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PDF versionThe other history of abuse in Catholic Ireland
by Jamie L Manson on May. 26, 2011
Many NCR readers may remember the 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters, which tells the largely unknown story of Irish women who were forced to labor in laundries for breaking Catholic Ireland's strict sexual codes. In most cases, these women were caught giving birth out of wedlock.
It is estimated that more than 30,000 women were sentenced to work in these laundries, which were run by orders of women religious. The conditions were harsh, and many survivors recount stories of physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Though the Irish government denies having a role in these private run laundries, there is evidence that state officials routinely sentenced women offenders to the laundries. Records also indicate that the nuns were given lucrative government contracts to support these programs.
For two years, the advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes has lobbied the Irish government to investigate the laundries, but to no avail.
Ireland's silence forced Justice for Magdalenes to take their case to the United Nations. Their submission detailed the human rights violations that took place in the laundries. Last week, they were invited to make a statement before the UN Committee Against Torture.
Like the sexual abuse crisis, this history of abuse demonstrates the long legacy and swift fall of the Catholic church's moral authority in Ireland.
A detailed story can be found at The New York Times.
It's outrageous for the
It's outrageous for the Cardinal to insinuate that it was just a question of the temper of the times. Cruelty of this kind would have been condemned 2000 by the Christ of the Beatitudes. What closed down the Laundries was not new windom but the prevalance of the washing machines.
There is a claim from one
There is a claim from one English lady she was kidnapped in England and taken to Ireland and placed in a laundry, So far neither government will deal with this, She has two birth certificates , One from the UK and one from Ireland
In Australia, it isn't
In Australia, it isn't unheard of in one situation, (and if there's one you can bet your life there's more), where the real mother hasn't been included at all on her child's birth certificate.
In another article Sex and Money? It's about power, in NCR recently, this certainly fits the criteria.
please see the James Joyce
please see the James Joyce short story Clay and associated commentaries
All power to them. Australia
All power to them.
Australia may not be far behind them if the Senate Inquiry into Forced and Illegal Adoptions isn't satisfactory.
So many mothers and relinquished babies whose records for expediency, haven't been kept, have been lost or destroyed, with no hope of re-connecting, Catholic institutions and Adoption Agencies included.
Amongst them no doubt, babies conceived through "situations created by clergy", in Melbourne that is now on public record and certainly well recorded in Rome.
Are any of the nuns
Are any of the nuns personally responsible for the abuse still liable to prosecution?
Sounds a little like the
Sounds a little like the arguement of whose responsable for the clergy who abuse, with a trail leading nowhere.
Isn't it amazing.
I suppose with Catholic issues, clergy who became fathers could step forward and claim their legacies, the timeline I refer to includes many who could very well be still living.
St Vincents was still in use for these "situations created by clergy" in the day's of Archbishop Little and his Vicar General Peter Connors, now Bishop of Ballarat.
I'm sure Judicial Vicar Ian Waters could also throw some light on who belongs to who, with all the clerical dossier's under his duristriction.
Religious Orders certainly do have their own, men and women.
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