Catholic Church helped to steal babies in Spain in what's becoming a major scandal

hotmail.com

For years there had been rumours in Spain: babies stolen from their mothers at birth by the government in collusion with the Catholic Church.
But now the country is exploding in anger and outrage as the scale of the baby thefts is revealed: An estimated 300,000 newborns taken from their bewildered mothers. It is only in the last few months that the Spanish government has been willing to confront the country’s horrifying past.

The children were trafficked by a secret network of doctors, nurses, priests and nuns in a widespread practice that began during General Franco’s dictatorship and continued until the early Nineties.

Hundreds of families who had babies taken from Spanish hospitals are now battling for an official government investigation into the scandal.
Several mothers say they were told their first-born children had died during or soon after they gave birth.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2049647/BBC-documentary-exposes-50-year-scandal-baby-trafficking-Catholic-church-Spain.html


Anyone else watch the BBC documentary last night which exposed another appalling scandal from the Catholic Church, this time in Spain.

gimmebroadband

That's should be titled the Church in Spain, and not the whole Church.

There is also a discussion about it at the following link!

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=608241

kumate_champ07

gimmebroadband wrote: »

That's should be titled the Church in Spain, and not the whole Church.

did the vatican know about it?

hotmail.com

gimmebroadband wrote: »

That's should be titled the Church in Spain, and not the whole Church.

There is also a discussion about it at the following link!

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=608241

We're discussing it here, so leave out the promotion of that site.

getz

kumate_champ07 wrote: »

did the vatican know about it?

they did it in ireland

super_furry

Nothing that comes out about the Catholic church surprises me these days, it's rotten from top to bottom.

Interesting to note that the very first comment from that link you provide gimmebroadband falls back on the default Catholic defence "This is a societal problem being blamed on the Catholic Church." IE - It's not our fault! The same defence used when discussing the rape of children in this country.

If Jesus saw what the Catholic church had become, he'd wondered why he bothered in the first place.

seamus

Similar kinds of things went on in Ireland where children were taken from unmarried mothers soon after birth (think magdalene laundries), or from widowed fathers because they were deemed incapable of looking after them, often on the say-so of the local priest, but not always.

However the practice was exclusively down to people carrying out the Catholic church's teachings and ethos.

gimmebroadband

Any decision by a bishop concerning his dioscese, hardly make the whole Church guilty, does it! :rolleyes:

gimmebroadband

hotmail.com wrote: »

We're discussing it here, so leave out the promotion of that site.

It's not a promotion of that site, it's for the benefit of other Catholics who may want to join the discussion there.

I gathered that this news was not posted here for discussion purposes, but as a stick to bash the Whole Church - knock youself out! :rolleyes:

Are we not allow to post links to the story posted elsewhere?? :mad:

getz

super_furry wrote: »

Nothing that comes out about the Catholic church surprises me these days, it's rotten from top to bottom.

Interesting to note that the very first comment from that link you provide gimmebroadband falls back on the default Catholic defence "This is a societal problem being blamed on the Catholic Church." IE - It's not our fault! The same defence used when discussing the rape of children in this country.

If Jesus saw what the Catholic church had become, he'd wondered why he bothered in the first place.

jesus was not catholic

Baggio1

actually he was the first catholic upon his ressurection

noel farrell

can you give me a link where i would find this in the bible i would like to look it up thanks noel

getz

Baggio1 wrote: »

actually he was the first catholic upon his ressurection

dont believe romes dogma,in 107AD,st ignathius of antioch,first used the term catholic to discribe his christian community,this term however did not include gnostic and christians and other movements.

Baggio1

its a shoe.... its a slipper,,,, its a shoe its a slipper.....

some believe others dont ... i wont lose any sleep over who does or doesnt agree with me thats for sure

hotmail.com

It's becoming more and more obvious that the Catholic Church was perhaps the most criminal organisation of the 20th century in countries where it was the majority religion.

A lot of these scandals ended in the 1990s, what did John Paul II do about any of the scandals....absolutely nothing from what I can see..and yet he's being made a saint.

Manach

To put this in historical context. Spain at the time was a dictatorship up to 1975, albeit not one which had the same level of control as a typical Eastern Bloc nation. Most States reserve the right to take into custody children if it deems it best for the welfare of the child. This historically had been done in various countries for underlying political reasons on such a scale, eg Australia, Argentina and the USSR for instance.
It is still ongoing in China for commerical reasons to met the demand for Western couples: link. To lay this issue solely as associatied with the Church is thus misjudged.

hotmail.com

Manach wrote: »

To put this in historical context. Spain at the time was a dictatorship up to 1975, albeit not one which had the same level of control as a typical Eastern Bloc nation. Most States reserve the right to take into custody children if it deems it best for the welfare of the child. This historically had been done in various countries for underlying political reasons on such a scale, eg Australia, Argentina and the USSR for instance.
It is still ongoing in China for commerical reasons to met the demand for Western couples: link. To lay this issue solely as associatied with the Church is thus misjudged.

There is a vast difference between a government and a religious organisation. This religious organisation was up set to preach love, compassion and goodness. It's shocking that an organisation can be so hypocritical, so devious and so cruel.

Keylem

Adopting babies V mother's killing them in the womb by the millions......and the catholic church is the bigger culprit? Scandalous!!! :rolleyes:

Delirium

Keylem wrote: »

Adopting Removing babies from parents and telling the parents the child is dead V mother's killing them in the womb by the millions......and the catholic church is the bigger culprit? Scandalous!!! :rolleyes:

FYP

Penn

Keylem wrote: »

Adopting babies V mother's killing them in the womb by the millions......and the catholic church is the bigger culprit? Scandalous!!! :rolleyes:

Yes, because it's not the Catholic Church's choice. They took the babies against the parent's will, and told the parents their child was dead.

So yeah, it is scandalous, and they are the bigger culprit.

tfitzgerald

Manach wrote: »

To put this in historical context. Spain at the time was a dictatorship up to 1975, albeit not one which had the same level of control as a typical Eastern Bloc nation. Most States reserve the right to take into custody children if it deems it best for the welfare of the child. This historically had been done in various countries for underlying political reasons on such a scale, eg Australia, Argentina and the USSR for instance.
It is still ongoing in China for commerical reasons to met the demand for Western couples: link. To lay this issue solely as associatied with the Church is thus misjudged.

I agree with manach Canada also did something like this to blame this on the church is a joke and just another excuse to bash the catholic church

PDN

Manach wrote: »

To put this in historical context. Spain at the time was a dictatorship up to 1975, albeit not one which had the same level of control as a typical Eastern Bloc nation.

To be fair, you make it sound as if Spain being a dictatorship was an unfortunate circumstance that the Catholic Church had to deal with. So, to put that in historical context, let's remember that the Catholic Church was an enthusiastic cheerleader for General Franco during the Spanish Civil war and in the ensuing years of his dictatorship.

PatricaMcKay2

hotmail.com wrote: »

There is a vast difference between a government and a religious organisation. This religious organisation was up set to preach love, compassion and goodness. It's shocking that an organisation can be so hypocritical, so devious and so cruel.

Franco wouldnt have been able to overthrow the democratically elected government of Spain without the help of the Vatican, though of course his and its allies Hitler and Mussolini played a big part too.

Manach have you talked to people who grew up under the Warsaw Pact? Have you have talked to people who grew up under Franco's Spain?

PatricaMcKay2

PDN wrote: »

To be fair, you make it sound as if Spain being a dictatorship was an unfortunate circumstance that the Catholic Church had to deal with. So, to put that in historical context, let's remember that the Catholic Church was an enthusiastic cheerleader for General Franco during the Spanish Civil war and in the ensuing years of his dictatorship.

In fairness Pope Paul the VI pulled back from Franco, maybe genuinely, maybe because he could see the writing on the wall.

PatricaMcKay2

hotmail.com wrote: »

There is a vast difference between a government and a religious organisation. This religious organisation was up set to preach love, compassion and goodness. It's shocking that an organisation can be so hypocritical, so devious and so cruel.

They just refuse to see this. They refuse to see that they are dragging the name of Christ throw the mud. The constant whataboutery on the child abuse thread is sickening. Evil is the only word to describe a lot of the nonsense and playing the victim here, pure evil.

Manach

PDN wrote: »

To be fair, you make it sound as if Spain being a dictatorship was an unfortunate circumstance that the Catholic Church had to deal with. So, to put that in historical context, let's remember that the Catholic Church was an enthusiastic cheerleader for General Franco during the Spanish Civil war and in the ensuing years of his dictatorship.

Given that groups on the Republican side, except in the case of the Basque region where the clergy were pro-separatism, were responsible for numerous massacres of nuns and priests the Franco/Nationalists were the better of a Hobson's choice.

PatricaMcKay2

Manach wrote: »

Given that groups on the Republican side, except in the case of the Basque region where the clergy were pro-separatism, were responsible for numerous massacres of nuns and priests the Franco/Nationalists were the better of a Hobson's choice.

Numerous massacres? There were some excesses by anarchist peasants, understandable given the circumstances of their lives and the role of the Vatican in it.

Of course people like you dont seem to realize that your Hobson choice has completely discredited Roman Catholicism among most of the Spanish population.

Manach

My source is from a copy of "The Spanish Civil War" by Anthony Beevor.
AFAIR, these incidents were widespread, and backed by Marxist elements on the Republican side with a figure of about 10K mentioned.

Morbert

Baggio1 wrote: »

actually he was the first catholic upon his ressurection

Jesus was Jewish.

gimmebroadband

Morbert wrote: »

Jesus was Jewish.

Jesus was Jewish by birth, then he was baptised in the Jordan - Jews don't do baptisms! :rolleyes:

PatricaMcKay2

Manach wrote: »

My source is from a copy of "The Spanish Civil War" by Anthony Beevor.
AFAIR, these incidents were widespread, and backed by Marxist elements on the Republican side with a figure of about 10K mentioned.

I would expect the spawn of Sandhurst to say nothing else. Have you ever met a British soldier? If you had you would find it hard to believe a word that comes out of their mouth.

PatricaMcKay2

gimmebroadband wrote: »

Jesus was Jewish by birth, then he was baptised in the Jordan - Jews don't do baptisms! :rolleyes:

The Essenes? John the Baptist was "jewish" in that he was a member of the Old Testament Church surely?

getz

Morbert wrote: »

Jesus was Jewish.

yep the first christians went by the name of jesus followers,but dont tell the churches,they still think jesus was gods only begotton son,john3:16. but first they should have read geneses chapter 6 the sons of god saw daughters of men that were fair,and they took them as wifes, [keep it to yourselves]

racso1975

There are loads of posters here who'd represent sinn fein admirably by completly diverting the arguement and never answering the original question or point

PDN

gimmebroadband wrote: »

Jesus was Jewish by birth, then he was baptised in the Jordan - Jews don't do baptisms! :rolleyes:

Actually, they do. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

http://www.philosophy-religion.org/world/jud_5.htm

DO JEWS BAPTIZE?

This question is asked frequently because John the Baptist baptized in the river Jordan, a "baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4f) and Jesus' disciples baptized (John 4:1), and perhaps Jesus did too even before the "glorification" (John 7:39). The meaning of this type of baptism is clarified by the practices of traditional Judaism today. It is believed that women are unclean at certain periods. A woman becomes ritually clean through immersion – Mikvah - a form of baptism. Through contact with women who are ritually unclean or through the violation of other tabus, a man may also become polluted (Lev. 11-15; Nums. 19). As a means of cleansing or purification and sanctification, a ritual of total immersion is required for him as well. Special baths called ritualariums are constructed by Orthodox communities for this purpose.

A Gentile wishing to become a Jew must also be totally immersed. In addition, a male must be circumcised. While the Temple was still in existence, an offering was required of both men and women but the outstanding feature is the baptism, declared by Hillel to be the decisive ceremony of conversion to Judaism.

Steeped in this tradition, John the Baptist exhorted the people to become both ceremonially and morally pure through repentance and baptism, in preparation for the Messianic kingdom, to save them from the wrath to come (Luke 3:7). Baptism in Judaism is never thought of as a means of removing the effects of a generic original sin; its purpose is the cleansing and restoration of an individual to his original state of purity, and it may be performed often, although a single baptism is adequate in connection with conversion.

Spacedog

gimmebroadband wrote: »

That's should be titled the Church in Spain, and not the whole Church.

There is also a discussion about it at the following link!

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=608241

Yes the Church is completely separated on national lines. In Ireland We pray in an Irish Church to an Irish God and abuse Irish kids in an Irish way. In Spain they pray to the Spanish God, who approves of a more kidnappy approach to delivering mental anguish to a hand picked segment of society.

How can we best cover this up? I suggest moving to the general child abuse heap before shovelling over some more sound byte justification comments about it not happening in Ireland and there fore does not matter.

gimmebroadband

Spacedog wrote: »

Yes the Church is completely separated on national lines. In Ireland We pray in an Irish Church to an Irish God and abuse Irish kids in an Irish way. In Spain they pray to the Spanish God, who approves of a more kidnappy approach to delivering mental anguish to a hand picked segment of society.

How can we best cover this up? I suggest moving to the general child abuse heap before shovelling over some more sound byte justification comments about it not happening in Ireland and there fore does not matter.

The Bishop's run the Church in their own durisdiction, they can't be running to the Vatican for every little thing - the Pope is Bishop of Rome!

Let's overlook the doctor's and nurses who facilitated the adoptions under the regime at the time, shall we! :rolleyes:

gimmebroadband

PDN wrote: »

Actually, they do. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

http://www.philosophy-religion.org/world/jud_5.htm

John's baptism was an adaptation of the mikvah, or ritual immersion bath, that had been part of Jewish life and symbolised a spiritual cleansing! It was completely different to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, and a precurser to the Sacrament of Baptism.

Penn

gimmebroadband wrote: »

The Bishop's run the Church in their own durisdiction, they can't be running to the Vatican for every little thing - the Pope is Bishop of Rome!

Let's overlook the doctor's and nurses who facilitated the adoptions under the regime at the time, shall we! :rolleyes:

Yeah, all 300,000 of the little things.

And no one is letting the doctors and nurses off the hook, but even the main doctor noted in the programme was extremely religious and used religion to comfort the mothers, saying things like how they baptised the baby before it died so the baby would go to heaven, even though he knew the babies hadn't died. They may have been doctors and nurses, but they were doing this in conjunction with the priests and nuns.

andyjo

same as what went on a generation or two ago in Ireland ; collusion between the Catholic Church and state.

alex73

Penn wrote: »

Yeah, all 300,000 of the little things.

And no one is letting the doctors and nurses off the hook, but even the main doctor noted in the programme was extremely religious and used religion to comfort the mothers, saying things like how they baptised the baby before it died so the baby would go to heaven, even though he knew the babies hadn't died. They may have been doctors and nurses, but they were doing this in conjunction with the priests and nuns.

How quick many have jumped on to criticise the Church... Categorically the Pope would never have approved this or even have known it happened at the time. What a Priest or Nun did was not the Catholic Church... It was THEIR CRIME. Are we going down the road of generalisations when a somebody fails it was His or hers organisations fault? Wealthly people paid corrupt Priests/Nuns/Doctors/Nurses to get babies. It was wrong, But the same still happens today by other means.


So unless anyone can show that the Catholic Church was systematically involved in stealing Babies then all the abuse in this Thread is here say..

georgieporgy

I hope the catholic church isn't behind this scandal too

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/17/baby-gorillas-trafficking-increase-congo?intcmp=239

hotmail.com

alex73 wrote: »

How quick many have jumped on to criticise the Church... Categorically the Pope would never have approved this or even have known it happened at the time. What a Priest or Nun did was not the Catholic Church... It was THEIR CRIME. Are we going down the road of generalisations when a somebody fails it was His or hers organisations fault? Wealthly people paid corrupt Priests/Nuns/Doctors/Nurses to get babies. It was wrong, But the same still happens today by other means.


So unless anyone can show that the Catholic Church was systematically involved in stealing Babies then all the abuse in this Thread is here say..

The CC was systematically involved in the stealing of babies in Spain over several decades. The programme has revealed the scale of the scandal. So I don't get your point.

There needs to be an investigation to uncover if the Vatican was aware of what was going on in Spain and given what we know, is it not beyond the bounds of possibility that the Vatican was aware of what was going on. This is a fact.

CiaranMT

Keylem wrote: »

Adopting babies V mother's killing them in the womb by the millions......and the catholic church is the bigger culprit? Scandalous!!! :rolleyes:

gimmebroadband wrote: »

The Bishop's run the Church in their own durisdiction, they can't be running to the Vatican for every little thing - the Pope is Bishop of Rome!

The arrogance here is breathtaking.

This very same thing happened in our own country within most people's lifetimes, and yet many of you seek to fudge and deny and denigrate what has happened in Spain?

Catholic bashing? Hardly. As a group of people who claim to be moral absolutists in the main, the levels of relativism employed here and in other threads (highlighted by PatricaMcKay2 earlier) to defend the Church is really astounding.

Taking newly-born children from their parents without their knowledge or consent is wrong.

Telling the parents that the child is dead, is wrong.

Showing the parents a frozen foetus (not theirs) is wrong.

Sending the new-born away to a different family is wrong.

You don't have to be a parent to realise this.

Penn

alex73 wrote: »

How quick many have jumped on to criticise the Church... Categorically the Pope would never have approved this or even have known it happened at the time. What a Priest or Nun did was not the Catholic Church... It was THEIR CRIME. Are we going down the road of generalisations when a somebody fails it was His or hers organisations fault? Wealthly people paid corrupt Priests/Nuns/Doctors/Nurses to get babies. It was wrong, But the same still happens today by other means.


So unless anyone can show that the Catholic Church was systematically involved in stealing Babies then all the abuse in this Thread is here say..

I agree, there is no evidence the Vatican knew about it.

However, the number of priests and nuns that would have had to have been involved to traffic up to 300,000 means this wasn't a small few who took this on themselves; this was organised. Children were moved from one area of Spain to another. People paid for their children in installments so there were others who collected the money. You say the Pope never would have approved this, yet surely a priest, a Man of God, wouldn't have done this. And yet they did. A lot of them did.

Most members of the Catholic Organisation would never do something like this. I've met quite a few priests, and was related to two. I'd never imagine them to be involved in anything like this or the abuse of children. And yet, this stuff does happen. Some of these "Men of God" have committed horrendous sins. Even if it was just 0.001% of all priests who ever did something like that, that's 0.001% too many, and the Vatican don't seem to care. Okay, let's say the Vatican knew nothing about it. They do now. Have they offered any help? Have they launched an investigation? Have they taken measures themselves to ensure this could never happen again? Have they done f*cking anything?

Penn

gimmebroadband wrote: »

I agree with the poster above, there was always some 'Marverick" bishops and clergy, throughout the church's history, who done things on their own authority!

Right.... that's completely missing the point of what I'm saying.

This wasn't "some Maverick bishops and clergy". This was "quite a large organised group of bishops, clergy and nuns". Three priests get together to steal a baby, that's some maverick clergy. Presumably hundreds of priests and nuns getting together to steal 300,000 babies, that's an organised system of clergy, all of whom didn't take on this mad notion themselves, but would have been following orders from others in charge of them.

300,000 children moved around, given to other families, payments received whether in lump sum or installments, all throughout Spain, over 40-50 years..... This wasn't some maverick bishops and clergy. It's far bigger than that.

Again, there's no proof as far as I know that the Vatican even knew about. What I'm saying is a) that's a very hard thing to keep under wraps for so long with nobody noticing, and b) if the Vatican didn't know anything about it, but do know about it now, what have they done to help rectify what their clergy did?

Keaton

The Spanish case is shocking: but we cruelly remove children from ‘undesirable’ families too
If we are going to adopt morally superior attitudes, we had better be sure we are actually morally superior

The Red Terror in Spain (Spanish: Terror Rojo en España) is the name given by historians to various acts committed “by sections of nearly all the leftist groups” such as the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military rising), as well as attacks on landowners, industrialists, and politicians, and the desecration and burning of monasteries and churches. A process of political polarisation had characterised the Spanish Second Republic – party divisions became increasingly embittered and questions of religious identity came to assume a major political significance.

Some estimates of the Red Terror range from 38,000 to 72,344 lives.

---> http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/10/19/the-spanish-case-is-shocking-but-we-cruelly-remove-children-from-%E2%80%98undesirable%E2%80%99-families-too/

Penn

Keaton wrote: »

The Spanish case is shocking: but we cruelly remove children from ‘undesirable’ families too
If we are going to adopt morally superior attitudes, we had better be sure we are actually morally superior

The Red Terror in Spain (Spanish: Terror Rojo en España) is the name given by historians to various acts committed “by sections of nearly all the leftist groups” such as the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military rising), as well as attacks on landowners, industrialists, and politicians, and the desecration and burning of monasteries and churches. A process of political polarisation had characterised the Spanish Second Republic – party divisions became increasingly embittered and questions of religious identity came to assume a major political significance.

Some estimates of the Red Terror range from 38,000 to 72,344 lives.

---> http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/10/19/the-spanish-case-is-shocking-but-we-cruelly-remove-children-from-%E2%80%98undesirable%E2%80%99-families-too/

We? I wasn't part of the Red Terror actually.

Not only that, but nobody is saying "All that murdering and killing people, that's all fine. But stealing babies? That's a big no no."

Catholics being killed is not a defence for Catholic clergy stealing babies years later.

gimmebroadband

Penn wrote: »

Right.... that's completely missing the point of what I'm saying.

This wasn't "some Maverick bishops and clergy". This was "quite a large organised group of bishops, clergy and nuns". Three priests get together to steal a baby, that's some maverick clergy. Presumably hundreds of priests and nuns getting together to steal 300,000 babies, that's an organised system of clergy, all of whom didn't take on this mad notion themselves, but would have been following orders from others in charge of them.

300,000 children moved around, given to other families, payments received whether in lump sum or installments, all throughout Spain, over 40-50 years..... This wasn't some maverick bishops and clergy. It's far bigger than that.

Again, there's no proof as far as I know that the Vatican even knew about. What I'm saying is a) that's a very hard thing to keep under wraps for so long with nobody noticing, and b) if the Vatican didn't know anything about it, but do know about it now, what have they done to help rectify what their clergy did?

Sorry Penn, I had deleted that post and was meaning to add a new post - my internet is so slow, hence my username!

getz

alex73 wrote: »

How quick many have jumped on to criticise the Church... Categorically the Pope would never have approved this or even have known it happened at the time. What a Priest or Nun did was not the Catholic Church... It was THEIR CRIME. Are we going down the road of generalisations when a somebody fails it was His or hers organisations fault? Wealthly people paid corrupt Priests/Nuns/Doctors/Nurses to get babies. It was wrong, But the same still happens today by other means.


So unless anyone can show that the Catholic Church was systematically involved in stealing Babies then all the abuse in this Thread is here say..

the catholic church has been involved in child abuse all through its history,even at the top ,many of the popes committed the most evil abuse of children

Zombrex

gimmebroadband wrote: »

The Bishop's run the Church in their own durisdiction, they can't be running to the Vatican for every little thing - the Pope is Bishop of Rome!

Let's overlook the doctor's and nurses who facilitated the adoptions under the regime at the time, shall we! :rolleyes:

In most health organisations the governing body of the doctor and nurse are expected to take responsibility for the behavior of the doctors and nurses below them.

For example 8 doctors faced prosecution over the conduct of Harold Shipman (they were all found ultimately not guilty), both the police and the NHS were criticized and a series of procedural changes were put in place.

No one thought this was odd, no one said people can't be running to the governing bodies over "every little thing". They instead said systems were systematically failing and must be changed.

You seem to think no one ever shines a spot light on any organisation other than the Catholic church.

The reality is they do it is just the Catholic church is only one who makes such an un-godly racket complaining about it when they do.