Catholic Church enslaved 30,000 Irish women as forced unpaid labor in Magdalene Laundries until 1996

[kpete]

Revealing video:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21326221

What a horrific story. The Irish Prime Minister gave a partial apology today for the government’s role in a 74-year scandal in which, a new official government report says, over 10,000 women were forced to work without pay at commercial laundries called Magdalene Laundries, operated by the Catholic Church for “crimes” as small as not paying a train ticket.

..................

The last Magdalene laundry closed in 1996.

The women were locked in and not permitted to leave. And if they tried to get away, the cops would catch them and bring them back. They were quite literally Catholic slave labor working for the government and even Guinness, which would pay the laundries for the women’s slave labor.

Half of the girls enslaved in these Catholic Church prisons were under the age of 23. The youngest entrant was 9 years old.

more:
http://americablog.com/2013/02/magdalen-laundries-catholic-ireland-irish-apology.html

[aquart]

1. And may every man involved die screaming in agony with Satan smiling into his eyes.

[Cleita]

11. Actually, it was done by the nuns with the men looking the other way.n/t

[aquart]

27. That's why Satan will be looking into their eyes.

Pretending nuns had power in the Catholic Church. Ride flying pigs, do they?

[joeybee12]

2. 1996!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cleita]

5. Amazing isn't it? My husband was Irish so we socialized with other Irish.

I heard about the laundries from the Irish women we socialized with as far back as 1970. I was dumbfounded that they were still operating until then. I thought when I was being told about this that it was an abuse from the past.

[joeybee12]

13. Yeah, you'd figure this was turn of the century sh*t...as in from 19th to 20th...

Amazing.

[JDPriestly]

3. Unwed mothers and others who refused to be subjugated by Catholic male chauvinist morality.

If you watch the documentary on this, you will understand why abortion has to remain legal.

This is yet another horrible crime of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does many good things. They have a wonderful charitable arm. But the Magdalene Laundries are one of their atrocities.

[Cleita]

6. That's more an atrocity of the Irish Church, not all Catholics, but the

fact is the Vatican did nothing about it either. I'm sure they must have known.

[Marrah_G]

21. Of course they knew

They know about all the corruption going on in their ranks and quite frankly I believe they encourage it.

The Pedophile priest here in new England? Oh yes, they take that so seriously that Cardinal Law, a person directly responsible for covering up and allowing these crimes to continue, now sits in a place of high honor in Rome as one of 4 Archbishops. People I love, people ion my family will forever bear the scars of what he has done, yet he sits like a king in their little gold-filled city. Disgusting.

Since it's very beginning the Vatican has been ripe with corruption, lies, scandal, murder and war. When not directly involved they are busy looking the other way.

I come from a family of Catholics, whom I love. They are good people, but they misguided people, continuing to financially support a very corrupt system.

I would like to see at the very least, American Catholics rise up against the Vatican and break free from what I would classify as an organized crime syndicate going back hundreds and hundreds of years.

[Fight2Win]

4. WTF!

What the hell has the catholic church been up to!
The catholic church was just caught stealing hundreds of thousands of babies in Spain over 50 years. They would tell the parents the baby died and then give it to 'more deserving' people.

Isn't this an international crime or something?

All we get is a partial apology

[Cleita]

7. Again this is an abuse in Spain and not by all Catholics, however,

still the Vatican did nothing. They are guilty in that respect.

[ohheckyeah]

15. If Catholics would leave the church

and starve it financially, these things might stop.

What will it take for the rank and file Catholics to say enough?

[Cleita]

16. They need to pressure from within. Culturally going to

Mass and other Catholic practices like Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation and other rituals are too ingrained to make many want to leave the Church. The Church is a monarchy and not a democracy and the clergy are pretty much ingrained in working in this medieval way. The Church can issue sanctions like excommunication and tell you you are going to Hell. That scares some true believers. So the Church will never die, but it can change and it's up to the lay parishioners to start pressuring the clergy and their bishops until the Vatican can't ignore it or hide it anymore. You are seeing this happening with the priest pedophile scandals. There will be change, I'm sure of it. It's going to take a movement of practicing Catholics to make it happen. If they can get some of the religious orders like the nuns and monks on board for reform, it will add momentum. The Pope will have to bend.

[Ilsa]

33. Not just in Spain. It went on in California, too.

Dan Rather did a show on it for his cable tv program. It wasn't to the same degree as in Spain, but they basically robbed young women of their babies.

[Solly Mack]

8. K&R

[Floyd_Gondolli]

9. BUT what does this have to do with drones

Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones. Must. Have. Drones.

[Cleita]

10. This is a very insensitive remark.

It shows your lack of respect for what's important to women.

[Floyd_Gondolli]

12. Or maybe it has nothing to do with women

And everything to do with mocking today's obsession du jour on DU.

I also posted the same thing on a lounge thread relating to french fries.

Does that imply a lack of respect for french fries as well, or are you maybe just wound a little too tight today?

[Cleita]

14. There is a time and place.

French fries are fine for mocking. This is a more serious subject and you should put the snark away for a better snark candidate that doesn't offend half the population.

[Marrah_G]

19. So you felt the need to fuck up this thread with your snark?

[Floyd_Gondolli]

24. Yes.

[aquart]

29. No. Being mockingly dismissive of a massive outrage against women is beyond disrespectful.

It is braggart cowardice. Something no one should be proud of.

[Nye Bevan]

17. Nuns used to be very sadistic.

As someone who went to Catholic school, I can say that from experience.

[Marrah_G]

18. Just another example of why I despise the Catholic Church

IMHO if the Vatican ceased to exist, the world would be a better place.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. One of the reasons my grandmother fled Ireland was because of the church.

Poverty was the main reason but she carried a lifelong grudge against Mother Church and the local priest.

[backscatter712]

22. The Roman Catholic Church is a truly evil organization. EVIL.

Everywhere you look, they're hip deep in this shit.

When it's not kiddie-fiddling priests, or depriving women of civil rights, or promoting homophobia, it's fucking SLAVERY.

[riqster]

23. Speaking as a Huguenot,

I expect abuse, corruption, illegality and human-rights violations from the Church. Sorry for the women who were abused by the RCC and their partners in crime.

[Starry Messenger]

25. The Magdalene Sisters film--

I saw it 10 years ago. It's not shocking this was still going on into 1996. I'm Irish Catholic (now atheist, but family origins are IC) and the hold the leadership still has on some of my older relatives is sad.

[John1956PA]

26. My relationship with religion has followed the same arc which you have experienced.

As an atheist, it is not possible for me to communicate with my older hard-line Catholic relatives.

[tabasco]

28. Another wonderful group of religious people!

Ahhhhhhh.. how much religion adds to the betterment of our societies.

Anti birth control, pedophile protecting, slave whipping Catholics.

Just another example of the beauty of religion.

[Liberal_in_LA]

30. kick

[marmar]

31. Few organizations have inflicted as much misery on the world as the RCC.

[kwassa]

32. The Irish Catholic church is taking a big nose dive in attendence, influence, and in power

As recently as the 1970s, almost 90 percent of Irish Catholics went to Mass at least once a week. Today, the number is closer to 25 percent. And in some parts of Dublin, just two or three percent of self-described Catholics regularly go to church.

a great story on the subject.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/july-15-2011/decline-of-the-irish-catholic-church/9146/