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Cathal Mcnaughton / Reuters
A ledger from the Hyde Park Magdalene Laundry showing payments for services is seen on display during a "Magdalene Survivors Together" news conference in Dublin Tuesday.
Ireland’s government was directly involved in sending girls and women to work for nothing in laundries run by Catholic orders, a landmark report published Tuesday concluded.
The report by Irish Senator Martin McAleese found that orphans and abused, neglected or unruly children were among more than 10,000 sent to the Magdalen Laundries from 1922 to 1996.
Some had committed minor crimes, others were simply homeless or poor. Women with mental or physical disabilities and some people with psychiatric illness also found themselves in the laundries.
Their average age, the report found, was 23, but the youngest child was just nine and the oldest known entrant was 89.
Activists called on the government to issue a formal apology and pay compensation, with one group saying those affected had been "treated like slaves."
Their plight came to greater public attention when it was the subject of a 2002 film called The Magdalene Sisters, which used a different spelling.
And in June 2011, the United Nations’ Committee on Torture highlighted allegations of "physical, emotional abuses and other ill-treatment" and said it was "gravely concerned" at Ireland’s failure to "protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined."
'Traumatic and lasting'
That prompted the Irish government to set up an inquiry chaired by McAleese and its report was published Tuesday afternoon.
"None of us can begin to imagine the confusion and fear experienced by these young girls, in many cases little more than children, on entering the Laundries — not knowing why they were there, feeling abandoned, wondering whether they had done something wrong, and not knowing when — if ever — they would get out and see their families again,” he wrote in his introduction to the report.
"It must have been particularly distressing for those girls who may have been the victims of abuse in the family, wondering why they were the ones who were excluded or penalized by being consigned to an institution," he said.
"To add to this confusion, most found themselves quite alone in what was, by today’s standards, a harsh and physically demanding work environment. The psychological impact on these girls was undoubtedly traumatic and lasting," he added.
The report found that more than a quarter of referrals were "made or facilitated" by the government. Some 61 percent spent less than a year at the facilities, but 7.7 percent were there for 10 years or more.
Some of the women were brought to the laundries by Ireland’s police, the Gardai, "on a more ad hoc or informal basis, for instance where a woman was temporarily homeless; or where, in the years prior to out-of-hours health services, a juvenile girl needed overnight accommodation," the report said.
The report said that "it cannot be excluded that … a desire to protect rate-payers [tax-payers] from the costs of repeated pregnancies outside marriage may have played a part in some referrals of women to the Magdalen Laundries."
In some cases, the women and children were washing clothes for Ireland’s military, health service and department of education.
The report cited testimony from a number of women about the conditions they experienced:
- One woman who was in three laundries told the inquiry there were "no beatings, only working. Hardest work ever."
- Another woman said "They were very, very cruel verbally — 'your mother doesn’t want you, why do you think you’re here' and things like that."
- One said she was put in "a padded cell" three times and told "if I didn’t work there’d be no food and the infirmary."
- Another woman said that when she wet the bed "they pinned the sheet to me back and I was walking on the veranda with it."
- "You learned not to ask questions or complain. You couldn’t be forward in any way. Talking was a thing that was seen as sinful," another said.
State 'turned a blind eye'
In a statement, campaign group Justice for Magdalenes called on Enda Kenny, Ireland’s prime minister, to issue an apology to the survivors of the laundries and set up a “non-adversarial compensation process.”
"Magdalene survivors have waited too long for justice and this should not be now burdened with either a complicated legal process or a closed-door policy of compensation," the statement said.
Children’s charity Barnardos said in a statement that the report showed the Irish government had "turned a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which Irish citizens lived, while supporting the religious orders who enslaved them in financial and other ways."
"The women who were imprisoned in these Laundries suffered appalling and shaming injustices, often for the whole of their lives, and deserve a full unambiguous apology from the Government," Barnardos' Chief Executive Fergus Finlay said. "These women were treated like slaves and deserve adequate compensation for the work they did."
Responding to the report, Kenny said he was "sorry for those people that they lived in that kind of environment," but stopped short of making a formal apology on behalf of the state, the Irish Times reported.
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OMG! Until when? 1996? Wow..... They should ASHAMED!!!!!
American American, I have concluded that the women cont. to go along w/ this abusive religion because of Stockholm syndrome. They are "brainwashed from birth on. My step grandmother was not Catholic but I remember her quoting Saint Paul, Book of Corinthians, truly a woman hater in my opinion, that a woman was to subject herself to her husband's authority. At the time I was divorcing my abusive husband. Until female children & women can break through that brainwashing, nothing will change.
Ah yes, one of the most abused passages in the Bible. Strange how the verses just before and after are conveniently left out. St. Paul's letter here is actually calling for equality in marriage, a dual commitment.
No, St. Paul was not a woman hater. Far from it - given the time and place, his writings were actually very pro-woman, especially in marriage. Moreover, track his movements and note that he spends about 2 - 3 years in Ephesus with Prisca and Aquila, first noted in Acts, and sets this married couple as leaders of the church there. He refers to them several times in later letters.
Yes, he did prefer that men devote themselves to Christ and not get married, but part of this was that the apostles understanding was that Christ's return would be in their lifetime. Thus, they saw spreading the gospel message as paramount versus having a family.
Hahahaha...how hilarious..and these abuses from the country where today if you even speak your mind about religion( a recently imposed law) you can be fined £20,000 !! What a bunch of backward, superstitious and abuse supporting people Irish catholics are.
Dylanesq, you can laugh now, but won't be able to laugh if the Tea Party gets their wish to meld church and state in this country. The Founding Fathers were smarter 240 years ago than a lot of people are today, when they established a separation of church from state.
Pedophiles and slave labor!! Are you crazy Catholics proud??
Newt Gingrich's idea of reducing unemployment - for good. Send the janitors home and replace them with catholic girls!!!!!
Wasnt Newt republican? If so, you'd spot on except for the girls part would be boys.
The Magdalene laundries = Republican wet dream
I went to Catholic School. It was tough, but I learned a lot. Bash the Catholic religion all you want. The Southern Baptists bred the KKK. As bad as this article is, it still doesn't come near what the blacks went through. There has been Catholic hate long before the pedophile priests and this story. So, just keep on hating. LOL
If you're going back in history let's consider the Catholic Inquisitions and the Vatican's support of the Nazi's before, during and after the war. All facts, let's just keep all the ugly history in mind, OK? I too am LOL.
So why do you think there is Catholic "hate"? The "pedophile priests" and sex scandals have existed ever since the establishment of the early church. You need to read some history which was not taught to you while in Catholic schools.
The KKK membership was based on white supremacy, and not on the Southern Baptist Church which just happens to have a majority membership in the south. And by the way, the KKK flourished in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and the New England states with many Irish Catholics as members. They went after new immigrants and blacks.
Tell that to the little boys who were molested year after year. Worst yet, the church new what these pedofile priests were doing, tranferred them around the country to prey on more little boys. You have to wonder why these wierdos have to wear dresses and hats and are unable to marry just saying.
Catholics took control of Europe for approximately 400 years. Men, women, and children who openly opposed the authority of the church were burned alive. The church decided who was guilty of this, of course. Historians refer to this period of church control as "The Dark Ages."
Dark is almost always a metephore for something bad in case you didn't know. :/
Any religion that burns it's opponents alive once......can certainly do it again.
Ummmm......the SBC was literally founded to support slavery and white supremacy. The KKK thrived in that environment, and most of the early KKK leaders were SBC members.
There's a reason why in 1995 the SBC issued an apology for its origins in racism and slavery, but it's no surprise that the apology was non-binding on its member churches.
Is there no end to the horrible things done by the Catholic church and its leaders? For that matter, look around the globe, the atrocities done in the name of religion. The list is too long to print. The original message of love, respect, and tolerance has been lost by many who speak it the loudest.
It's time for the people of Ireland to leave Rome and to join the "Church of Ireland" which is Anglican. They can worship, free of the guilt trips and mental chains established by Rome and the superstitions of the Irish clergy.
The Catholic Church teaches theology as if it were an exact science. They have convinced the Irish people throughout generations that eternal damnation awaits them if they don't respond precisely to the church's dogma.
I'd rather the people of Ireland be set totally free - of all the brain washing religious hooey. The Irish are a strong and proud people. Any and all "churches" are stains on their incredible history.
Why should the Irish people join an English church?
DRK-1183578
Because it's not about ethnic solidarity or ethnic chauvanism. it's about worship without dogma.
Don
If DRK is Irish, he/she will not consider the Epicopal Church precisely because it is English. It's like asking a Red Sox fan to join the Yankees. They simply cannot do it.
Irish catholics have been taught that protestants are going to hell, etc. A church without a pope has no direct line to God, as far as they are concerned. I grew up Irish catholic. They denounce protestants, they denounce Judaism. Everyone except them is headed staight to hell. Even the rapist priests are going to heaven just because they are roman catholic, while all protestants are going to hell just because they don't belong to the "one true church".
bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts"
It is very like asking the Red Sox fans to join the Yankees, provided that the Yankees had invaded Boston, brutally taken it over, ruled over the Red Sox with an iron fist for centuries, and also engineered a famine that killed many Red Sox fans by shipping all the available food back to New York City. Other than that, sure, it's just the same.
Yeah, I think it's more an ethnic problem than a religious one.
Humans beings should never trust any government too much.
Evil people should be put on notice. If you put your hands on a free citizen, be prepared for someone to reach out and touch you.
I think the US should leave Ireland alone...it's not like the US has their house in order...no wonder the world despises Americans...do as we say and not do as we do Americans...the US has a 3rd world president and a 3rd world educational system...there is more people killed in the US each year than the total population in some countries...come on America start cleaning out your own closets...
Dee Ten, It sounds like you are blaming Obama for the U. S. having a third world educational system. If so, you are as wrong as anybody ever was. No Child Left Behind, and the FCATs have hurt education more than anything imaginable.
Bush band aids...
Um Dee, have you ever actually been to the third world? Nobody who has would ever say that the US is in any way related to the third world. The gulf between us and them is unimaginable.
Wish people would lay off the Catholic church.
Why when they cover up their crimes and tranfered pedofile priests around the country to prey on new victims. Tear down this corrupt organization.
How about "wish the Catholic Church would lay off the people".
The entire Catholic Church, Ken, or certain people in it who have deviated from it and caused harm to others and abusing the authority they had, forgetting that to have authority is about serving others as Christ served his disciples, and that the greatest among us must be as the least?
The entire roman catholic church, benedicitneacc. Anyone who supports the RCC supports pedophilia and child abuse.
bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts"
Every country isn't rich like we are. And, we weren't always rich either. Maybe these women should have been left in the street to fend for themselves. I doubt that would have been an easier life, but they would have been free.
I'm free. I'm free to work all day long to earn enough for my food and a place to stay. When I get up tomorrow, I will go to work again...its kind'a like what those girls did. And my boss is as mean as any Nun.
Religion is evil, its uses people and justifies it by claiming its helping them, and they are supposedly better off than if someone did nothing. As if that gives them an excuse to exploit people, because they are helpless and in need. The world is full of way too many people like this.
Im glad they were shut down. They should be made to pay compensation. And the Catholic Church should be made to disclose ANY other places in the world they have running, that are similar. Because dollars to donuts says, they do. Like in Africa, or Indonesia. The Catholic Churches idea of helping people is to work them, while keeping them in virtual prisons.
Agreed. The Catholic Church has always been this way. Look at the torture and witch burnings...It is sick and disgusting and someone needs to apologize, although that really won't help the women that were affected by this. Unreal.
Another reason why I quit going to church especially the catholic church a long time ago.
Ken, look into the Episcopal Church.
It doesn't call itself the "one true church". it encourages its parishioners to actually read the Bible themselves and not just hear the priests' version of the Bible, it does not have the inane levels of sins, it doesn't demean, berate, and physically abuse children during the course of a school day, it respects and cares for women and gays, it doesn't require that its parishoners revere its priests as though they were gods themselves, it doesn't tell you that you are condemned to hell if you attend another denomination (as a matter of fact, it encourages fellowship with other denominations), and it DOESN'T HAVE A POPE.
bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts"
This is a travesty. If we can't trust the government nor the Catholic church to care for the poor, underprivileged, less-fortunate, what is left? Where is the humanity? This must stop!
Very sad case here. Those who suffered should certainly be compensated.
With this said, why is this the fault of "religion"? I see nothing in the Magdalen laundries that is a reflection of the Catholic Church. If there were official teaching in the Catechism or Canon Law that condoned this, then I would be blaming the Church. However, if they did not treat these girls well, then I would see it as a deviation, or antithesis, of what the Catholic Church officially teaches. From the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1926:
"The dignity of the human person requires the pursuit of the common good.
Everyone should be concerned to create and support institutions that improve the
conditions of human life."
Since these institutions did not do so, I would say that these did not uphold the teachings or practices of the Catholic Church, but rather went against them.
Also do not overlook the role of the Irish government in this terrible tragedy. Indeed, too many people did serious harm to these innocent young women. For those who have survived, there need to be just compensation both from the Church and from the government.
May this terrible abuse of the human person never happen again, and may the actual teachings of the Catholic Church be followed.
The roman catholic church covered up the rape of children by its priests, relocated them and when they raped again, simply relocated them again. When they feared the public would find out, the man who subsequently was ELECTED AS POPE conceived of, initiated, and executed the cover-up and relocation policy. That's as guilty as you get, Benedictineacc. As a roman catholic, you are guilty, too. You owe me an apology and compensation. I hold you accountable as long as you continue to support the roman catholic church.
bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts" PIG
And the Catholic Church as whole wonders why many of us Catholics struggle with our faith. It is unfortunate but the Catholic Church leadership around the world has knowingly covered up crime after crime, and they still don't seem to to get it or even learn from it. The worst part is that the Pope has failed to act like a leader and come out and say yes the Catholic Church, starting with the Pope (past and present) have failed by creating and spreading a vicious culture of covering up all that is sinful. They first have to admit this, and then clearly demonstrate on an on-going basis that they can change. Until such a time, many of will sit in the pews on Sunday, and wonder why am I hear and not at another church (Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.), where they are far more accountable.
You apparently missed the series of apologies that Pope John Paul II did throughout the 1990's and into the early 2000's.
I was abused by a priest, and this priest was defrocked by Pope Benedict in 2005. I have seen that he takes these matters seriously.
Remember how massive the Church is, though, and know that the pope is but one man. In the end, all those in authority must do their part and do the right thing and uphold the official teachings of the Catholic Church. IF they do not, then it should not lead you to not follow your own Faith. That would be like saying that since there is crime here in the USA, then you renounce your citizenship.
The Pope created and executed the cover-up. The ONLY reason the roman catholic church has done WHAT LITTLE IT HAS DONE is because the world is watching, but, most of all, because it doesn't want to lose its POWER and its MILLIONS and its RICHES. I look forward to the day when so many people wake up, see the church for the deceitful, corrupted pall on humanity that it is and leave the roman catholic church.
Take the blinders off, question the lies, READ THE BIBLE YOURSELF, leave the roman catholic church.
PROTECT OUR CHILDREN. bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts"
I had the Catholic church figured out when I was 8 years old. If an 8 year old can see through it, why cant adults? What an injustice. The pedophiles and slave drivers, a bunch of sexually repressed miscreants who lack the intelligence and self esteem to define their own lives. The irony is that these "pious" mutants are a disgrace unworthy of having a god to look after them. BTW, to all the morons on this board who in anyway attempt to defend the Catholic Church, understand that injustice is absolute and not relative. Dont excuse this.
Never to excuse, webedweebee. But just to make sure that right criticism is where it should be, not where your hate and prejudice would put it.
If you can tell me how/why my hate and prejudice is not on target, I am all ears.
BTW, I dislike all religions equally.
You had the entire Catholic Church figured out, or what you observed? Do tell! I am all ears.
Go back to your first post - all hatred and anger. You have been told. :-)
You have told me benedictineacc. Really? Shall we start with the inquisitions or should we just fast forward to the billions in settlements for pedophilia. I would not in any way associate with a club that condoned the behavior thus far exhibited by the catholic church. You say - " dont blame everyone". I say "if you are supporting them in any way then you are accepting the behavior". Where do you draw the line? These arent mild transgressions erased by an Our Father. These are crimes against humanity. Cruel and perverse, how is that in any way Jesus like? Do you really want to be a part of a club that would have you as a member?
He figured out that nuns and priest didn't answer questions, they just hit him and ordered him to memorize what they said, he figured out that priests do not practice what they preach in back rooms and in the rectory and even in the homes of their parishoners when left alone with children, he figured out that services at other denominations DO "count", he figured out that God told us that we SHOULD share communion with ALL Christians and not just in roman catholic churches (or we were told it would be a sin anywhere else), he figured out that more money was being spent on cars/cooks/housecleaners/trips for priests than was spent on helping the poor....no post is long enough to hold the lies and vices of the roman catholic church that an 8 year old could figure out.
bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts"
Did the Irish fight to secede from the union due to religion mostly just to enslave the poor and marginalized on the basis of religion??
Anyone that is gullible enough to believe in religion deserves whatever happens to them...belief is the willing suspension of reasoning...
Wow, how insightful! Tell me what grade you got in your college philosophy class that made you so reasonable?
bene... Back in 1969, maybe 1970, I got a B in philosophy. By 2005 when philosophy courses were offered through the Great Teachers courses, one could watch and listen to philosophy, or physics, or music, or whatever, somewhat like watching lectures on one's computer today. The message is still the same, and it doesn't take a grade of A to understand it. Philosophy had it's hey day before the advent of modern science. Philosophers were great thinkers in their day, but their day is long since passed. Their worldly explanations have been supplanted by scientific observations. I agree with Dee Ten, that if you are gullible enough to have a faith based strategy for your well being, and reason for being, then you must accept the fact that you are but one of many faiths, and more probable to fail than succeed.
The Catholic Church can be envisioned as a once powerful warship, now adrift in a sea of scientific knowledge, taking one torpedo after another. The nuns are old, the priests are tied up in sex scandals, the financial picture of the Church is one of disarray, mistrust, and fraud, even the Pope's butler needed a pardon for supplying the news media information of church infighting. Putting women and children into slavery in a laundry, covered up by Catholic politicians, in a Catholic country, is sadly something which could be expected behavior of the Catholic Church, not something they were protecting their parishioners from.
The average age of a nun in the US, is something like 76 years. That would give an outsider the inclination the Catholic Church is dying, and all these scandals coming into public view are the Church's death throes. By the time these sex scandals, slave scandals, money and corruption scandals, etc., are cleaned up, the Catholic Church will not be the Catholic Church of history. It will be an entirely new church, or no church at all, and like philosophy courses of 1969, not applicable to much in this century.
Disgusting !
WOW...MSNBC..
WHEN THEY'RE NOT
TAKING Away your Guns..
they're BASHING Catholics ..AGAIN..
PURE OBAMA B.U.L.L.Shytte..News...again
There's plenty to bash, and this is not about guns or Obama. Try to stay on topic. If you don't like MSNBC, crawl back over to FOX News.
bishopsaccountability.org "survivor's accounts" Protect your children.
Until rather recently Ireland largely enforced Catholic sharia law and was all but a theocracy, a republic in name only. It's only been in recent years due to scandals like slavery and pedophilia that Ireland has had a falling away from Catholic theocracy, but they're making lots of progress now on things like reproductive rights and gay rights (75% support marriage equality). But they've got a long way to go to root out all the Catholic sharia laws.......Ireland still even has one of those nutty blasphemy laws written into their constitution.
The Irish are now recognizing the severe human rights problems they've had because of Catholic theocracy, and as one Irish writer says, it's time to grow up:
Martin Luther knew what he was doing.