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Fr Brian: Baby graves are 'our greatest crime'
By Fr. Brian D’arcy
The recent revelations about the mistreatment of young children and babies in homes run by religious orders continues to shock and dismay me. When I first heard the news that more than 800 babies were buried in what was formally a septic tank I was astonished – because initially I thought it happened in some famine-stricken country today. Then I thought I was hearing about Nazi Germany. But when I realised it happened in Ireland during my own lifetime to children in the care of religious sisters, I was overcome with a deep sorrow bordering on depression. There appears to be no reason to doubt the veracity of the horror stories that have come out in the past few days. Yet we do need to be certain of all the facts – and I hope that will be the first thing the Government does. As soon as what happened in Tuam is clarified we need to investigate other areas like Castlepollard, Loughrea etc. My fear is that there are countless unmarked graves at many other institutions. Is this just the tip of another scandalous iceberg? These are traumatic times with seismic consequences for Church and State. How can we establish a pro-life culture if that’s how we treated vulnerable children? What’s even worse is that children born within marriage were regarded as more precious than children born outside of wedlock. This is a judgement on the Church at that time and also on society itself. If there were 800 babies whom nobody cared about, where are the mothers of those children who must now be grieving all over again? Where are the fathers of those children? What sort of families sent them off in hiding to institutions. Did they believe that children conceived outside of marriage were not created by God? In my early days in the priesthood I dealt on a daily basis with what were then called ‘unmarried mothers’. I invariably found them to be decent, loving, caring people whose life was made a misery by do-gooders in religion and in society. Attitudes changed slowly. People like the late Fr Ferghal O’Connor tried desperately to do something to make their lives more acceptable and more loving. He and others bravely stood against the hypocrites. In one of the earliest articles I wrote for this paper I stated that we must show love, compassion and support to all mothers, married or otherwise. It is a foundational precept of the Irish Constitution that we cherish all children equally. It was obvious then and even more obvious now that children from privileged families were cherished more than children from a poorer background and treated worst of all were the children born outside of families. Now I am frequently haunted by the thought of so many poor children who were sent to a lonely death and an undignified burial. In my mind I can hear the cries of children overcome with pangs of hunger and dysentery and I wonder what kind of people – religious or otherwise – buried their little bodies in an attempt to suppress them from memory. Those of us in religion and those who are leaders of society have a great deal of thinking to do. As a victim of sexual abuse myself, I realise what a terrible thing that was and is. But there is a part deep within me which concludes that the treatment meted to little babies in homes for unmarried mothers and dysfunctional families was an even greater crime which will haunt all right thinking people to our dying day. I hope that the real facts are established as soon as possible and I hope that we’ll face those facts with humility, compassion and genuine repentance.
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