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.
If your society cannot or will not support an unmarried pregnant woman on her own, your society is a failed one.
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.
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.
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.
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
-
“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!
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.
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).
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.
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 :).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I remember that and I still listen to Mandika.
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…
Religion is fucked up.
Don’t trust any religious people.
They’re all sick in the head.
Religion is a social cancer. Sometimes it’s benign and the host reabsorbs it. Other times it’s spreads and kills living tissue
I’d say it’s like a tailbone. It was once useful (when we were apes), but has long since lost all purpose. Now it is just a useless appendage and if you touch it the wrong way, you can end up paralized for the rest of your life. We can’t go without though, because it’s attached to out spine and muscles.
If you’re not religious why are you upset that some people didn’t get a proper burial?
There were death certificates so it’s unlikely there’s foul play, unless there’s some details this poorly written article is missing. It’s just they didn’t observe proper religious ceremony on the disposal of the deceased.
So your argument is that religious people are bad because some religious people don’t always follow religious ceremonies? Like if you don’t think religion is good, why would you be upset over improper disposal of the deceased?
Holy shit.
Article - 800 dead babies.
You - There was no sign of foul play why would you heathens care about burial?
Get your fucking head checked.
These homes existed purely to punish unwed mothers, because Catholicism. Don’t even try to minimise the deep national trauma still felt today because it might show a weirdo cult in a bad light.
You realise you don’t need to be religious to believe that people deserve a proper burial right? There doesn’t need to be some man in the sky watching everyone 24/7 for people to be buried with dignity
Yeah, burial is mostly just to make sure critters don’t drag your rotting bits out into the open and your putrid parts don’t contaminate the water supply.
That’s the practical aspect, but I believe the dignity and respect shown throughout the process gives people some closure.
Yeah, I’m sure there was no foul play in an abusive institution dealing with most vunerable members of society.
Why do people simp for organized religion so hard?
This is the second time this week I’ve seen this argument:
- Religion has historically done X
- religion is bad
- why do you care about X, that’s religious!
(The last one was about marriage)
I suspect that you’re a religious person making a slippery slope fallacy.
I dont agree with the original commenter, but come on.
This is a thread about babies.
Do you really think people need a religion to see that throwing their dead bodies in a septic tank is an incredibly disrespectful and dehumanizing act?
I dont need to wish for a christian burial to understand the implications of christian nuns doing this.
I don’t give a fuck about proper burials.
Burying bodies in cemeteries is an incredibly selfish thing. All cemeteries and golf courses should be converted into income based housing.
I only said religious people are fucked in the head. Full stop.
All religious people are mentally unwell and a danger to society.
I hope that cleared it up!
Honestly I think that thinking that having a place for people to grieve their loved ones is a selfish thing is realy fucked in the head.
Sure, plant and dedicate a tree. Or a bench by a lake. Or keep an urn on your mantle. Or thousands of other ways. But, sorry you can’t live here because we need this space exclusively to grieve?
Well, the tree thing is reality for those that chose forest burials (at least thats a thing in my country).
I think we would run out of benches by lakes rather quick. Also, that is a thing already.
Keeping an Urn is not legal everywhere. I agree the it should be.
The thing is, that humans want to do something with he their loves ones remains. We are incredibly social creates, to the point where our bonds last beyond death. We have buried our dead for thousands and thousands of years. Neanderthals buried their dead. It’s just an extremely human way to process grieve, complete independent of any religion.
So having a dedicated space to do so makes total sense. Of course that takes up room. But I’d argue that having a park like, walkable and often very beautiful place in your neighborhood is a net win for everybody. Unless you think that we should also get rid of parks and other recreational areas.
And, you have the possibility to visit a dedicated place of grievance close by, which is sensible especially for elderly people.
We would run out of benches by lakes.
But not land to bury dead people forever?!
I find your lack of logic… disturbing.
Removed by mod
Saucy! No sequitir! Illogical! And removed by mod!? LOL
There’s only two religions in the planet that do this kind of fucked up shit with any frequency, and it’s only because they’re the norm in both of those regions. Don’t make yourself sound like a literal Reddit atheist. You’re here exactly because Reddit sucks. Don’t bring it back.
Many people are religious without doing this kind of shit.
Only two? Hahahahahaha
Show me examples of Buddhists, Native Americans, or Paganists doing this kind of stuff. The literal reason Islamism and Christianity are particularly bad is because they’re mass-adopted and politicians take advantage of that.
Just remove all religion from politics and there won’t be any problems. Human rights dictate freedom of religion AND FROM religion, not just the later.
Almost every religion has some kind of missionary element, trying to spread or enforce its beliefs (and selling it as eternal truth). That’s basically how they survive and grow.
That’s the core problem for me: the need to convince others to believe the same thing. It turns personal belief into pressure, and that’s exactly why I don’t trust any religion.
Yes, it’s not all religions, but … (you should know how to finish the sentence)
Buddhists - Rohynga Genocide
Native Americans - Aztec human sacrifice, up to 20,000 per year.
Paganists - not a thing. Paganism is a description, not a religion. But there are plenty of neo-Nazi neo-pagan groups who love burning churches.
Have you heard of the Rohingya genocide? Buddhists absolutely do fucked up shit.
I would agree with you that not all religion is bad. But singling out Christianity and Islam as the exclusively bad ones is absurd. All religions have some really important things to teach us philosophically, but at the same time, pretty much every religion has been used to justify some pretty bad atrocities.
Holy shit. A nuanced take on religion on lemmy not downvoted into oblivion
All religions are poison. Picking which is worse between lead poisoning or arsenic?
That’s all you bud.
I’ll be poison free.
So like I used to be anti-religion. But when I studied the history of religious thought, it seemed like every criticism I had of religion I was able to find a religious tradition which explicitly accounted for that criticism, and it made me realize a lot of the essential beliefs that I had about religion in general were simply untrue. Like there are religious traditions that literally deny institutionalization (so you can’t even associate religion in general with organized religion), there are literally religions that explicitly reject the existence of any kind of deity (so you can’t even identify religion with a belief in some kind of a god). In general, it seemed like the only thing that literally all religions had in common was that they represented a set of metaphysical beliefs that an individual has attached themself to for whatever reason. And I realized that it’s kind of impossible to never make any metaphysical assumptions about the world we live in. And I started to ask myself questions like “is it even possible to reject the entire category of religious thought in a meaningful way while still retaining the ability to reason about the world?” And “is there actually a good reason why I don’t want to think of my own humanist ideas about the world as religious in nature, or does it just make me feel kind of funny because I had already prejudiced myself so heavily against the concept of religious thought?”
Weird. I had the exact opposite experience.
I find every religion to be a liars den of lies.
And all religious people are liars fools or worse.
Humanism and religion are polar opposite ideas.
Don’t apologize for religion. It’s gross.
Keep that shit away from me and my kids. You bring it near my kids we are going to have a fucking problem.
I feel like you didn’t actually try to understand any of what I just said. I hate to break it to you, but it’s literally just a fact that there are religions that make metaphysical assumptions that are literally equivalent to secular humanism. If you think that they’re actually contradictory, it just means that you probably actually haven’t tried to study the history of religious thought from an actually critical perspective where you didn’t just presume that you already had it all figured out.
This is not a position born out of logic and reason, but out of hate. I hope you get better at some point, you obviously have suffered a lot to become filled with rage this much.
This is not a position born out of logic and reason, but out of hate.
Bingo.
All religions are hate groups. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
You nailed it.
You’re so close to getting better yourself.
You’re so close to getting better yourself.
You don’t sound like someone who is doing well, why would anyone want to be like you? The folk replying to you are applying empathy and patience while you shut everyone down with vitriol.
Being angry isn’t fun, anger slowly drains you of your joy and energy. Anger only feels like fun when the alternative is to face pain
If you think every religious person is evil then I’m sorry, but your religious trauma is not an excuse. Go back to reddit.
The people are not all necessarily evil. They are mostly indoctrinated and duped. The religion itself is just as evil as any other virus that weasels in.
A lot of words to apologize for evil.
Not necessarily evil. But every religious person is damaging to society and the environment out of ignorance, because, for example, their voting is based on beliefs disjunct from reality, including absolute morals that will vilify a substantial part of the populace for no sane reason.
No. You go back to church.
Fuck your god.
Tell me you know nothing about buddhism without telling me you know nothing about buddhism. While we’re at it, opinions on hinduism?
Smaller religions have been sacrificing children since the stone age.
I’m not saying its all bad, but singling out two religions in your general area and blaming the problem on them being “political” as if religion isn’t based on dictating social norms is ridiculous.
I agree with the freedom to believe, though. Doesnt mean that there arent inherent dangers to this stuff. You’re in a thread about murdered babies, please keep that in mind.
Christians, Muslims and Jews. Disproven. Now go away, troll (or misinformed idiot)
Removed by mod
How could these nuns think they would be admitted to heaven?
One of the selling features of Christianity is that you just need to ask Jesus forgiveness and it will be granted.
With Catholics you’re supposed to confess to a priest, but same difference to them, basically
If they pay an indulgence, even the rich will get into Heaven.
(So there must be a massive divine operation passing camels through the eyes of needles)
Honestly if hell could be livestreamed I’d love to have a kick out of watching a 24 hour stream of them burning on it.
Catholic Islam is a radical sect
Sorry *Christianity
You were right… same God, different prophet
Because they didn’t allow abortion. That’s how
Sounds like they were all about the 4-5-6-7-8-9th trimester abortions.
“The remains ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years old.” So not abortions but stillbirths and dead children. Conditions were appalling, rampant disease etc.
If you wait till it’s born, it’s not abortion anymore but sending those poor little angels directly to God who’s the only one who will ever be able to properly care for them or whatever kind of bullshit they used to justify what they did…
I’m guessing that God probably knows the infant mortality rates throughout history.