The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.
In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.
Religion is such hypocrisy. No wonder people are turning away.
On one hand, they tell people don’t use birth control, no abortion ; on the other hand, they don’t protect them.
If your society cannot or will not support an unmarried pregnant woman on her own, your society is a failed one.
My brain took a moment to register the word infant. As in the child was already born.
This is probably from poor medical care.
no this is post-birth abortion… aka murder….
Looks like all the kids died of disease? Definitely evidence that the world has gotten better not worse.
Well, some things. Science and medicine are two of the things that I count as consistently bettering our lives.
Don’t jinx it, the antivax crowd certainly is growing. And then there is Maha.
Satanic Panic was projection.
If we do shit like this, imagine what they could do!
Yeah, and the irony is that in the Bible, Lucifer never even asked for an animal or human sacrifice, but god did.
The band names are thick in the comments.
I feel like maybe only people who have vaginas and can get pregnant should have a say in the whole abortion rights issue. So I’ll step aside and just mention that my drainage system has zero bodies in it. So you know, like most normal people should probably have more voice than the Catholic church with rapist priests and 800 abortion bodies in their drain pipes. But yes, we should all be allowed to present evidence :).
Just a note infant <> aborted…these were likely babies born and died of disease and preventable causes.
So much to hate about this situation; but I don’t think abortion debate is relevant here.
Yeah it was a gut feel…then read the comment… Even much worse.
Playing devil’s advocate here, could it be that they ran something like a baby euthanasia outfit? like, no contraceptives back then, extreme social stigma surrounding birth out of wedlock, poverty forcing women to give up their newborns, giving them up to the nunnery, which had no resources to deal with feeding caring and raising thousands upon thousands of children, and so either A) simply took it upon themselves to take the logical step and cull some of them, or B) that a high number of babies died of natural causes (neglect, malnutrition, sudden infant death syndrome, disease, whatever) and they simply disposed of them.
I don’t know what else could explain this, it’s not like we’re seriously talking about gangs of murderous baby killing nuns roaming the streets at night and snatching up babies by the hundreds for lust murders, right?
As far as I’m concerned, the only crime here is the institutionalized psychopathy of a religious patriarchal system that refused to take responsibility for giving people a legal and moral avenue to raise children that were brought into life in violation of religious law.
Makes more sense to me at least, I may be fuck way off wrong.
Yeah to me it sounds like the babies died of such causes and weren’t intentionally killed. I can imagine that trying to get rid of the bodies in other ways (burial, cremation, dumping elsewhere) would make the many deaths too visible or obvious, and would lead to questioning. But they could be hidden in the sewage.
So you think they “care” so much about these single women and their babies that they would kill their babies and hide their remains in a septic tank?, what’s wrong with you. Don’t you think the more humane thing would be to promote contraceptives and safe sex and safe abortions in case of accidental pregnancies, and run proper orphanages for the unwanted kids. But of course the actual church is against all of this, cause the idea that religion has anything to do with morality is ridiculously stupid. All religions are cults full of dumb fucks desperate to matter in this meaningless existence.
Nuns, historically, have not had much if any authority in the church. I think just a couple of years ago they ousted one of the only female pastors in the USA.
What made you think I’m talking about nuns, I’m talking about those in power, who’s orders they follow willingly, they could choose not to and walk away or expose the church higher ups, they choose not to, so don’t tell me about nuns being powerless, what they are is soulless
If only it were so easy. I’ve been atheist since middle school but I was raised by a Catholic and an Evangelical, if a person actually believes they suffer for eternity for not appealing to the source of all true good then you’re not going to convince them to walk away because of the church’s policy on condoms. And even if you did convince a handful, it’s not going to dent the Church’s bottom line. Real change has to come from the higher ranks.
Article says
DNA analysis found that the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years.
A major inquiry into the mother-and-baby homes found that in total, about 9,000 children died in 18 different mother-and-baby homes, with major causes including respiratory infections and gastroenteritis, otherwise known as the stomach flu.
So basically just Dysentery, yeah. The nuns were no saints (lol) either, though, because they punished the unmaried mothers and put them through hard labor (lol).
This is a terrible time for jokes, I’m so sorry about that. I always make sure to ask for forgiveness (lol).
dude… WTF is with the (lol)s in your post? None of what you said is funny, or even reads remotely like it’s even trying to be a joke.
Right, okay
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“they’re no saints” is funny because they’re part of a religious organization who revere saints
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“made to do labor” is funny because in english Labor is a term used to describe the final step of childbirth
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“ask for forgiveness” again because religion that reveres asking the lord for forgiveness.
Hope that helps you out, buddy.
The first rule of comedy is reading the room.
What, too soon?
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Wow! 3 years!
There’s a behind the bastards episode about it if you’d like to actually educate yourself on why so many of the children died and why they were so callously thrown in the septic and stop sounding so ignorant
Or you can just tell us why, instead of being insulting and vague about it. Hell, you didn’t even link which episode has the information you say he is ignorant for not knowing about.
Lemmy is worse than reddit in terms of unhinged and hateful replies to benign, good-faith but ignorant comments. I don’t know how shut-in the users here are but everyone is itching to rip someone’s throat out over imagined slights or the desperate, performative need to look better than someone else who doesn’t know something.
No, it’s pretty annoying when people don’t link shit that should be easy. At least when I’m doing it from mobile, I’ll promise to do it when I get home.
Btw, here’s the Behind the Bastards episode. Part One: How The Catholic Church Murdered Ireland’s Babies | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
This! Im gonna get down voted for this im sure but I’ve been using Lemmy instead of reddit for almost a year now or so but the hive mind is almost worse here than it is on reddit! People here seem to not be interested in actual discussion unless you agree 100% with them. It’s frustrating, I was hoping Lemmy was gonna be better.
Oh well, at least there’s less bigots and my app still works haha
There’s probably significant overlap with the Linux warriors here who will respond to people’s legitimate questions with variations of “why don’t you just not do that and instead do this other thing that doesn’t solve your issue” (and also not explain how to do that either).
Which episode?
I changed my upvote to a little cute “down” arrow when I got to the end of your short but unhinged comment. Way to turn “informative” into “needlessly spiteful for no good reason.” You could have ended the comment with a link to the episode even.
Sick bunch of Penguins.
Hello. I am a Linux Penguin. Please do not associate me with the evil Penguins. Thank you.
Religion has historically provided a safe haven to the sick and twisted among society, where they’re allowed to act with impunity due to their perceived status.
That’s not directly due to the religion; but rather due to the societal pedestal being devout seems to put people on; “a holy person could never do that to a child” etc…
The reality is, other areas that benefit from this sort of status too find themselves riddled with bad actors… Just look through charity organisations and I can guarantee you’ll be combing over a sea of sociopaths buying themselves good credit with public opinion rather than people looking to make a difference because they want to (not to say these people don’t exist; they just don’t end up running the show normally)
All inequality creates abuse.
Your last paragraph reminded me of Ashton Kutcher… I can’t watch that 70s show anymore. It was my favorite tv show of all time.
mental health nurses who work in an asylum/“hospital”/“mental health unit” too according to a friend who works in one as a nurse.
Look into any situation where there is a massive disparity of power between some people and other people and that’s were you will find the most abuses and I totally agree it’s for the reasons you said of there being far less risk for the abusers due to their “status” and that such places actually attract the worst people in society so it’s a bit of self-fullfilling prophecy that putting too much power and not enough transparency and accountability in a position will invariably end up with it being abused, even if you start with the purest of people and the purest of intentions.
This is also probably why there was (and only time will tell if that’s still or not the case) so much child sexual abuse in the Catholic church: adult in high standing in the community and implicitly trusted by all vs child (generally from a poor background).
Thinking about this over the years (mainly for Politics, but it applies to other areas) has led me to conclude that the “good” exercise of power is impossible to get from a static situation (i.e. the idealistic idea that “give power to honest people” solves it) and instead it has to be setup as a dynamic mechanism with frequent rotation of people and multiple unrelated (ideally, competing) people watching over each other other (which is probably where the ide behind the Three Pillars Of Democracy) and whose power balances.
Exactly concentrating power in the hands of a few is a recipe for disaster, doesn’t matter if you elect uncle Roger to the post. Power needs to be distributed and the people who have it should be in constant fear of losing it if they don’t work towards gaining the favor of the masses by working towards the betterment of society. This is why I find morons who pick political sides as if it’s a sports team so stupid, neither side should think you belong to them, they should worry about you flipping your mind all the time.
Couldn’t agree more!
The rosy romanticisation of what should be a humanitarian entity is probably worst with Buddhism. The Buddhist majority-Burmese oppressing the Rohyngian Muslims, some Buddhist monks advocating for dominance in South East Asia, and even pre-CCP Tibet where the dalai lama and his ilks were decadent and corrupt, seem unfathomable for many who view Buddhism as the most secular and least dogmatic religion. There was an article I have read lamenting this corruption in Buddhist communities, and I was like “they are still humans, what do you expect?”
Fuck off sino shill, CCP is not doing any Tibetans favour’s by invading their country, they are a bunch of corrupt dictators
Not making CCP any better here, but truth is truth and doesn’t care about your feelings. Was it China’s business to invade Tibet? No, but pre-CCP Tibet was a corrupt theocratic state similar to Iran and Renaissance-era Vatican.
And what’s your source for any of this, I can bring up multiple sources for the atrocities done by the CCP on their own citizens (tiananmen square massacre) and those of neighboring nations, can you back up any of what you claim about Tibet, and even if it were true that does not give China any rights to invade them. Should the other countries invade China for their corrupt leaders then?
Unhelpful American chiming in: if the Finns, or Danes are feeling feisity we could really use a regime change…
You could literally google and see sources what life was like in Tibet before. China is bad, and Tibet before was bad. Many things can be true at the same time. It is just the fact of life. No one is backing up China, it is only you problem if that is you are being emotional on a factual statement.
To the “religion is what makes us civil” crowd, fuck off all the way to whatever hell you believe in or just the sun.
Disclaimer: This is not a call for violence.
Understood, I will go and punch a nun.
I have never understood this pseudo-argument. Christian morality is based on the fear of eternal punishment. Do these fools even realize that?! Morality can be explained much more comprehensibly and naturally through evolution and empathy.
My main issue in discussions on religion is that either side generally claims that either “it makes us civil”, as you say, or that “it’s the cause of evil”. In reality it’s neither. Religion has traditionally been (still is, I’m afraid) a powerful form of crowd control that in past times has steered some believers into doing better deeds by the duality of the hell-heaven system, and likewise has twisted others into extremism and using religion as justification for evil acts. Most of the time it’s just a simple way of life that rids you of the need to question the universe and to carve your own path. As a “Muslim” I sometimes, in some ways, envy those that simply view the etiquettes, laws, and traditions that govern their lives as unquestionable truths. There’s no need to search for purpose, you’re already born with it.
Humans are flawed and evil. That is true with or withour religion.
Sorry for rambling.
I think you nailed it here. The successful religions are the ones that are useful as tools for the powerful. It’s not the cause of evil, but it’s something that lets powerful people convince people to do awful things.
On the other hand, for the believers, it’s a source of community and comfort. They’re given simple rules to follow and promised that their suffering is not in vain. It gives them simple answers to complex questions.
It also allows people to get over feeling bad. A bad thing is “part of god’s plans”. A bad thing you did is not really your fault because a trickster god made you do it, or the devil made you do it, so you don’t need to do any self-reflection. Or, a bad thing happened to you or someone you love, that’s just a bad god, or a devil, or a complex part of a god’s plan, so you don’t need to worry about it. This is all really useful for leaders, because they’re inevitably closer to the gods than the people they control, and they get to use excuses like “you’re suffering because the gods are unhappy with you” or “it’s your lot in life, because you were born to that caste” or “this was all because of this wicked group of other people who believe in a different god, so we should kill them and take their land”.
Humans are flawed and sometimes evil, but religion is a very useful tool to manipulate those people.
I’m pretty sure it’s more like: religions define what we find civil as a society. Personal spiritual beliefs define what people find acceptable and unacceptable. Religion align spiritual beliefs among social groups.
Numbers 31:18
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
You can keep the “religion defines what we find civil as a society.” Miss me with all of the shit.
Id say religion tends to be more of a reflection of what a society finds as civil. Look at other religions around the world, or historical religions and there are some things that would be entirely unacceptable in my local society at least.
I find them more to be a reflection of a small group. Then it is pushed on others to force them to assimilate. Christianity, Hindism, Islam, Judaism, and every other group has “do what we say or else.”
“civil”
Recently in England there was a Turkish man burning the koran… a Muslim guy came out and lunged at him several times with a knife he just happened to have on him shouting “you will not burn my holy book” or some such, the book burner was charged by the police (the bible can be burnt in England but for some reason the koran cannot). Kier Starmer didn’t want to progress an investigation into child abuse because of how it will expose the Muslim men abusing working class young white girls because their religion states girls who don’t cover their hair are sluts.
Every time I run into a pro lifer, I tell them about what happened in Ireland.
Most of them ignore me, some say it’s worth it.
I’m old enough to remember everyone getting all bent out of shape by Sinead O’Connor ripping up a picture of the Pope.
She was a couple of years early, but right.
She didn’t really explain much at the time though, and when she did it never got a lot of publicity. People thought she was just attacking Catholics as a whole.
All most people saw was her ripping up a picture, going “fight the real enemy” and then a bunch of smear articles about her going mental.
It’s worth mentioning that Joe Pesci did SNL the following week and said “I would have gave [sic] her such a smack. I would’ve grabbed her by her … eyebrows.” AFAIK he has never apologized for this.
But she paid a huge price for being too early :(
Didn’t she go full Islam afterwards though? Like… Bruh.
Islam in and of itself is not problematic, not anymore than Christianity at least. Like with literally every religion, it’s the strict conservatives within the religion that are the ones who enforce ridiculous mores and dress codes and other things that are detrimental to the health of the followers of that religion.
It’s just funny that she could see the cruelty towards children and women in one religion and not another that is equally culpable.
Again, religion does not equal church. She spent a lot of time as a Catholic trying to make other Catholics see the evils within the church. I think she just became tired of being the town cryer in a world that doesn’t give a shit. And Islam, the religion and belief system not the various organized churches, might have held some amount of peace for her soul. Criticizing her for converting and not starting a whole new crusade to stop the myriad of abuse found within the various sects of Islam is just silly. Especially since there are already a million voices pointing out the faults in the Islamic churches already.
No. Show your work.I have been educated today.
Fuckin’ weird move, Sinead.
I mean, it was 26 years after the pope thing but she did convert to Islam. Even changed her name.
HUH. Okay, fair enough.
Can you blame her?
Can you blame her for recognizing and turning her back on a harmful patriarchal religion that victimizes women and children and turning to… Islam? Yeah, I can.
I don’t. Her talent doesn’t make her anything special outside of that talent. A person can do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Also, it happened during a time when Muslims were facing torment from the outside world because of 9/11. She wasn’t the only artist to convert to Islam during that time, but most of the ones I remember reading about at least had some potential connection to the religion through their ancestry.
Some people cannot fathom a world without religion, even when they see the destruction in what they’re familiar with. If you spend your heart fighting one enemy, it’s a lot easier to miss the crimes of the enemy next door, especially if that enemy is a perceived underdog.
Edit:
2018 is when she converted apparently, but she still would have seen and felt the post 9/11 world. I don’t know much of anything so disregard everything I said if you want to or tell me why I’m an idiot if I deserve it.
I remember that and I still listen to Mandika.
My dad recent got a decent payout for being the internationally trafficked childhood victim of one of these unwed mother homes…
Not worth his lifetime of trauma, nor the issues that came with being sold at age 4 to a “keeping up appearances” family that sent him away to boarding school on top of everything…
But it’s something… he’s mid 70s, so you know, totally enough time to use the money.
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Secours_Mother_and_Baby_Home .
The mothers were required to stay inside the home for one year, doing unpaid work for the nuns, as reimbursement for some of the services rendered. They were separated from their children, who remained separately in the home, raised by nuns, until they could be adopted – often without consent.
Some women who had had two confinements were sent directly to nearby Magdalene laundries after giving birth, as punishment for their perceived “recidivism”. According to Professor Maria Luddy, "Such a stance, though not intended to be penal, allowed for the development of an attitude that accepted detention as a means of protecting society from these reoffending women.
Confinements. Punishment. Detention. Reoffending women.
Damn those fucking monsters. Worse of all I bet the lived with no consequences…
