Workers Resistance

Author: Sean

  • Catholic church in Ireland threw 800 little children in a septic tank.

    Sean O’Torrain

    Just when you think it could not get any worse another crime of the Catholic church is exposed in Ireland. This time it is the bodies of 800 little children in a septic tank. They were thrown there when they died of malnutrition and disease which resulted from them being neglected by the Catholic church which ran the home in which they were held. They were held there and neglected because their mothers were not married, that is their mothers had not gone through the ritual and garbage that the Catholic church says they have to to be able to have sex. You have to really think about this.

    The unelected dictatorship which runs the 1.1 billion Catholic church is all men. Women are banned from the top positions. They are inferior according to the Catholic hierarchy. The Catholic church is the main church of capitalism. It worked with and helped US imperialism to organize the so-called dirty wars in Latin America where tens of thousands including its own left wing the liberation theologists were murdered and slaughtered. It worked with US imperialism to see that when Stalinism fell it was replaced with capitalism and not democratic socialism. US imperialism and the Catholic church are responsible for the wars and mass poverty that has resulted from the collapse of Stalinism.  The last pope was a former member of the Hitler youth. This pope was a collaborator with US imperialism in the dirty wars. This is a monstrous organization.

    Back to Ireland. The Catholic Hierarchy are responsible for this mass killing of these children. But they are not the only culprits. The Irish capitalist class were too weak to lead the struggle for independence in Ireland. (See Trotsky’s Theory of the Permanent Revolution.) The counter revolution that followed the war of independence left capitalism in place but very weak. They needed allies. They looked for and found one in the Catholic hierarchy. The dirty deal was done. The Catholic hierarchy could have the schools (centers of propaganda), the hospitals and a veto over all major legislation, especially social legislation, and could dictate the “morals” of the people. I never heard of James Joyce until I emigrated from Ireland when I was 20 and a young man from Quebec told me about him.

    But to get back on track. The Catholic hierarchy and the Irish capitalist class are both responsible for throwing these little children into this septic tank.  The horror of it is unbelievable. And now some full time organizer of the Catholic church, they call themselves priests to better intimidate people, says the children were only “resting.” I do not believe it is a good idea to support the capitalist state to ban any organization as it can then use this ban to justify banning workers organizations. But if there was ever a case to ban an organization there would be to ban the Catholic church in Ireland.

    But I do not call for this instead I call for all members of that church to leave it and never participate in any activity it is involved with. I cannot see how any decent, any intelligent person can belong to that organization. It is utterly corrupt, utterly anti-democratic and utterly anti-women. I cannot for the life of me see how people who say they are against capitalism and imperialism, how people who say they are Republicans can belong to the Catholic church.

    The Catholic church has a massive structure of wealth and resources. It has tens and tens of thousands of full time organizers, they call them priests, nuns, bishops, cardinals, popes, this is again to intimidate and impress, these people are full time organizers for a dictatorial capitalist organization. So how can people who say they are against the system, get named, get married, get buried by these people, by this organization. It only gives this organization greater authority and control. I see the Republicans in Ireland attending the Catholic church and I am astounded at the reactionary role this plays.

    In the North of Ireland we have the Paisleys and the Protestant organizations. They are just as bad only they did not get their hands on as much undiluted power. But they have been able to justify every wrong they have done by pointing to the role of the Catholic church in the South and internationally. Imagine what Paisley and co will be saying now about the 800 children in the septic tank in Tuam. And the Catholic population, their leaders, such as Gerry Adams and the rest of them will not have a word to say.

    • More crimes of the Catholic Hierarchy in Ireland.

      Galway historian reveals truth behind 800 orphans in mass grave

      @randomirish June 01,2014 04:10 AM
      \"A

      A septic tank near a long abandoned workhouse in Galway was found to contain the bodies of up to eight hundred infants and children.
      There is a  growing international scandal around the history of The Home, a grim 1840’s workhouse in Tuam in Galway  built on seven acres that was taken over in 1925 by the Bon Secours sisters, who turned it into a Mother and Baby home for “fallen women.”
      The long abandoned site made headlines around the world this week when it was revealed that a nearby septic tank contained the bodies of up to eight hundred infants and children, secretly buried without coffins or headstones on unconsecrated ground between 1925 and 1961.
      ****http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/Nuns-join-Irish-bankers-in-avoiding-justice-over-Magdalene-payments.html
      Now a local historian has stepped forward to outline the terrible circumstances around so many lost little lives.
      Catherine Corless, the local historian and genealogist, remembers the Home Babies well. “They were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms,” Corless tells IrishCentral. “By doing this the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them. 
      “They didn’t suggest we be nice to them. In fact if you acted up in class some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies. That was the message we got in our young years,” Corless recalls. 
      Now a dedicated historian of the site, as a schoolgirl Corless recalls watching an older friend wrap a tiny stone inside a bright candy wrapper and present it as a gift to one of them.
      “When the child opened it she saw she’d been fooled,” Corless says. “Of course I copied her later and I tried to play the joke on another little Home girl. I thought it was funny at the time.”
      But later – years later – Corless realized that the children she taunted had nobody. “Years after I asked myself what did I do to that poor little girl that never saw a sweet? That has stuck with me all my life. A part of me wants to make up to them.”
      Surrounded by an eight-foot high wall, Tuam, County Galway locals say that they saw little to nothing of the daily life of The Home or of the pregnant young mothers who arrived and left it without a word over the decades. 
      In the few surviving black and white photographs taken at the site no child is smiling. Instead they simply frown at the camera, their blank stares suggesting the terrible conditions.
      A local health board inspection report from April 1944 recorded 271 children and 61 single mothers in residence, a total of 333 in a building that had a capacity for 243.
      The report described the children as “emaciated,” “pot-bellied,” “fragile” with “flesh hanging loosely on limbs.” The report noted that 31 children in the “sun room and balcony” were “poor, emaciated and not thriving.” The effects of long term neglect and malnutrition were observed repeatedly. 
      Children died at The Home at the rate of one a fortnight for almost 40 years, one report claims. Another appears to claim that 300 children died between 1943 and 1946, which would mean two deaths a week in the isolated institution.
      In The Home’s 36 years of operation between 1926 and 1961 some locals told the press this week of unforgettable interactions with its emaciated children, who because of their “sinful” origins were considered socially radioactive and treated as such.
      One local said: “I remember some of them in class in the Mercy Convent in Tuam – they were treated marginally better than the traveler children. They were known locally as the “Home Babies.” For the most part the children were usually gone by school age – either adopted or dead.”
      Thanks to Corless’ efforts we now know the names and fates of up to 796 forgotten infants and children who died there, thanks to her discovery of their death records when researching The Home’s history. 
      “First I contacted the Bon Secours sisters at their headquarters in Cork and they replied they no longer had files or information about The Home because they had left Tuam in 1961 and had handed all their records over to the Western Health Board.” 
      Undaunted, Corless turned to The Western Health Board, who told her there was no general information on the daily running of the place.
      “Eventually I had the idea to contact the registry office in Galway. I remembered a law was enacted in 1932 to register every death in the country. My contact said give me a few weeks and I’ll let you know.”
      “A week later she got back to me and said do you really want all of these deaths? I said I do. She told me I would be charged for each record. Then she asked me did I realize the enormity of the numbers of deaths there?”
      The registrar came back with a list of 796 children. “I could not believe it. I was dumbfounded and deeply upset,” says Corless. “There and then I said this isn’t right. There’s nothing on the ground there to mark the grave, there’s nothing to say it’s a massive children’s graveyard. It’s laid abandoned like that since it was closed in 1961.”
      ****http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Memorial-campaign-underway-for-forgotten-grave-of-800-babies-in-Galway.html
      The certificates Corless received record each child’s age, name, date – and in some cases – cause of death. “I have the full list and it’s going up on a plaque for the site, which we’re fundraising for at the moment. We want it to be bronze so that it weathers better. We want to do it in honor of the children who were left there forgotten for all those years. It’s a scandal.”
      Corless believes that nothing was said or done to expose the truth because people believed illegitimate children didn’t matter. “That’s what really hurts and moved me to do something,” she explains.
      During its years of operation the children of The Home were referred to as “inmates” in the press. It was believed by the clergy that the harsh conditions there were in themselves a form of corrective penance. The state, the church and their families all failed these women, Corless contends. 
      But even now the unexpected difficulty that the local committee Corless has joined to fundraise for a plaque to remember the dead children suggests that not everyone wants to confront the truth about the building’s tragic past.
      “I do blame the Catholic Church,” says Corless. “I blame the families as well but people were afraid of the parish priest. I think they were brainwashed.  I suppose the lesson is not to be hiding things. To face up to reality. 
      “My fear is that if things aren’t faced now it’s very easy to slide back into this kind of cover-up again. I want the truth out there. If you give people too much power it’s dangerous.”
      Living and dying in a culture of shame and silence for decades, the Home Babies’ very existence was considered an affront to Ireland and God. 
      It was a different time, some defenders argued this week, omitting to mention that the stigmatizing silence that surrounded The Home was fostered by clerics. Indeed the religious orders were so successful at silencing their critics that for decades even to speak of The Home was to risk contagion.
      And now that terrifying era of shame and silence is finally lifting, we are left to ask what all their lonesome suffering was in aid of, and what did it actually achieve?
      To donate to the memorial for the mothers and babies of The Home, contact Catherine Corless at catherinecorless@hotmail.com.

      There is a growing international scandal around the history of The Home, a grim 1840’s workhouse in Tuam in Galway built on seven acres that was taken over in 1925 by the Bon Secours sisters, who turned it into a Mother and Baby home for “fallen women.”

      The long abandoned site made headlines around the world this week when it was revealed that a nearby septic tank contained the bodies of up to eight hundred infants and children, secretly buried without coffins or headstones on unconsecrated ground between 1925 and 1961. Now a local historian has stepped forward to outline the terrible circumstances around so many lost little lives.

      Catherine Corless, the local historian and genealogist, remembers the Home Babies well. “They were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms,” Corless tells IrishCentral. “By doing this the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them.

      “They didn’t suggest we be nice to them. In fact if you acted up in class some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies. That was the message we got in our young years,” Corless recalls.
      Now a dedicated historian of the site, as a schoolgirl Corless recalls watching an older friend wrap a tiny stone inside a bright candy wrapper and present it as a gift to one of them.

      “When the child opened it she saw she’d been fooled,” Corless says. “Of course I copied her later and I tried to play the joke on another little Home girl. I thought it was funny at the time.”

      But later – years later – Corless realized that the children she taunted had nobody. “Years after I asked myself what did I do to that poor little girl that never saw a sweet? That has stuck with me all my life. A part of me wants to make up to them.”

      Surrounded by an eight-foot high wall, Tuam, County Galway locals say that they saw little to nothing of the daily life of The Home or of the pregnant young mothers who arrived and left it without a word over the decades.

      In the few surviving black and white photographs taken at the site no child is smiling. Instead they simply frown at the camera, their blank stares suggesting the terrible conditions. A local health board inspection report from April 1944 recorded 271 children and 61 single mothers in residence, a total of 333 in a building that had a capacity for 243.

      The report described the children as “emaciated,” “pot-bellied,” “fragile” with “flesh hanging loosely on limbs.” The report noted that 31 children in the “sun room and balcony” were “poor, emaciated and not thriving.” The effects of long term neglect and malnutrition were observed repeatedly.

      Children died at The Home at the rate of one a fortnight for almost 40 years, one report claims. Another appears to claim that 300 children died between 1943 and 1946, which would mean two deaths a week in the isolated institution.

      In The Home’s 36 years of operation between 1926 and 1961 some locals told the press this week of unforgettable interactions with its emaciated children, who because of their “sinful” origins were considered socially radioactive and treated as such.

      One local said: “I remember some of them in class in the Mercy Convent in Tuam – they were treated marginally better than the traveler children. They were known locally as the “Home Babies.” For the most part the children were usually gone by school age – either adopted or dead.”

      Because of Corless’ efforts we now know the names and fates of up to 796 forgotten infants and children who died there, thanks to her discovery of their death records when researching The Home’s history.

      “First I contacted the Bon Secours sisters at their headquarters in Cork and they replied they no longer had files or information about The Home because they had left Tuam in 1961 and had handed all their records over to the Western Health Board.”

      Undaunted, Corless turned to The Western Health Board, who told her there was no general information on the daily running of the place.

      “Eventually I had the idea to contact the registry office in Galway. I remembered a law was enacted in 1932 to register every death in the country. My contact said give me a few weeks and I’ll let you know.”

      “A week later she got back to me and said do you really want all of these deaths? I said I do. She told me I would be charged for each record. Then she asked me did I realize the enormity of the numbers of deaths there?”

      The registrar came back with a list of 796 children. “I could not believe it. I was dumbfounded and deeply upset,” says Corless. “There and then I said this isn’t right. There’s nothing on the ground there to mark the grave, there’s nothing to say it’s a massive children’s graveyard. It’s laid abandoned like that since it was closed in 1961.”

      The certificates Corless received record each child’s age, name, date – and in some cases – cause of death. “I have the full list and it’s going up on a plaque for the site, which we’re fundraising for at the moment. We want it to be bronze so that it weathers better. We want to do it in honor of the children who were left there forgotten for all those years. It’s a scandal.”

      Corless believes that nothing was said or done to expose the truth because people believed illegitimate children didn’t matter. “That’s what really hurts and moved me to do something,” she explains.

      During its years of operation the children of The Home were referred to as “inmates” in the press. It was believed by the clergy that the harsh conditions there were in themselves a form of corrective penance. The state, the church and their families all failed these women, Corless contends.

      But even now the unexpected difficulty that the local committee Corless has joined to fundraise for a plaque to remember the dead children suggests that not everyone wants to confront the truth about the building’s tragic past.

      “I do blame the Catholic Church,” says Corless. “I blame the families as well but people were afraid of the parish priest. I think they were brainwashed.  I suppose the lesson is not to be hiding things. To face up to reality.

      “My fear is that if things aren’t faced now it’s very easy to slide back into this kind of cover-up again.

      I want the truth out there. If you give people too much power it’s dangerous.”
      Living and dying in a culture of shame and silence for decades, the Home Babies’ very existence was considered an affront to Ireland and God.

      It was a different time, some defenders argued this week, omitting to mention that the stigmatizing silence that surrounded The Home was fostered by clerics. Indeed the religious orders were so successful at silencing their critics that for decades even to speak of The Home was to risk contagion.

      And now that terrifying era of shame and silence is finally lifting, we are left to ask what all their lonesome suffering was in aid of, and what did it actually achieve?

      To donate to the memorial for the mothers and babies of The Home, contact Catherine Corless at catherinecorless@hotmail.com.

    • Farzina Parveen, Pakistani woman murdered by relatives.

      Farzana Parveen

      Another victim in the war on women.

      By Sean O’Torrain

      Farzina  Parveen, a 25 year old pregnant woman has been stoned to death in Lahore, Pakistan by her relatives. Her “crime” –  having married the man she wanted to. Then we find out that this man himself had earlier murdered his first wife to be with Ms. Parveen. He had been able to get his release from his sentence for strangling his first wife by using what is known under Islamic law as “diyat”. This allows the family of the victim to forgive the murderer or to accept payment for the murder of their family member and in this way the murderer gets off. This is horrific. It is part of the war against women that is taking place worldwide. “Diyat” has similarities to so-called “canon law” in the Catholic church where that church claims that “canon law” which it makes up itself, allows it to makes its own decisions about its own full-time organizers (priest,bishops, cardinals,popes etc) and keep them out of the hands of the legal system.

      Is not only the backward tribal and religious elements of Islam which use “diyat.”When it suits it the US government uses it also. In 2011 the US government used it to obtain the release of Raymond Davis, a CIA mercenary and killer who had shot two Pakistanis. To set the “diyat” process in motion in this case and set the CIA killer free, $2.34 million was paid in compensation and Davis was flown out of Pakistan in hours. The US government also paid $100,000 to the family of a third man who was killed y CIA officials who ran him down with their jeep as they rushed to Davis’ aid. The US government bails out its paid killers. It is prepared to use the most backward of anti-woman laws to protect its mercenaries. This includes “diyat,”which was used to justify the stoning to death of Ms Parveen.

      The US government sends its troops abroad to fight for the interest of the US corporations. The people who make these decisions are the Bushes, the Obamas, the Cheyney’s, the owners and directors of the major US corporations. These people are war criminals. In order to keep the armed forces they send abroad intact, they have to protect them from repercussions for their actions as much as possible. As we see in this case they are even prepared to go as far as using “diyat” which allows for the murdering of women to achieve this end.

      India’s Women in Pink, self defense forces

      I am writing this post in the USA. This issues has to be raised here and internationally. There are hundreds of thousands of Pakistani and Indian businesses and religious institutions in this country. This issue must be taken up with these businesses. Their places of business can be picketed. US corporations and the US government must get the same treatment. A fight has to be taken up against the mass rapes and murders of women. The example of the Women in Pink in India should be followed. They have organized themselves with clubs and defend themselves against rapists and murderers. They are up to 100,000 strong. Take action in our own areas and contact all the women’s groups around the world such as the Women in Pink to let them see they are not alone.