IRELAND
IrishCentral
Jean Farrell @IrishCentral March 13, 2017
If you need to know how Tuam babies cases happened look no further than the attitude of the Irish church to women in the 20th century.
It is fair to say the attitude was there among Protestant clergy too, given there were similar horrific deaths in the Protestant Bethany Home, where 222 babies and children died.
Women, especially poor or uneducated ones, were mere chattels of men, incapable of intelligent thought. Certainly, they should never be allowed to vote.
In 1909 Father David Barry wrote the following in a magazine called Irish Ecclesiastical Record:
“Allowing women the right to vote in Ireland is incompatible with the Catholic ideal of domestic life. It would fare ill with the passive, patience, meekness, forbearance and self-repression looked upon by the church as the special privilege of the female soul.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.