Ireland’s "Mass Grave" Hysteria

Catholic League
June 23, 2014

http://www.catholicleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/IRELANDS-MASS-GRAVE-HYSTERIA.pdf

[full text]

Mass hysteria has gripped Ireland, England, and the United States over reports that nearly 800 bodies of children have been found in a mass grave outside a former home run by nuns in Tuam, near Galway. The Catholic Church has been hammered incessantly, and shrill cries of maltreatment abound. Fresh off the heels of horror stories about the Magdalene Laundries, and the torment of Philomena Lee (as recorded in the film, "Philomena"), the public is reeling from the latest report of abuse at the hands of cruel nuns.

None of this is true. There is no mass grave. Women were not abused by nuns in the Magdalene Laundries. And Philomena's son was never taken from her and then sold to the highest bidder. The evidence that the public has been hosed is overwhelming. Truths, half-truths, and flat-out lies are driving all three stories. That's a bad stew, the result of which is to whip up anti-Catholic sentiment. This is no accident.

The McAleese Report on the Magdalene Laundries is the most authoritative account of what actually happened in these facilities for "fallen women." This government report, which was released in February 2013, does not even come close to indicting the nuns—not a single woman was ever sexually assaulted by one of the sisters, and the conditions in the laundries were not "prison like." We know this because of the records that were examined, the women who were interviewed, and the physicians who offered their testimonials.