Church Loses Credibility as Report Reveals

“The Catholic Church Must Pay for Its Abuse”. Well that message was emblazoned on many placards and banners held aloft by survivors of Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes, where unwed mothers were sent in the Republic of Ireland during a period of many decades, only ending during the nineties, when Ireland was rapidly changing towards being a more secular democracy. The Mother and Baby Homes were operated by Catholic orders, reflecting the deep religiosity of the country during that period. Euronews Cable TV channel reports that the government of the Republic of Ireland have apologised to those impacted by the Homes, which were essentially corrective centres where women who dared resist the heteronormative “one marriage” fanaticism of the mid century church were beaten and shamed. Many thousands of babies are now known to have died through neglect and poor sanitation. One woman who survived the homes told BBC Radio Four, “this is, in a way, our holocaust”. The apology of the Irish government was rejected by some survivor networks however, who said that its language and condemnation of the church was not nearly strong enough. The atheist magazine The Freethinker is cutting about the Roman Catholic Church's cruelty in this case, and notes “(Tuesday) the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation published a 3,000-page report that reveals an estimated 9,000 children died in a total 18 religious institutions between 1922 and 1998.”