the children born in mother and baby homes came from less privileged backgrounds than other women who gave birth out-of-wedlock but had healthier pregnancies and healthier babies. Women who gave birth in the homes had more stressful lives and worse pre-natal care and nutrition. There was a failure to implement appropriate hygiene standards at the homes and to educate mothers about hygiene. Almost all the homes lacked the staff needed to perform such education.
Infant mortality rates at the homes peaked in the 1940s, a time of economic difficulty due in significant part to the Second World War.
Archbishop Dermot Farrell of Dublin welcomed the report’s publication, saying such reports “bring to light the profound injustices perpetrated against the vulnerable in our society over a long period of time – against women and children whose lives were regarded as less important than the lives of others.”
“The silence which surrounded this shameful time in the history of our land had long needed to be shattered,” he said. “The pain of those who were hidden away must be heard; those once largely without a voice now can speak clearly to our world, and we need to listen, even when what we hear pierces to the heart.”
“A genuine response is required: ours – as a Church and a society – can only be a full apology, without any reservation. There should never have been a time for avoidance and facile solutions,” he said. “This country, the Church, our communities and families are better places when the light of truth and healing are welcomed. May the Lord’s compassion be the touchstone of our response. May the light of Christ bring healing to all.”
Bishop Tom Deenihan of Meath also apologized, saying: “While a lack of resources and an intense social poverty go some way towards contextualizing the period of this report, the lack of kindness and compassion, as identified by the commission, is also clear.”
Residents and children born in these institutions suffered from “unacceptable conditions” and inadequate assistance, and they have been “unfairly burdened with an unwarranted but enduring sense of shame,” he said.
The long-closed Tuam Children’s Home in County Galway became notorious after the discovery of an unmarked mass grave for children. Some 2,219 women and 3,251 children had been at the home, and 978 children died—80 percent before their first birthday.
The home was operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in from 1925 to 1961. In addition to unmarried mothers and their babies, it also accepted children of destitute and homeless families as well as children with special needs.
It is likely that many children who died are buried in the memorial gardens, but while there are records of their deaths there is no record of their burial places.
The Bon Secours sisters offered “profound apologies.” They said that the children who died at the home were buried in a “disrespectful and unacceptable way,” the Irish Times reports.
Sister Eileen O’Connor, the local superior of the Bon Secour Sisters, said Jan. 12 that the report “presents a history of our country in which many women and children were rejected, silenced and excluded; in which they were subjected to hardship; and in which their inherent human dignity was disrespected, in life and in death. Our Sisters of Bon Secours were part of this sorrowful history.”
“We failed to respect the inherent dignity of the women and children who came to the home. We failed to offer them the compassion that they so badly needed. We were part of the system in which they suffered hardship, loneliness and terrible hurt,” O’Connor said. “We acknowledge in particular that infants and children who died at the home were buried in a disrespectful and unacceptable way. For all that, we are deeply sorry.”
Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam also welcomed the report and asked forgiveness for “the abject failure of the Church for the pain and suffering visited on those women and their children.”
“The Church of Jesus Christ was intended to bring hope and healing, yet it brought harm and hurt for many of these women and children,” he said. “Many were left broken, betrayed and disillusioned. For them, and all of us, these revelations seriously tarnished the image of the Church.”
The Galway County Council owned the Tuam home and was responsible for the residents, and the sisters operated it. The diocese had no administrative role. However, Neary emphasized, the diocese had a pastoral role, “in that the priests of Tuam parish served as chaplains.”
“Today, how can we even begin to comprehend the raw pain and psychological damage of family separation and its devastating consequences on loving mothers and on the emotional development of their children?” he asked. “Must we ask as to the whereabouts of the fathers? Had the Church been more forthright in acknowledging the responsibility of the men who fathered these children, the outcome for many young mothers and their children would have been very different indeed.”
The diocesan archives on the home have been shared with the commission, but the archive does not have information on the living conditions. Neary lamented the absence of burial location records, saying the burials have “understandably, caused the most outrage.” He welcomed any progress in uncovering the full truth.
Dublin’s Regina Coeli hostel, founded by the Legion of Mary, appeared to show some ability to break with the trends of Irish society. The full report’s 21st chapter says that the hostel was “the only institution that assisted unmarried mothers to keep their infant” before the 1970s, the Iona Institute reports.
“Although the mothers who kept their babies were a minority until the 1970s, the proportion was undoubtedly much higher than for any other institution catering for unmarried mothers”
Venerable Frank Duff, the layman founder of the Legion of Mary, wrote a 1950 memorandum to the Department of Health about encouraging women to keep their children. Duff opposed committing children to Ireland’s industrial schools, which have also been the target of historical inquiry for poor conditions and abuse of their residents.
The hostel received no regular state support. At the same time, babies of women at the hostel suffered a high mortality rate, which peaked in the 1940s, and other reports have questioned the conditions there.
[…]
The episcopate has betrayed those they term “the people of God” while abandoning their authentic name CATHOLICS — neutralizing our identity in the service of an enterprise termed ecumenism. Ecumenism: the heresy of our age. The entire post-conciliar debacle has manifested its nature and character — an operation to eradicate Catholicism while what is left of Roman Catholicism is still hawking “the council” — the nightmare of an ecclesiastical Woodstock. Who can shoulder this baloney any more. Obviously not the Irish and they likely don’t even know why given the absence of authentic accurate catechesis for over sixty years.
With every passing day “the council” becomes ever more tragically recognized as the drug of choice by an episcopate bent on some sort of fantasy termed relevance, personal relevance, pride. The operation is a total train wreck. Knock it off and stand up for the faith gifted us by Jesus Christ and two thousand years of Gospel wisdom. The last thing in the world required is for the Church to be reimaged in the likeness of foolish little men who don’t know up from down. There is not a thing to do with renewal and reform in the present operation, it is more accurately recognized as mutilation.
I disagree, there has been much reformed; but not all for the good.
“Reformed” commonly denotes improvement. Having lived through both the pre-conciliar epoch and the post-conciliar debacle I can say anything you might term “reformed” didn’t need a council to effect. Our situation mirrors a city which required road improvement and to facilitate objective it was leveled to the ground over a span of sixty-five years…and still going.
Spot on!
Well said James. Ireland is the sign and summit of the fruits of Vatican II.
Two of the jurisdictions where the Catholic church wielded the most secular power and was most entangled with corrupt politics were Ireland and Quebec and it is no coincidence that they have become two of the most anti-Church. I believe anger at the Church’s crimes does indeed keep people away on Sunday, not just a desire to wash the car.
“God has no grandchildren” , only children!
Read about the Magdalene laundries and the abuse visited upon young women by sadistic nuns. Read about abusive priests in Ireland. Then you will have your answer.
The myth of the Magdalene scandal has long been put to rest. The issue of sexually abusive priests while real has also been magnified to justify the abandonment of the faith. Its a good excuse for letting oneself off the hook. Sin is real, really real. Let us regard the icon over our bathroom sinks. There is plenty of scandal right there.
The myth of sexual abuse of minors being something uniquely Catholic is just that. A myth. But a very useful one to demoralize Catholics.
Indeed it is, and it was a grave mistake to allow all of us Catholics to be held collectively responsible while nothing like that is allowed to be done in any other case. This is a blatant violation of justice – as entire dioceses can be driven into bankruptcy forced to pay monetary compensation to victims and their lawyers, then the same principle ought to apply in all the other cases: if the perpetrator is in the movie business, the entire industry ought to pay, a physician/psychiatrist/psychologist/a social worker – their employers and professional bodies, a lawyer or a judge – likewise, etc., etc. Yet this never happens – it’s not even discussed.
MrsC. You are right. Pedophilia by other faiths are abundant.
Abuse and cover-ups are rampant in evangelical churches. There seems to be little, if any, accountabiity.
USA Today: Some of the larger evangelical congregations and megachurches are nondenominational, meaning they operate outside the authority and accountability of a larger organization.
And while it’s not fair to tarnish all churches because of the crimes of one megachurch pastor, there is a clear pattern of abusive and at times criminal behavior among pastors and other leaders in a growing list of evangelical congregations.
Yes Mr. Morgan, it’s true that abuse is found everywhere & in every kind of religious institution. It’s not restricted to churches though. Any place where you have minors you may also have people that prey upon them. And real pedophiles are far less common than predators who exploit teens.
The Magdalene Laundry scandals were real, and horrific. As were abusive priests. Get real. People got fed up.
There are no great differences in the historic exploitation of minors & vulnerable people whether it’s in British workhouses, private & public schools, juvenile detention homes, the entertainment industry, youth gymnastics, etc. Children & minors are vulnerable populations. As are those who are in acre or incarcerated.
If one has an agenda against Catholic clergy or any other group they focus on exploitation & predation in that one sector. But there’s nothing uniquely Catholic about fallen nature & the simple fact that some people choose to work with minors for all the wrong reasons.
There are no great differences in the historic exploitation of minors & vulnerable people whether it’s in British workhouses, private & public schools, juvenile detention homes, the entertainment industry, youth gymnastics, etc. Children & minors are vulnerable populations. As are those who are in care or incarcerated.
If one has an agenda against Catholic clergy or any other group they focus on exploitation & predation in that one sector. But there’s nothing uniquely Catholic about fallen nature & the simple fact that some people choose to work with minors for all the wrong reasons.
Sorry if this is a duplicate comment.The first seems to disappear into cyberspace…
My comment did repeat. So sorry.
Irish Catholicism is the victim of Vatican II and Kennedy Americanism.
Irish Catholics traded one set of overlords for another. I’d rather have Britain than George Soros and Pfizer.
You have said it in one, Robert. The misinterpretation of the Vatican II documents which did not in fact alter one tenet of Catholic teaching and disappointed many who thought they would get all sorts of personal benefit from the Council’s determinations, is the major reason why Catholicism has gone down the plug hole since Vatican II- possibly one of the greatest disasters that has ever befallen the Church founded by Christ himself.
I just can’t figure out how someone could be unfulfilled by having a relationship with a friend who is not only invisible, but also completely undetectable. Gosh.
Meanwhile, you guys will keep pretending like this isn’t a primary reason people leave.
With a tepid, self-loathing Christian presence withing the culture, it is requisit that the individual take responsibility in their personal spiritual search. Its a rude reality but its very true. I was fortunate not to have that impediment — my generation still was handed on the gift of faith. What are you doing to bump into Him? What are you doing to avoid Him? You are here…that tells me you are engaged. Dig deeper.
I’m here to explain to you that you have been scammed.
People who claim no faith seem to spend a great deal of time on faith-based sites. And that’s a good thing they’re being led here.
🙂
I just can’t figure out why someone who doesn’t believe God exists spends so much time, effort, and energy posting comments on a Catholic website. Quite juvenile.
Shame Andrew. I know you feel keenly about things.
Never mind, Just be aware that God still loves the world. Take heart from the parable of the Prodigal Son.
All can still turn out well.
God bless
My grandparents came to America after the Irish potato famine and Queen Victoria.
In the “new world” Grandpa made it clear, he was the titular head of the family. That dominance along with strict Catholic reproduction rules, granny had 14 children, one was stillborn. She was perpetually in the bed and the kitchen. She did not partake of the American dream.
The Catholic Church’s dominance in Ireland for many of centuries could say something. An extended peiod of ideological changes seemed inevitable. Then in 1996 came the end of a massive incarsiration and degredation of women in the Magadelene laundries run by church orders in conjunction with the Irish government to cleanse the souls of the fallen.
History: When the mass grave at Donnybrook was discovered, the 155 unmarked tombs touched off a scandal that exposed the extent and horrors of the Magdalene laundries. As women came forward to share their experiences of being held against their will in restrictive workhouses, the Irish public reacted with outrage.
A heartbreaking event was when a “wayward” mother’s child was taken from her and she was forced into the dreaded laundry. Years later her “wayward” daughter was placed next to her doing the laundry and they did not know each other.
Enter Ireland’s first female President, Mary Robinson a champion for womens’s civil rights. She was widely known as a pioneering spirit at a time when women were a decidedly second-class in Ireland. She provided comfort and hope for the prisoners of the laundries.
The Irish washerwomen are are now doing their dirty laundry. We may want to have ours hung out.
The respectable Irish Catholic middle classes always despised the poor in Independent Ireland and any woman who had the misfortune to get pregnant outside marriage. Rate payers in Galway and their political representatives constantly complained about wasted money given to the local convent in Tuam who had the task of looking after the unwanted poor. Many of those religious also sisters shared the disgraceful lack of Christian kindness of the respectable classes.
American Fr Flanagan of Boys town fame was denounced in the Irish Parliament when he dared criticise state and church cruelty to children of the poor.
Nowadays in Ireland we simply abort the unwanted poor. Modern Ireland prides itself on that progress.
Well said, especially concerning the Servant of God, Fr Flanagan, whose castigation of the treatment of these children was well known and yet was castigated in return as a medling priest, shows that even then Catholic Ireland hated holy clerics!
My Protestant ancestors had families of 8-15 children without having to follow any “strict Catholic reproduction rules”. They considered each child a blessing from God, just as my Catholic ancestors did.
My Irish 2x’s great grandfather was said to be one of 20 some children.
Fertility’s a great blessing & a less common thing today. Witness the huge IVF industry. Fertility’s a fleeting thing & not something we should never take for granted.
True, many faiths had large families. True, every birth is a miracle from God. What you seem to miss is that my wonderful granny, whom I loved dearly, was the subject of matrial rape. Because of his raging libido he made her a baby factory. As with many faiths, in Ireland the man is dominant. You might walk in her shoes. The Catholic hierarchy may be complicit with their silence. And, because of physical limitations and ailments, not ever woman can be open to large families.
My mother had one abiding regret.
She was unable to have more than 5 children who survived.
Mr. Morgan, I know nothing of your grandparents’ marital relationship & therefore can’t comment on that.
Women who are blessed with many children are not “baby factories.” I have 8 children & that doesn’t make me a manufacturing unit either.
Its time to let the past go. Ultimately God is in control and has allowed our church to collapse to rebuilt it stronger and better.
I have learnt not to look back in anger, the religious orders of the lest century laid the foundations for something better.
Let’s leave all judgement to God and rebuilt the Church in the best way we can.
Between abortion and now the illegal immigrants storming Ireland there will not be many redheads left. And once that’s gone it can never be recovered
I believe red hair is said to have come from the Vikings. But red-haired or Black Irish , the Irish people need to begin having children. They’re their own worst enemy right now. Ditto for almost every part of Europe. The Faroe Islands do seem to be reversing that trend.
My largest ancestry is from Ireland, Sometimes I’d like to cut my veins and drain that blood out, but I have to remember there are many good faithful people in Ireland. Many Clergy betrayed their people, and many are now towing the party line of modernism. I often think that a majority of nine brought infanticide to America, but a majority of the Irish voted it in. Saint Patrick, St Brigid and Our Lady of Knock., intercede for Ireland
I believe also that we need to start having more children. The immigrants that are pouring into Ireland who happen to be muslim will be happy to outbreed you. Then comes the mosques which are expected gift from a rich muslim will wake you up very early in the morning with the call to pray. We are not perfect but we do more good than any other religion. You will have 10 foot fences all over the place. Ireland will forever be changed. I also believe that the church needs to tell males that they are not entitled to sex whenever. This is an American viewpoint but I am half Irish and proud of it.