[boatbums]

What I notice is NOT being addressed is the other point the original article discussed - that of "these" children being treated scornfully by the largely Catholic townspeople and church, malnourished, kept apart from the other children, dressed in rags, dirty and diseased. A government inspection report of the Tuam home described some of the children as "fragile, pot-bellied and emaciated". Actual testimony was given by people still alive that this WAS what went on. "The children were weak and malnourished and barely had the energy to lift their legs", stated one person who lived there at that time. That is something that cannot be spiffed up and sanitized because people saw it going on.

Yes, Ireland was/is a poor country and, yes, those in charge were probably doing the best they could, but it is hard to look at all the great wealth and power held by the Vatican and not wonder why more couldn't have been done to alleviate the misery and dire needs of those lives put in the care of this church. Like I have said repeatedly, this gives ALL Christian pro-lifers a black eye and it doesn't matter how long ago it happened. We shouldn't be seen as denying, covering up or transferring blame to avoid a rightful reckoning these innocent souls deserve.

And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being. (Genesis 9:5)

[Mrs. Don-o]

No one can fail to feel sadness and shame at the way infants and children were treated in times of poverty, famine and epidemic disease. But it makes no sense to blame the very group of people who were valiantly doing the right thing: struggling, against all odds, to save the children of the poor. I'm talking about the Sisters of Bons Secours.

You may not have noticed this link from The Telegraph, also cited above. I'll give you two paragraphs here:

"3. There is a wide variation in reports of how well the home operated. Undeniably, it was dilapidated and often took the appearance of a nightmare. Yet a Board of Heath report in 1935 described it as “one of the best managed institutions in the country” and in 1949, a local newspaper said that an inspection had found, “everything in very good order and congratulated the sisters on the excellent conditions.” The sisters immunized the children and lobbied for money to improve the facilities.

"4. The home never left the hands of the County Council. This point is important because it contradicts any impression that what went on at Tuam was a reflection of the unique callousness of the Catholic authorities: in fact, it was an institution that relied on state money. In 1951, the sisters begged the Council for more cash. In 1949, they met with Senator Martin Quinn and told him that children were suffering as a result of a lack of funds, to which he replied, “I do not like these statements which receive such publicity”. And, ashamedly, the locals actually complained about the cost to the ratepayers of financing the home."

How many articles managed to convey the fact that it was actually a County Home, to which the Bon Secours Sisters were donating their services without wages??

How is it that none of the "investigative reporters" noted that although the County Council didn't give the infants and children enough to live on, the Sisters by heroic care maintained an above 80% survival rate despite overcrowded wards and epidemic contagious diseases, while the survival rate was lower in other public institutions, and even in the Irish population at large. (Scroll down til you get to the Irish Press newspaper clipping from 1935, which mentions the overall infant death rate in Cork, Waterford, and Limerick as being higher than that at the orphans' home at Tuam.)

You have read enough to realize that there was horrific suffering for malnourished little ones dying of infectious diseases for which there were no vaccines and no antibiotics. The Red Cross did nothing. The political apparatus in Belfast (Ulster) and Dublin (the Republic) did nothing. Businesses, labor unions, universities, and hospitals did nothing. The County did damn little. But the Sisters fed, nursed, and educated everyone who came to them, with an over 80% success rate in terms of child survival.

By all means, let's investigate this high, wide and deep. In the end, I don't think we'll be blaming these poor childrens' deaths on the only people who labored to save them.