Magdalene Laundries etc

Geomy

How come its always the Catholic Church who are involved in controversy...
Here we go again :S

Lovely nice charitable names on the outside,rotten to the core on the inside.

PopePalpatine

And the proverbial faecal matter will hit the fan in 3...2...1...

georgieporgy

totus tuus

tommy2bad

Yes ignore it all you like but this indictment of the culture of catholic ireland is another nail in the coffin of the RCC here.
The question thats left begging is how did it get like that and stay like that for so long?
How was it that piety was so strong and simple empathy so lacking?

totus tuus

Been wearing those blinkers long Tommy?!

Abuses has nothing to do with Catholicism and every thing to do with evil people, which you will find in all walks of life and in every Institution conceivable. Why not judge the Church by those who live closest to it's precepts, rather than those who don't live by it!!

Protestant abuse history however is duly swept under the carpet and vastly under-reported!

Article written by a Protestant - I would recommend reading the entire article!

Day after day I listen to the litany of horrors of which the Catholic Church is rightly accused and no-one tells this plain truth: it was the same for us. Child abuse, sexual and otherwise, has nothing specifically to do with the Catholicism.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/victoria-white/protestant-abuse-history-has-been-swept-under-the-carpet-199687.html

Silvio.Dante

Imagine the uproar if these women were shunned and left on the streets by religous orders...

Manach

Without Church involvement there has been human rights abuses since the foundation of the state ranging from summary executions, detention without trial, illegal incarceration of the mentally impaired, decades long illegal deductions from nursing home residents, willful disregard of court orders regarding juvenile facilities with false statements to the UN linked to this, obstruction of the ombudsman etc. So there would be a degree of cynicism about how the state itself manages its affairs in relation to the public.

cealabeala

Silvio.Dante wrote: »

Imagine the uproar if these women were shunned and left on the streets by religous orders...

Why were they shunned? Often for being an unmarried mother, or indefinably "morally wayward". Who set the moral standard around sexuality and children born out of wedlock? The religious orders. The stigma created by the Church was the reason these women became pariahs. If the Church didn't preach such ridiculous and twisted teachings about sex (while many members of the clergy were simultaneously raping children) these women wouldn't have been isolated.

I accept that the state are at fault in that the laundries were a dumping ground for women with intellectual and physical disabilities, women from abusive homes and orphans. The state should have provided these women with a safe place to be (which the laundries weren't most of the time it seems.)

tommy2bad

No blinkers at all totus,

Silvio.Dante wrote: »

Imagine the uproar if these women were shunned and left on the streets by religous orders...

This is kinda the point I was bringing up Silvio, how did what was done with the best intentions turn into such a loveless exploitation of the least of these?
It's not just the laundries, their was the industrial schools, the hospital abuses and the general tone of a merciless unforgiving harsh culture, all the while showing a facade of Christian values.

Yes the church stepped in to fill a void that the state left unfilled but even if it had been the state on it's own it would not excuse the lack of Christian decency shown by a country that professed to be Christian, more than that catholic. Poverty, self importance, self delusion? it can't all be put down to a few bad apples. Makes you wonder if in our own self righteousness we aren't committing equaly as despicable wrongs now.

Some things shake your faith in God and humanity.

homer911

totus tuus wrote: »

Been wearing those blinkers long Tommy?!

Abuses has nothing to do with Catholicism and every thing to do with evil people, which you will find in all walks of life and in every Institution conceivable. Why not judge the Church by those who live closest to it's precepts, rather than those who don't live by it!!

Protestant abuse history however is duly swept under the carpet and vastly under-reported!

Article written by a Protestant - I would recommend reading the entire article!

http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/victoria-white/protestant-abuse-history-has-been-swept-under-the-carpet-199687.html

Westbank was a non-story, as anyone who watched that RTE programme would recognise. I know a number of former residents who were disgusted at the hatchet job perpetrated by RTE.

Thats not to say that abuse didnt take place elsewhere..

Morbert

A good piece by Excelsior on the impossibility of preaching the gospel in Ireland due to guarded attitudes towards the laundries.

http://www.hargaden.com/kevin/2013/02/06/the-impossibility-of-preaching-the-gospel-in-ireland/

Doc Farrell

Morbert wrote: »

A good piece by Excelsior on the impossibility of preaching the gospel in Ireland due to guarded attitudes towards the laundries.

http://www.hargaden.com/kevin/

It's a very interesting blog, he writes well.

Geomy

Just read that Doc
It's a very interesting read.

I noticed since this discussion a few came.up with excuses for the Catholic church...

The Church cant be wrong :S

Thank God I don't affiliate myself with that Church

I dropped all that dangerous religious conditioning I had as a kid,teenager,young adult etc

Life is much easier,and I don't live in fear anymore....

Benny_Cake

I'll leave this open for now as it relates to a different issue than the clerical abuse thread, but keep it on the topic of the Magdalen laundries. Any comments on how religion is a load of nonsense or any of the usual Christian/atheist stuff can be taken elsewher, thanks.

Keylem

Looks like the State and the Gardai played no small part in it!

http://www.thejournal.ie/magdalene-laundries-report-finds-direct-state-involvement-783428-Feb2013/

Morbert

Keylem wrote: »

Looks like the State and the Gardai played no small part in the it!

http://www.thejournal.ie/magdalene-laundries-report-finds-direct-state-involvement-783428-Feb2013/

I would actually go much further and say Irish citizens themselves played a huge part. These camps were made possible because society didn't want these girls around, and so decided to concentrate them all in the laundries, out of sight and out of mind. The most harrowing scene in the film "The Magdalene Sisters" was when one of the girls escaped and she was brought back by her vicious father.

I would say we all have to hang our heads in shame for what our country permitted.

Benny_Cake

Doc Farrell wrote: »

It's a very interesting blog, he writes well.

Indeed, it's a shame he doesn't post here anymore.

Akrasia

My mother in law said that these women were lucky that the Laundries were there because if it wasn't for them, they'd have been left homeless and begging on the streets.

Lets explore this attitude.

1. How would they have been made homeless?

Because their family threw them out for getting pregnant outside of marriage

2. Why did their family throw them out?

Because the church told them to.

It sure is lucky that those women had someplace to live after they were forced to give up their baby and thrown out of their homes

It sure is lucky that the same institution that caused them to be made homeless was charitable enough to keep them under lock and key and force them to work for free as penance or whatever justification they gave at the time.

Morbert

Akrasia wrote: »

2. Why did their family throw them out?

Because the church told them to.

No. The would be thrown out because it was the the land of the squinting window. What would the neighbours think if the family's honour was sullied by having a pregnant, unmarried daughter?

The church was a cog in the system, absolutely. But it was the ultra-conservative Ireland of the 20th century that it ultimately to blame.

carly_86

Any family that put there women into those places should be ashamed of themselves. Makes me sick to hear these stories of innocent women and children who were slaves to this country.

RML

I dont see the reason why people are talking about the issue now. Why didn't they discuss this issue back then? Whats done has been done. Nobody cannot alter the past.

carly_86

Irish people like not to talk about things

tommy2bad

RML wrote: »

I dont see the reason why people are talking about the issue now. Why didn't they discuss this issue back then? Whats done has been done. Nobody cannot alter the past.

God, your carpet must be lumpy:rolleyes:
We are talking about it now because it needs to be addressed.

Morbert

RML wrote: »

I dont see the reason why people are talking about the issue now. Why didn't they discuss this issue back then? Whats done has been done. Nobody cannot alter the past.

"It happened, therefore it can happen again" -- Primo Levi

Geomy

This needs to be discussed because it happened,and this maltreatment isn't only confined to the Catholic church either.

I know of some right evil psychiatric nurses,too and they're still out there treating patients quite badly.

Maybe it was the way the church was conditioned and the times that were in it.

It's the sheer brutality and non Christian actions carried out by nuns and priests that get to people.

Pure evil people,and I knew an old priest who told me when it was pointed out that the emperor was in the nip,you were sent out into the garden pulling weeeds or double digging herbaceous borders :S