Gee, I took the day off and went to Mass in the morning and a singaround in afternoon. I wondered how much there would be to respond to.
Jim Carroll: I raised the matter only in response to your appalling suggestion that any place designed to dump our shit is a suitable one to dispose of maltreated children - it reduced considerably the respect I otherwise hold for you, in spite of past differences.
Jim, the septic tank at my house looks almost exactly like the concrete vaults that I have seen coffins lowered into many, many times. If you build it and call it a "concrete vault," then it can be used as either a burial vault or a septic tank. If you need screws for a project, you don't necessarily have to have separate screws for sewage projects - you may well be able to use the same screws one might use to build a coffin....except for the fact that Jim Carroll might be offended.
But the fact of the matter is that a concrete vault, is a concrete vault - and it may be used for many purposes.
As I said above, however, I suspect that the twenty skeletons may indeed have been buried somewhere on the property, and then reburied later in an empty tank on the property that may well have been a septic or water tank. The witness's words - "Thrown in there," "all this way and that way" - appear to describe what might happen with remains dug up from other locations and reburied. Otherwise, bodies would have been put in a mass grave individually, and would have remained more intact.
Jim, if you call the vault a septic tank (and especially if it has been used as a septic tank), then the idea of its use for the bodies is indeed appalling. But if you call the vault a vault and don't build it for a specific use, what's the difference?
That's information we just don't know yet, so getting appalled is rather silly.
But my guess it that the remains might well indeed have been found in graves and then dumped in a septic tank in the process of clearing the property for redevelopment - and that would indeed have been appalling, even if it were done by workmen after the nuns were long gone and thereby depriving somebody of an opportunity for anti-religious propaganda.
But that's information we just don't know yet, so getting appalled is rather silly.

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Musket says: Are you sure Ireland went from UK rule to self determination? It has always been my observation that it went from joint UK / Vatican rule to just Vatican.
I think you're talking your party line, Musket, and I really don;t think you know what you're talking about. I am seminary-educated, and I've been a Catholic all my life, and I have studied Catholic Church politics all my life. And what I have to say about Catholic Church politics is not complimentary, and it is disturbing to many Catholics I've explained things to. But that fact that what I say is disturbing and not seen as complimentary for the most part, is an indication that what I have to say may be accurate.
There are national Catholic Church structures in all nations where there are significant numbers of Catholics. For the most part, these national churches are loose affiliations of dioceses, and they try to work with the Vatican. But in some nations, the national churches are far stronger, closed operations - and these national churches are only very loosely controlled by the Vatican. These churches stick very close to doctrine, but doctrine really hasn't changed much since the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. But other than adhering strictly to the Nicene Creed of 325, these national churches are mostly on their own. The three strongest national churches I know of, are Poland, the Philippines, and Ireland - and the Catholic Church in Ireland is by far the strongest national church within the entire Catholic Church. The Vatican just throws up its hands and lets Ireland do what Ireland does. Ireland has the most severe variety of Catholicism there is - but it's all Irish. I know Irish priests who tell me that the severity came from Jansenists that the British rulers imported from northern France to staff the world's largest seminary, built by the English for the Catholics of Ireland. Don't know if I buy that story. As far as I can see, the Irish Catholic Church has been completely controlled by Irish-born priests and bishops and nuns who were born and raised by Irish Irish parents, not by the Vatican. Now, Musket's propaganda may have taught him that all Catholics march in lockstep with the Vatican, but that rigidity is simply not true. The organization is much looser and much more decentralized. And it had almost no control over Ireland at all until international reaction to the recent scandals forced Benedict XVI to take at least partial control over the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland. But until then, Ireland was a closed shop.
I have seen some good in Catholic Church in Ireland, particularly in the Sisters of Mercy convents I visited; but my overall impression of Irish Catholicism is very negative. It's dominated by angry, severe people that even the priests are afraid of. The Catholic Church in Ireland is sick - there's no doubt about it.
But it's controlled by the Irish, not by the Vatican.

And it's the Irish Catholic Church that must be held to answer for scandals like Tuam, not the Vatican.

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Ed T says he was reflecting more on attitudes to the treatment of the remains of the unborn in the general population.
I tend to agree with you, Ed. Display of human remains, whether they died before birth or afterwards, must be done only if absolutely necessary and only with absolute dignity. This also applies to the mummies of ancient Egyptians and the remains of aboriginal peoples. In some ways, I'd be just as happy seeing replicas in museums in most circumstances; but my seeing these remains allows me to honor them, even if other museum visitors don't view these remains as sacred.
Auschwitz has displays of entire rooms of human hair and human teeth - seeing those is an experience I'll ponder for the rest of my life.

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Q says: Joe, every religious group exercises "brainwashing" upon its children.
Certainly the Catechism of the RC falls into this bracket.
The Profession of the Faith, The Celebration of the Christian Mystery, Life in Christ, Christian Prayer (the four main divisions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church)
Q, "brainwashing" is a propaganda word. My understanding is that it became popular during the early years of the Cold War, when we were told the godless Communists forced Communist ideology on their helpless victims, so that the victims would be able to think nothing other than what the Communists wanted them to think.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church was published in the early 1990s as the successor to the 16th-century Catechism of Trent. It is a fairly comprehensive statement of the beliefs and practices and traditions of the Catholic Church. It is not meant for children, and it is not meant to be memorized, as the 20th-century American Baltimore Catechism was used until about 1970.
Now, the born-again atheist propagandists will tell you that if I dare to teach my children about the beliefs and practices and traditions of my church and if I expose my children to church rituals, I am "brainwashing" them. Well, I mustn't have been very effective at brainwashing then. I sent my three children to Catholic elementary and high schools. I think they got an excellent education. They're all good people and they believe in music and in the Democratic Party, but they have rarely set foot in a church since they finished school.
I've been a Catholic religious education teacher almost continuously since 1966, and this is what happened to my own children. Did I brainwash them?

I'm sorry, but all of that propaganda about brainwashing is simply that - propaganda - just like the propaganda we heard about the Soviets brainwashing their "victims."

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"Hidden Behind" says: And the real Church shows a real lack of engagement in doing anything about it. Which I find really disgusting.
In response to that, allow me to refer you to part of a post above from Peter Laban:

The focus seems to be shifting from Tuam and the alleged 'septic tank' burials to the wider issue of mother and baby homes. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has called for a full inquiry, saying that if there was anything wrong in Tuam, it is likely the same problems existed in the homes. In this light it has been in the news that while the mortality rates in Tuam were atrocious (over 30%), those in some other homes like Bessborough were much worse (50% and over).

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is the Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland. He's one Irish bishop who served most of his career to the Vatican. He was sent to Dublin in 2003 and became Archbishop on his predecessor's resignation in 2004. He's been tasked with cleaning up the mess, and it seems he's generally been doing a pretty good job of it.

There's no doubt that the Catholic Church of Ireland needs to be cleaned up. The industrial schools and mother-and-baby homes and Magdalene laundries, as well as the molestation of children by priests, are horrible, horrible offenses.

-Joe Offer-

P.S. Somebody above asked if I had seen the movie or read the book Philomena. No, I haven't. I was wondering if I should.