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THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has issued a national apology to thousands of women whose newborn babies were forcibly taken away for adoption in Australia.
It’s estimated that 150,000 new mothers had their children taken against their will by churches and adoption agencies from the 1950s to the 1970s. Some have described being shackled or sedated as their babies were taken, and not being allowed to hug or touch their child after the birth.
The Catholic Church yesterday issued a statement saying the adoptions were “deeply regrettable”, the Daily Telegraph reports. It continued: “We acknowledge the pain of separation and loss felt then and felt now by the mothers, fathers, children, families and others involved in the practices of the time. For this pain we are genuinely sorry.”
The apology came after an investigation by the country’s ABC News which uncovered harrowing accounts of babies being taken away. Juliette Clough said she was just 16 when she gave birth in 1970 at a Catholic hospital in Newcastle. She told ABC News:
My ankles were strapped to the bed, they were in stirrups and I was gassed, I had plenty of gas and they just snatched away the baby. You weren’t allowed to see him or touch him, anything like that, or hold him and it was just like a piece of my soul had died. And it’s still dead.
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So how long more will we allow these corrupt bastards to practice their “beliefs”
Then listen to the Catholic Church lie as it claims to be pro family.
How is ripping new born babies away from their mothers a family value?
They were bastard children removed from their immoral unmarried mothers and sent to be adopted by ‘real’ families. Back then an unmarried mother and a child was not considered a family. They did the same here with babies being send to be adopted all over the world but Irish American couples paid a lot of money for such babies.
How anyone could stand up for his disgusting cult is beyond me. They did the same here in the laundries and sold the babies to Americans!!! The sooner that cult is gone the world will be a better place. And not only do they protect child rapists they are also child traffickers!!!
My sentiments exactly
SORRY! Do they understand the meaning of the word ?
Catholic church up to no good again I see..
And still there collection baskets will be full this weekend,
The poor brain-washed aul women they rob every Sunday…
Not by me or mine.
What a horrible world this can be…
Seriously – if this was ANY other business/company/group of people, this utter rotten organisation would have been ordered shut down some time ago.
Same thing going on in Spain http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/world/europe/07iht-spain07.html
19 hours ago an article on this website flagged children currently in danger in Ireland. There are now only seven comments, split between understanding the difficulties the professionals face in these situations and anger that children are suffering. In the 4 hours since this story was printed, there are 13 comments here, all very angry about a horrible system and terrible wrongs that were done between the 50s and the 70s on a different continent. All valid comments, all made with passion and concern, I have no problems with them.
However, the lack of reaction to the current Irish story – which we are capable of doing something about – is a story in itself. What will the reports of our childrens generation say about us? Who will apologise for our treatment of the most vulnerable and will our apologies be as acceptable to them as the churchs are to us today?
Apologies are cheap, easy and largely meaningless. If one is truly sorry, one makes amends. These 150,000 grieving women had at least 150,000 babies, some of whom were apparently exposed to the drugs that their mothers were given and are now reported to be linked to cancer. For sure these 150,000 children were exposed to the trauma experienced by their mothers. These 300,000 victims deserve tangible help now. Though the offenses may have been years ago, many of these mothers, we believe, are still suffering; many of these babies, now adults, may be suffering birth trauma or trauma from poor/abusive placements. There is no accounting of these childrens’ fate.
We find it very hard to believe that the head of Catholic Health Australia “became aware of the past practices after the ABC began its investigations.” We strongly suspect that he and other church officials knew of this horror long ago but kept it hidden.
If Catholic officials won’t do what’s right for the health and well being of these 300,000 victims, we urge governmental officials to step in and force them to take responsibility for their decades of callous wrong-doing.
Steven Spaner, SNAP Australia Coordinator [ http://www.snapaustralia.org ], SNAPspaner@gmail.com
David Clohessy, SNAP Director [ http://www.snapnetwork.org ], SNAPClohessy@aol.com
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