IRELAND
Irish Examiner
By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter
The film, starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, tells the true story of Philomena Lee’s search for the son she was forced to put up for adoption through the Seán Ross Abbey mother and baby home in 1952, when she was 19.
Ms Lee, who met Pope Francis on Wednesday, also attended the screening along with her daughter, Jane Libberton, and Coogan, who wrote, produced, and starred in the film.
Susan Lohan, co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance, who is also in Rome as part of the Philomena Project, said the Pope’s private secretary, Monsignor Guillermo Karcher, indicated that he did not view the film as anti-Catholic and would recommend it to Pope Francis.
Some critics in the US had hit out at the film as being “90 minutes of organised hate”.
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