Strong criticism of religious orders on handling of infant deaths
THE head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has asked anyone with information about burial places in mother and baby homes to come forward and help identify them so that they can be appropriately marked by their families.
Archbishop Eamon Martin highlighted the Commission’s belief “that there may be people with further information about burial places who have not come forward”. Dr Martin also said the rights of all survivors to access personal information about themselves should be fully respected, and he urged the State to ensure that any remaining obstacles to this should be overcome.
Some of the religious orders who ran mother and baby homes were strongly criticised in the report over their failure to keep records of the burials of children who died in their institutions.
Former Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said that the church and religious orders involved should “ask for forgiveness” of survivors.
He said that saying sorry is “very easy” but “asking for forgiveness” puts the survivors in charge.
When asked about the church contributing towards financial redress for victims, he told RTÉ’s Drivetime: “I heard the Taoiseach saying that he’s going to discuss the matter and I think that’s the best way forward.”
Responding to the report findings, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which ran Bessborough in Cork as well as homes in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co Tipperary, said that it was “a matter of great sorrow to us that babies died while under our care”.
The congregation said it was “distressed and saddened” that it had been so difficult to prove with certainty where many of these infants were buried.
Describing itself as “perplexed” at the inability of any member of the congregation to identify the infant burial place in Bessborough, the Commission said it found it “very hard to believe that there is no one in that congregation who does not have some knowledge”.
Similarly, the Commission believes there must be people in Tuam who know more about the burials there.
In a statement, the Daughters of Charity who ran Pelletstown/St Patrick’s on the Navan Road in Dublin, a facility owned by the Dublin Board of Guardians, said they “deeply” regretted that they “could not have done more to ease the burden and suffering carried by these women”.
The Good Shepherd Sisters who ran Ard Mhuire in Dunboyne welcomed the report’s finding that there was no evidence of any abuse in the home and that the order was not directly involved in arrangements for adoption.
The Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland (AMRI) said the Commission’s report highlighted “a very unjust and dark period in our history, where women who became pregnant out of wedlock were driven to secrecy, isolation and loneliness by a society which was cruel in the extreme”.
It said that it regretted “the judgmental culture of secrecy and shame that pervaded the Church, marginalised women and ran counter to the gospel”.