Maybe the Catholic Church isn't quite so central to these institutions as people here make out. Linda Mahood's book describes the early history of these places in England and Scotland. They were all set up (the London Lock Hospital first, 1746) at the main instigation of the secular medical establishment, with Protestant moral reformers in a secondary role, and from the middle of the 19th century, in Glasgow at least, the leaders of commerce and banking were directing them. Catholicism didn't feature at all.

In the Irish context, the Magdalene system would also have been motivated by the male bourgeoisie's determination to regulate women and the working class. Catholic nunneries could provide a handy supply of screws, so it was natural to involve them, and they could turn the asylums to their advantage and perpetuate them long past the time when anybody could claim they were doing anything useful. But it wasn't their initiative, and the fundamental reasons these places came into existence had nothing to do with religion at all.