BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 01:46 PM

Joe insists that the church is shedding its old ways, but read the encyclicals at the Vatican website, and it is evident that the old superstitions are still central to their (and those of Francis)beliefs.

www.vatican.va (select English)

The encyclical letter by Francis, "Lumen fidei," offers little except re-affirmation of the old ways.
"The light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future...The future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown....Truth itself..... incapable of showing the way."

The lengthy article offers little that shows an advance in attitude to science over the days of Galileo.
Attitudes remain, e. g.:
Francis discusses the faith of Israel but immediately goes into discussion of the "Fullness of the Faith" (Christian).

Salvation, and a chapter entitled "Unless you believe you will not understand " follow, all pointing out that his way is the only way,
"The Dialogue Between Faith and Reason" - of course in his mind faith wins.
Near the end of chapter two, he comments on theology, "Theology cannot consider the magisterium of the pope and the bishops in communion with him as something extrinsic, a limitation of its freedom, but rather as one of its internal, constitutive dimensions....." The substance is that Frsncis and his bishops are the sole interpreters and must be followed.

The encyclical goes on in two more chapters, all in all, offering nothing new and no evolving thought, just reaffirmation of the old beliefs.

The current directors of the church offer nothing that would change the ways of the executors- the clergy, the groups such as Franciscans and Jesuits, act.

Faith schools continue to be divisive, as noted in preceding material posted by Jim Carroll. Even here in Alberta, some communities where the French influence is strong, the beliefs of the RC are given priority.

I still would not permit a pregnancy in the family to be assisted in a Catholic-run hospital, where the baby is given precedence, if it came to saving the life of one or the other. I wonder how many cases of this type were decided by the Bon Secours women.

Joe continues to talk about conditions in the U. S., but in magnitude they are different in the countries to the south, Mexico to Argentina, or the Philippines and some areas in Africa where the faith has been sold.

We do not know if conditions leading to those that existed in Ireland persist in large area of the world.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 01:55 PM

Joe, please try to understand that this is not just about history. The catholic church has never voluntarily abandoned its criminal ways. It only ever does so when confronted by irresistible protest, which sometimes requires more courage than the hierarchy expects from what should be a docile flock. But the battle is far from won.

A disgusting criminal, Sean O'Brady, sits to this day in pompous office not just as a bishop, or even an archbishop, but as primate of all Ireland and a cardinal to boot. Read here how he helped the monstrous pervert Brendan Smyth pursue a career in child abuse - and then had the brass neck to appeal to the forgiving Christian insticts of the Irish. Yep, still in office Joe. Still dishing out bread and wine to those gullible enough to think it turns to bits of Jesus in their mouths, and still preaching Christian values. Until these arrogant clerics are treated like the scum they are, the fight must go on.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,#
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 05:43 PM

"Contemporary Ireland feigned shock when stories of the Laundries and residential institutions emerged. Perhaps the shock of those who were too young to be threatened with being put in one for "acting up" was genuine, because the institutions started to close as the years went on. But people in their fifties and sixties now, will remember how the "Home Babies" sometimes came to schools, and were isolated by other (legitimate) children, and then sometimes never came back. While those school-children may not have comprehended fully the extent of what happened, their parents and teachers, and the community of adults surrounding them knew."

from

http://feministire.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/no-country-for-young-women-honour-crimes-and-infanticide-in-ireland/

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 10:54 PM

Aha!

A perfect example of Jim Carroll's usual legerdemain, the old bait-and-switch trick.

My comment was about "rushing to answer unfounded claims of bodies in a septic tank."

Jim's response: The clerical sex abuse scandals first began to emerge in the 1990s - around 15 years ago - hardly a "rush to judgement" by anybody's standards.

This thread is about the allegation that there were 796 bodies in a septic tank, and the cries for immediate justice that ensued - and have continued even after the septic tank allegations were discovered to be unfounded. There are still indignant cries in the press about the failure of Catholic authorities to jump into the cesspool.

Caught you red-handed, Jim, up to your usual tricks. Why don't you fight fair for a change?

Fionn does the same thing - I don't know how many years he's been trying to prove me a holocaust denier. Fionn's fallacy is so shallow - and so common - that it has a name now: argumentum ad Hitlerum.

Oh, and then (despite the fact I have a negative view of Cardinal Brady), look at Fionn's overblown statement above: A disgusting criminal, Sean O'Brady, sits to this day in pompous office not just as a bishop, or even an archbishop, but as primate of all Ireland and a cardinal to boot. Read here how he helped the monstrous pervert Brendan Smyth pursue a career in child abuse - and then had the brass neck to appeal to the forgiving Christian insticts of the Irish.
Brady's reputation as a "disgusting criminal" apparently stems from the fact that as a young priest in 1975, Brady was present when two of Smyth's victims signed a silence agreement after receiving a settlement of their claims against a diocese for Smyth's conduct. Fionn's flair for drama is indeed remarkable, but the significance of his remarks remains in question.

I see all sorts of rhetoric here, but most of it distorts the facts far out of proportion to their reality. I'm beginning to think that all the allegations against the mother and baby homes, the laundries, and the industrial schools are far out of proportion, too. I have no doubt that conditions in these institutions were harsh - and that was wrong. But then I read a number of accounts from people who had lived in these institutions, and I found that the conditions were about the same level of harshness and cruelty that was experienced by U.S. Army recruits in the 1960s and early 1970s. Recruits were battered with demeaning taunts, worked beyond the point of exhaustion, awakened in the middle of the night for no reason, given physical punishment for the most insignificant failures, forced to do heavy exertion when sick, and generally demeaned and battered until they were forced into submission. The death rate in Army basic training was quite high, and spinal meningitis spread like wildfire. This was done to "build strong fighting men." But it was also cruel and unnecessary. But those were the times - people seemed to think that abuse "builds character."

By the way, there were mother and baby homes in England, too - see http://www.motherandbabyhomes.com/.

No doubt, the mother and baby homes and the other institutions need to be studied in depth - not only in Ireland, and not only those institutions that were run by Catholics.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,#
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:31 PM

So, no one wants to discuss the complicity of the Irish people? Fucking wonderful. The lot of you!

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:56 PM

Big Al Whittle says: what puzzles me Joe is why, when you are living in such a liberated society, you are so keen stick up for this church which has been up to all sorts of repressive skulduggery, for as long as anyone can remember.

I know about the skullduggery, Al. It does exist, and I have often had to deal with it. But skullduggery exists wherever you go - it's part of the reality of life. But my experience of the Catholic Church, like that of most Catholics I know, has been 96 percent good and four percent bad.

But it's the four percent that gets covered in the press, and in Internet forum discussions like this one.

#, you're not allowed to mention "complicity of the Irish people" here. I once dared to suggest that all those priests and nuns and cardinals were children of Irish mothers, and I was called a liar. The truth, they say, is that those priests and nuns were spawned in a tank in the Sistine Chapel, ordained, and delivered to Ireland in black submarines in the dark of night.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 02:09 AM

I suppose, although I wouldn't wish to see it as a defence, that when you are force fed your morality by priests and nuns all your life, complicity has a diminished responsibility aspect to it.

Complicity means you never challenged the criminals as they claimed their right under their God, whilst reminding you he is your God too.

Deep ingrained superstition, the fuel of corruption.

Time for Voltaire methinks;

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 03:57 AM

"Caught you red-handed, Jim, up to your usual tricks. Why don't you fight fair for a change?"
What on earth are you talking about Joe
The facts of clerical physical abuse have been with us for virtually all of my lifetime - the brutality of the Christian Brothers affected a number of my friend
A couple decades ago the horrors of the industrial schools were examined and exposed.
Clerical sexual abuse has been brought into the open, investigated, confirmed and has yet to be dealt with fully.
The extent of this will never be known due to the silence brought on by the shame of such abuse, but even what evidence there exists because of the Vatican's refusal to hand over documents
It is 20 years since The Magdalene laundries first hit the fan - those responsible are still refusing to acknowledge guilt or contribute to agreed compensation, and have now moved on to verbally abusing their victims.
Those of us who have commented on the latest horrors have made it clear, as have those who are in the process of examining them, that this is part of the ethos of the church - not something new - it is how the church behaved and, some of us believe, wou;d continue to behave if they were allowed to - it is taking the record of the accused into consideration before passing sentence (or in this case, before allowing the church to remain in positions where they could re-offend).
You dishonestly refer to "septic tanks" - you have never had the good grace or honesty to admit that it was I who warned against the use of such an emotive term, to the extent of producing a lengthy article on what these burial places might have been - I expressed my disgust at your suggestion that a septic tank was a suitable place for a burial - no more.
I also pointed out that it was possible that some of the bodies may have been Famine victims.      
When every one of these cases has been raised, you have stonewalled in defence of the church - every single one.
You blamed the parents for knowing about the sexual abuse and allowing it to take place.
On all these matters, you have claimed it as a thing of the past, committed by people now dead who are not here to defend themselves.
Nowhere have you held your hands up and accepted that the power invested in the church as an organisation was and remains wrong.
Peter, I and others have reacted to revelations that are daily coming out in our press, nothing more - may of these abuses have been known about for decades - the treatment of "illegitimate" (the term is a form of abuse in itself) children went on record in the 1940s and was not brought to public notice then
Extreme clerical brutality in education has been a known fact throughout my lifetime - never acted on.
Sexual abuse of children was treated as a fact of life throughout the church, but kept secret, never acted upon other than to pass on the perpetrators to other places when their abuse became excessive.
The revelations of these abuses are ongoing - we have yet to find if there is any basis for the suggestions of abuse of mental patients, or whether the government and administrators of these homes allowed the inmates to be used as guinea-pigs for the testing of untried drugs - all to come.
What are we expected to do - sit on our hands and say nothing until everl last case is done and dusted, and in the meantime allow the church to be held in respect and continue to give them access to the nations children - is that what you would do?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 06:29 AM

Some thoughts from a Redemptorist priest in today;'s Irish Times:


Rite & Reason : The cumulative effect of scandals has a devastating effect of the church

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 07:01 AM

"I suppose, although I wouldn't wish to see it as a defence, that when you are force fed your morality by priests and nuns all your life, complicity has a diminished responsibility aspect to it.

Complicity means you never challenged the criminals as they claimed their right under their God, whilst reminding you he is your God too.

Deep ingrained superstition, the fuel of corruption.

Time for Voltaire methinks;

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Musket

Same generalisation and observation relate equally for Muslims then Musket?

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 08:17 AM

"Same generalisation and observation relate equally for Muslims then Musket?"
Don't you mean "Islamists" or do you tar all Christians with the same brush, as you obviously do Muslims?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 08:40 AM

As my last post was deleted for no good reason, I suppose I shall have to repeat.

Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 09:32 AM

Joe, the sheer sophistry of your replies denies any acceptance of the reality of the problem, I'm sad to have to say. You close the gamut of the problem down so nobody actually responsible can be held to account, and you shift the target, it's not the protestors who are not fighting fair, it's you.
Your Church has become a byword for contempt and you are clearly willing to turn every blind eye, to twist every logic, to cheese-pare and finagle until the problem that's as plain as a pikestaff disappears in a chimaera of farrago. The answer's equally plain: you speak for a Church which will do anything to dodge, duck and sidle past any accountability for its responsibility. You won't even accept that your Church writ large is responsible for anything, let alone accountable for the consequences. It's not the position for what the law has found across a fairish gamut of the world, so denial of the truth makes you equally as much recalcitrant as those who actually backslide into repeating the offences.
In doing so, you dishonour not only your heritage, but the reputation of other Churches of your faith not tainted by the same besmirching. The only way you'll ever manage to clear that up is by gathering the innocent men in the pews to act against your heirarchy, in rebellion. I don't see how you can possibly accept the philosophy of apostolic descent in the Confessional when the heirarchy is unpredictably tainted by such deeds, for example: your priesthood would have to act if nobody turned up to be absolved one Saturday. You have power you won't use, and so are tacitly complicit.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 02:25 PM

Voltaire's statement applies to all groups who can hold sway over people, religious, political and educational.
All three elements operate in Ireland, and many other regions, but there is a slight loosening of the ties now. The educational aspect, where children are brainwashed into beliefs is the worst.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Ed T
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 02:51 PM

"I've become to realize there's a world of difference between knowing something happened, even knowing why it happened, and believing it." Gayle Forman, Where She Went

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 02:55 PM

There are no deleted posts in this thread, Musket. The message you posted must not have "taken," but there is no conspiracy to delete your posts.


Peter Laban posted a link to a recent article in the Irish Times:
Rite & Reason : The cumulative effect of scandals has a devastating effect of the church

I urge you all to read it. It expresses more-or-less what I feel about these things. I am deeply disturbed by what happened in the Magdalene Laundries, the industrial schools, and the mother-and-baby homes - and, of course, also the molestation of children by priests. I object to the dramatic rhetoric because it unfairly distorts the reality, but nonetheless I am disgusted with church authorities for having allowed this to happen. One would think that if a church follows the creed of "Love thy neighbor," then that church should have run such institutions in a kind and generous manner - and it's clear that quite the opposite is what happened, and that sometimes the conduct of the employees of these institutions was criminal.

But on the other hand, there are a lot of people here who are using these incidents as a vehicle for their prejudice and their antireligious ideology. Their moralistic rants make it impossible for rational and honest discussion of these serious matters.

Anyhow, read the article. The author says exactly what I think, and he says it far better than I can.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 03:04 PM

"But on the other hand, there are a lot of people here who are using these incidents as a vehicle for their prejudice and their antireligious ideolog"
Every single poster to this thread has expressed the same disgust you have gotten round to doing finally.
There is not a shred of evidence of anybody using this topic as "a vehicle for their own prejudice and anti religious ideology."
All posts have condemned the actual events - some have expressed doubts of a church capable of such behaviour being fit to be left caring for or influencing children - that is neither "ant-religious" or "prejudiced" - just simple common sense.
We get the same type of smears when we criticise Israel - that we are "Antisemitic".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 03:10 PM

It was deleted Joe, although mainly because I called him a thick twat.

Sometimes, reason isn't enough. You have to prick the bubble of pomposity. You have snapped from time to time I recall, it's just that my snapping is possibly more dismissive, and I certainly am dismissive of Terribulus's notion that holding a religious body in contempt means you hold their members in contempt. I'd be a lonely old bastard if I did...

On a serious note, you can't say that every criticism is an opportunity for an anti religious agenda. It's like saying every public health report is an anti smoking agenda.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 08:30 PM

I can see all deleted posts, Musket, so I am quite certain that no posts of yours were deleted from this thread. If you ever have reason to think something has been deleted that shouldn't have been, just ask me, and I'll be glad to take a look.

There is only one deleted message in this thread, and it was a duplicate message.

It takes a lot to get a message deleted here. The moderators do not take the choice to delete lightly, and they delete only the most extremely offensive messages.

But on the other hand, a lot of messages just don't "take." It's a good idea to take ten seconds to highlight [CTRL-A] and copy [CTRL-C] your message text before posting, especially if it's a message you worked hard on. Then check the thread to make sure the message "took." If it didn't, refresh the thread [F5 key on your keyboard], and paste [CTRL-V] the message into the message box and post it again. If you have refreshed the thread, the post will almost certainly "take" unless Mudcat is running sluggishly.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Ed T
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 08:45 PM

"The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn." 
― Bertrand Russell

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 08:56 PM

Joe, if what you say about Army recruits is true, I agree that it's to be deplored. So what?

What angers me about the Catholic church's culture of abuse is the arrogance, hypocrisy and contempt for the laity that has allowed it to flourish. Thus a "fallen woman" is to be excoriated and her child denied baptism and Christian burial, while an archbishopo, when his own contemptible behaviour is exposed, is quick to remember Christian values: "I sometimes wonder if we are in danger of losing our sense of mercy and forgiveness in Ireland today." Thus Cardinal Brady responded to calls for his resignation or dismissal.

And are you suggesting, Joe, that Brady's role in covering up a priest's criminal abuse of children was a small matter? [Apologies for calling him O'Brady earlier. I blame my fingers.]

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 08:58 PM

I guess I'd say that in most circumstances, it doesn't do any good to try to figure out whom to blame when something is wrong - and I guess maybe that's what I feel is wrong with all these threads that condemn the Catholic Church for this and that. All too often, the condemnation gets in the way of fixing the problem.

If something is wrong, what's needed is for good people to step in and fix the problem - and too often, the screaming and finger-pointing gets in the way of that. I am a big fan of the "tipping point" theory, based on the book by Malcolm Gladwell that was published in 2000.

Gladwell's theory is that most things move along by inertia, and they seem almost impossible to change. But if a single person or a small group push against the inertia, amazing things can happen. Things can be really bad, and most people - even really good people - accept that's the way things are, and find it impossible to change things. I'm sure that's what happened in the institutions in Ireland. I can't believe that most of the people who worked in those institutions were horrible people who intended to be cruel. I'm sure that many of them did individual acts of kindness in those institutions and that they never did anything that was intentionally cruel - but they accepted the situation as it was, and never dreamed they could do anything to change it. The forces of negativity are very strong, and it may well be that they prevail most of the time. But I'm also sure that in some of those institutions, there were people who pushed against the system, and a very few people can make a real difference in a situation like that. And when kindness and compassion become the rule rather than the exception, radical change happens.

But it appears clear that didn't happen very often in the Catholic institutions of Ireland, if it happened at all.

I think the tide is finally turning, and now the Catholic Church even has a Pope who thinks that doing things with a good heart is more important than following the rules.

The baggage from the past still remains, and there's no denying it. I can't fix it - nobody can fix it. Great harm was done by the Catholic Church, and that's a fact. There is a demand for apologies and reparations, and there is a need for that - but somehow I don't think it's fair if the process of reparations for the past destroys current Catholics who are trying to do what's right.

The current compensation for Catholic priest child molestation victims in the United States is a million dollars. But each million dollars spent compensating a molestation victim, is a million dollars that can't be spent feeding the homeless. And a million-dollar damage settlement doesn't heal the victim of child molestation. And the million dollars is paid by people who had nothing to do with the crime, since the criminals are dead or penniless. So, I don't know what's the answer to that.

As I see it, the arrogance of the Catholic hierarchy has finally been broken, although there's a bastard here and there who got through the cracks. But the Catholic Church as a whole is deeply humbled by the multiple scandals and coverups that took place in the twentieth century and for centuries before that.

So, now you have a humbled church that wants to do right. Where do we go from here?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 09:13 PM

I do not think we are done bumbling ooops typo humbling archbishops yet. Carlson, guy in venice florida, finn, dolan, listecki, paprocki, sartain, cordeleone, burke..misspelled some names...but.do they strike you as humbled? Read abuse tracker every day ..every single day and see if we have reached that great come and get it day yet. Every day it seems something new and even more disgusting.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 12:10 AM

"the arrogance of the Catholic hierarchy has finally been broken, although there's a bastard here and there who got through the cracks."
.,,.
Considering the criteria by which all those babies got dead in the first place, might this have been perhaps more happily expressed!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Musket
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 03:46 AM

Don't give lessons on how to cut and paste Joe. There are enough members who think that cutting and pasting text from dubious websites out of context equals debate as it is...

Ok, I shall accept the coincidence of the only post not taking being one where I gave a medical diagnosis of a member.

But as to my other point in my last post; I really take issue with your assertion that such atrocities are an excuse for the religion bashers to come out of the woodwork. Rational reactions to crime are not an excuse to moan about crime, they are a plea to get assurances that this sort of thing has a lower risk of reoccurrence now than before.

To date, I see on the Vatican website that obeying church authority and getting your moral compass from an old book with 2,000 year old ideals is the only way to be a good catholic.

You might not fall for that, but how many have your access to education and experience of applying reason? How many times do we read that priests are harmless but imams are dangerous for quoting the same instruction to their flock?

The sooner personal faith and organised religions are seen as two different influences on society, the sooner we can begin to dismantle the privilege that religious organisations have yet hardly deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 04:43 AM

Meanwhile, deathrates in the Tuam Mother & Baby Home are being looked at more closely an astonishing 79% of babies born there didn't live through their first year : irish Times article

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 05:14 AM

To give the number in the previous post some context: the present infant mortality rate in Ireland is around 3.4 in 1000, in 1900 this number was 150 in a 1000.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Ed T
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 05:44 AM

"...each million dollars spent compensating a molestation victim, is a million dollars that can't be spent feeding the homeless. And a million-dollar damage settlement doesn't heal the victim of child molestation. And the million dollars is paid by people who had nothing to do with the crime, since the criminals are dead or penniless. So, I don't know what's the answer to that."

The million dollars was paid by people who are members of the Roman Catholic Church organization who were jointly "accountable" for those who did the molesting, the continuation and the coverup "period". Though it will never heal the wounds, and impact, that go beyond those abused, at a minimum, it helps and sends a clear message to this church and other organizations, that they are responsible for the actions of those in their organization, and have a duty to put reasonable measures in place to protect the young under the organizations authority.

I suspect it is much like a lawsuit against any large organization, like the big car companies, the shareholders, assembly line workers and consumers pay for the mistakes of others doing wrong in their organizations that impact others. It is the way it goes in the world. Get over it Joe, let it go and move on from that sob story, as others have done. It reflects some underlying bitterness and a lack of compassion for those abused and compensated (some, only after being denied a minimum of consideration and compassion by the RC organization for many years). I feel you are better than that, Joe, and do have compassion for others, under that bitterness towards those who were abused, compensated and exposed the un-Christion-like past church actions (the organization and people in positions of power).

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 06:07 AM

On the compensation issue: in an Irish context the church fought tooth and tail against any compensation and eventually managed to get a deal in which a redress board was set up that would pay out compensation to victims of clerical sex abuse. Both the church and the orders involved would contribute 50% each to this fund.

As things stand, the orders were, lets say, slow to contribute and were quite happy to let the state foot the bill. Orders also wide moved assets in order to avoid payment to victims.

This article. outlines some of the things involved.

Was the money 'saved' by the orders spent on good works? That's not made clear in any of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 06:14 AM

[Joe's characterization of the Catholic Church]
Things can be really bad, and most people - even really good people - accept that's the way things are, and find it impossible to change things.

That's a description of a fundamentally rotten and destructive institution...

it doesn't do any good to try to figure out whom to blame when something is wrong - and I guess maybe that's what I feel is wrong with all these threads that condemn the Catholic Church for this and that

...where the blame lies not with individuals but with the institution itself. So those threads are right to condemn the Church rather than the thousands of sadists, paedophiles and thieves who have made use of it for their own ends.

The current compensation for Catholic priest child molestation victims in the United States is a million dollars. But each million dollars spent compensating a molestation victim, is a million dollars that can't be spent feeding the homeless. And a million-dollar damage settlement doesn't heal the victim of child molestation. And the million dollars is paid by people who had nothing to do with the crime, since the criminals are dead or penniless.

As you said yourself, the Vatican has vast financial resources (because Mussolini expropriated a large part of the wealth of Italy to hire them as ideological cops). They can afford it, and paying that sum communicates the important point that institutions can be punished for doing evil. That's something most victims will be very happy to see, regardless of what use they may be able to make of the money. An institution that murders and lies should not be seen to get away with it.

If the Church sincerely wants to see the homeless fed, they can throw their weight behind the struggle for a society where each receives according to their need. No institution has the dosh to feed the world as a charitable project.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 06:45 AM

This article from this morning's Irish Times discusses the punative nature of the homes.
A further piece points out that they situation was not confined to Catholic-run homes, but included the Protestant-run Bethany Homes, though to a much lesser degree.
Jim Carroll

COUNTY HOMES TOOK THEIR TOLL ON 'UNMARRIED MOTHERS'
Sean Lucey
Background
Hard unpaid Labour was part of price mothers and babies paid for basic shelter

In 1925, the medical officer of the Kerry County Home recommended 22 of the institution's "unmarried mothers" receive two extra eggs daily because they were "required to perform work of an objectionable nature".
When the department of local government and public health inquired further, the religious matron of the home, Sr Gerard, described the women's harsh work regimes.
She informed the department there were no paid ward maids and the women were
"engaged from 12 to 14 hours" in labour every day. The institution housed up to 400 patients: the majority were elderly and those suffering from long-term chronic sickness, mental illness and intellectual disabilities, and in need of frequent care.
In turn, the "unmarried mothers" carried out much of the manual labour in the home including cleaning, washing and laundry. The matron highlighted that much of this work was "so filthy and unhealthy" it was "almost inhuman " - particularly as the institution had no laundry machine and many of the patients were incontinent - and that some of the women were "almost physical wrecks".

STRICTER REGIMES
County homes were multifunctional healthcare and welfare institutions. These differed in many ways from mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries, where disciplinary regimes were far stricter and based on redemptive morality.
Mother and baby homes such as Bessborough in Cork city were designed for women with one "illegitimate" child-or "first offenders" – who ere often considered "hopeless cases" whose moral character
could be redeemed. Many of the women in county homes had more than one "illegitimate" child. These were "repeat offenders" and subjected to the harshest attitudes.
Although the 1927 Poor Law Commission recommended that such "degraded cases" be fully removed from county homes and placed in a new network of institutions for "repeat offenders", financially straitened local authorities were unwilling to invest in separate institutions.
So large numbers of "unmarried" mothers and children remained in county homes despite the protestations of many, including the matron of the Kerry home. On March 31st, 1943, there were 583 "unmarried women" in 31 county homes in Ireland, compared to 352 in th e three mother and baby homes run by the Order of the Sacred Heart -Bessborough in Cork City, Sean Ross in Roscrea and Manor Home in Castlepollard- and 201 in Tuam and Pelletstown combined.

MENIAL WORK
Problematically, these women continued to carry out much of the menial work in the homes, and their unpaid labour helped to keep the the local rates down: this was legal under.the public assistance laws.
By 1949, the interdepartmental commission into county homes commented on how unmarried women did in a "large part the hard domestic work" of such institutions.
A combination of government inertia, parsimonious ratepayers and the wider social environment that gave unmarried mothers limited options ensured these women remained in county homes.
Furthermore, county homes were interconnected with mother and baby homes, Magdalene asylums and voluntary-run institutions and women were often transferred between these institutions.
County homes also housed a large number of children, many of whom were sent to
industrial schools or more commonly boarded out in what was an early fostering service.
On March 31st, 1943,2,330 children were boarded out by local authorities, 1,425 children were in local authority institutions – primarily county homes - and 685 were in external voluntary institutions.
While boarded-out children were the focus of local and central government inspection, criticisms were prevalent that they were often used for domestic service and as agricultural labourers.

ALL ASPECTS
While today's Government decides on the nature of any potential inquiry into mother and baby homes, it is apparent that all aspects of local authori¬ty provision for unmarried mothers and children need to be fully considered.
County homes, a hangover from the workhouse system, were peculiar institutions that housed not just "unmarried mothers" and children, but large numbers of the "aged" poor, "infirm", mentally ill and intellectually disabled in independent Ireland.
On March 31st, 1943, county homes had a population close to 8,000. These were deeply unpopular with the wider population and remained highly stigmatising. Conditions were bare.

LOW STANDARDS
One government inspector in 1949 commented on the "low standards of comfort and amenities" in the wards and believed the atmosphere was one of "penury". He also noted that elderly male residents lacked interest in their surroundings and sat in the day room "motionless and often silent". The chronic sick were described as "apathetic".
While Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan's fear of any potential inquiry descending into a "bottomless quagmire" is somewhat understandable, much deeper understandings of Ireland's institutional past, complex social history and treatment of the vulnerable in the 20th century are needed.
Dr Sean Lucey is research fellow (AHRC) at the school of history and anthropology, Queen's University Belfast

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Ed T
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 07:07 AM

Accountability since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65)?

UN Human Rights report 

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Ed T
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 07:12 AM

From thd UN report I linked. "The Vatican was 14 years late submitting its most recent report."

Anyone notice hints if "the old shell game" when it comes to RC church accountability for bad actions of its employees/representativies?

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 01:31 PM

Thanks for linking the Human Rights report.
Francis calls abortion horrific, and offers no change in the Church rules on contraception and abortion.
Catholic hospitals and hospices should be avoided by pregnant couples since the idea of conception does not allow abortion even when the life of the mother is at stake.

Sex education is recommended for young pupils in Canadian schools, but in Ontario, as elsewhere, but how the concepts are taught is up to the teacher.
In Alberta, the RC schools issue Human Sexuality Parents Handbooks.
An introductory statement says the essential purpose of the RC school system is to fully permeate Catholic theology, philosophy, practices and beliefs .... in all aspects of school life.
....All institutional materials, instruction and exercises will at all times include subject matter that deals primarily and explicitly with religion.
The role of man and woman is stressed (no mention of gays, etc.).
Conception is stated as the beginning of life. Subjects such as abortion are not mentioned.

Students are taught gender roles. This of course emphasizes the role of the male as the bread-winner and the woman as home-maker, although students are told to make their own decisions.

Catechetical Focus-
"Contraception technology is contrary to Catholic moral teaching..."
"Human life begins at the moment of conception..."
"Abortion is the killing of an innocent life."

Periodic continence is recommended for couples who wish to limit the possibility of pregnancy.
"to render procreation impossible is essentially evil."

This school system is funded with public money in Alberta.
The school system thus allows brain-washing of a large segment of the student population.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 02:16 PM

Catholic hospitals and hospices should be avoided by pregnant couples since the idea of conception does not allow abortion even when the life of the mother is at stake.

Maybe all this shouldn't be dragged into this particular discussion but Google the Savita Hallapanavar case.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 02:30 PM

Joe, ever heard of false humility? Taking pride in how humble you are? That's the kind of hogwash your sect specialises in, it's crocodile tears.
In general, the theory has it that repentant confession leads to rebirth. For that to happen, the tear-down of repentance has to be fundamental, and the confession the recognition before the face of the living God the reality in all its depth and turpitude of what was wrong, rooted in self-loathing and contempt. But there is one exception to that rule, the destruction of childhood innocence. For that, Christ made it clear there is no forgiveness. The confession is one in faith and before the Spirit, not some transvestite sexual repressive. Sorry, but those who did it, and those who covered for them, and those who covered for them, are all irrecoverably damned.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 02:57 PM

first I heard of that. They always said there was a sin against the Holy Spirit that could not be forgiven but they never told us what it was. I figured it must be something like what goes on your permanent record.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 11:44 PM

Peter Laban, usually you get things right, but this time you misinterpreted the numbers:

Thread #154680   Message #3634206
Posted By: GUEST,Peter Laban
18-Jun-14 - 04:43 AM
Thread Name: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns


Meanwhile, deathrates in the Tuam Mother & Baby Home are being looked at more closely an astonishing 79% of babies born there didn't live through their first year : irish Times article

The article says, Almost 80 per cent of the 796 children who died in the Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam did not live to see their first birthday. Note that the report says that 10 of the 796 children died of a form of malnutrition when they were between 2 and 12 months old - no information about malnutrition before 2 months or after 12 months, so we don't know the whole story there.

And while we know that over a period of 36 years the home lost an average of 22 babies or children a year, we don't know how many were born there - so we can't determine the death rate.

I read somewhere that the capacity of the Tuam home was 200, and I'm gathering that means 200 unwed mothers. Some other article said that the young women stayed in the home for a year. So, I'm guessing the number of births was 200 a year or fewer. If there were 22 deaths a year and 200 births, that makes a death rate of about ten percent. But that's just a guess - we need an accurate number of births to determine an accurate death rate. I've seen estimates of a twenty percent death rate at Tuam, which sounds more credible to me. Twenty percent is certainly a serious problem, but not as shocking as 79 percent.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 12:20 AM

Yes, sorry that was sloppy reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: akenaton
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 02:46 AM

and sloppy thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 02:56 AM

Who told Akenaton it was sloppy thinking? Did he work it out for himself.

If you read accounts of the Nuremberg trials, one if the most obscene moments was von Ribbentrop arguing a report he had acknowledged about 400,000 deaths, where he had his defence assert that it was only 350,000 and wanted the court to take this lower number into account as mitigation.

Still hung the bastard.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 03:00 AM

MG, the exact texts are the start of Matt 18, Mark 9:36-42, and Luke 17:2 (but beware here, it's a scrapbook clipping quoted out of context). Rome as ever takes it and turns it into its own twisted version, the Holy Innocents, so that it can get away with slipping the twisted version of Original Sin underlying this in under the radar without being noticed.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 03:14 AM

"and sloppy thinking."
I wonder why some people insist on using minor slips like this to justify or sidestep what is inescapably inhuman behaviour to a horrific level, while at the same time, totally ignoring the all the facts, especially the full implications of a body like The Catholic Church behaving as they have and being place in a situation where they were able to carry out such inhuman behaviour.
Of all the posters here, Peter has been one of the most informative and even-handed.
Give us a break.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 12:08 PM

the texts that guest gives certainly apply to the criminal clerics, but I don't think they teach that repentance and restoration are impossible......even if we think that they ought.

I too was surprised by akenatons post. seemed uncalled for to me .
maybe another sorry is in order?

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 12:33 PM

I was listening to local radio here in cork, and a listener rang in and said it was common knowledge at the time that if a bachelor wanted to get a wife he could go and pay and have the choice of one of the women that were working for the nuns[ as a means of paying off their debts, some women had to work as agricultural slaves for a couple of years]. dont know if itis true, but if it is it is another scandal.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Musket
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 12:47 PM

Add it to the list of other apologies Akenaton needs to make...

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 07:06 PM

"And Stim's tie to the hypocrisy of modern anti-abortionists is a bit anachronistic, I'd say. I'd agree that hypocrisy is alive and well in the so-called "pro-life" movement, but modern pro-lifers are unlikely to be in favor of burying dead babies in a septic tank."

Come on Joe! You know as well as I, or any other who was raised as a Catholic, that the Church back then did not permit contraception, or abortion even when abortion was to save the mother's life.

How does that gel with delivering live babies and deliberately allowing them to starve to death because they were illegitimate?

How they disposed of the bodies, while horrific, is a side issue.

The point is that those who professed an absolute concern for preserving life, were at the same time taking life by deliberate neglect.

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 07:39 PM

@Pleiades Pete
Matt 18:14 ...your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish. So killing kids is against God's will.
Matt 18:6 ...it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. and a pretty gruesome fate awaits them.
Matt 18:8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. namely hell-fire.

Which to me is pretty categorical that no redemption for them is possible.

The idea that Heaven is accessible to all is yet another piece of Roman apostasy. The number of texts which say otherwise is considerable, and it is clear that not all are chosen (Matt 22:14).

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Ed T
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 07:43 PM

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing." 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

Subject: RE: BS: Dead babies and Tuam Bon Secours nuns
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 08:21 PM

... taking life by deliberate neglect.

Ah, but then, ya see, 'twas God's will.