How difficult is it to be a Catholic now?

Yes I agree. It's not where they were buried, septic tank or common ground. But why were there so many? And this was while these babies and very young children were under the care of, in this particular case, the Catholic Church.

As stated in the article, the west of Ireland was desperately poor, disease would spread rapidly in a community. Perhaps a search of the infant mortality rate in the general population at the time should be made.

As I stated in a previous post, my DH who grew up in Ireland came from a very poor background and had nothing but praise for the nuns and brothers who taught him, strict yes but no cruelty. He told me stories of how at Christmas, when there were no presents and little food in the house there would always be a parcel delivered by the local nuns containing food and some small gifts.

Thanks for this link, MiceElf. I hope some of the posters who've added comments since you posted it will actually read the whole piece. But why confuse a good story with facts?

Facts or beliefs?

I'm not Catholic and don't know much about it other than what I read, including on these forums. But I went along to a talk recently by Father Christopher Jamison, a Benedictine monk, as part of a week-long “Happiness Project” in my local area - he has written a book called Finding Happiness, Monastic Lessons for Everyday Life. I didn’t know anything about him at all but he has had some TV shows “The Big Silence” and another one, I can’t remember. He was such an inspirational speaker, I found myself making notes of some of the things he said:

“Hope is the remedy for sadness and we have to make a conscious effort to sustain it in ourselves and others”.
“Two things you have to do always – contemplate; and do good things”.
“Shun forgetfulness … especially about your blessings, because if you do not acknowledge your blessings, you will always be ‘looking beyond’ for ‘fleeting happiness’ and miss joy, which is the product of being blessed”.

And I learnt a new word: “acedia”.

Apologies for slightly going off topic.

Facts, Mishap. A lot of what has appeared in the media about the Tuam story has been speculation and misreporting.

Good to have that link MiceElf.
I was sceptical about the story from the start partly because I couldn't believe they would be so wicked, and partly because we have a septic tank and it would hardly hold one small body never mind 800, and is easily blocked.

None of us have any idea about whether this story is true and there is a lot of stuff flying about - some choose to believe some "facts", others to believe others. The truth is that we do not know what really happened and maybe never will.

I am however inclined to believe those catholic posters on here and my friends who were brought up as catholics who found it all oppressive. I have no reason to think that they might be lying.

The Irish government have announced an official enquiry. Irish government enquiries often go on for years. So we won't hold our breath. The one fact is that there were an awful lot of deaths registered in this one institution. Apparently lively rumours that the children were used for vaccine trials! Doubt this is cause of high death rate somehow. Sounds like the vaccine conspracists at work.
And we have not heard a lot about the Magdalen laundries in the UK - but it's ongoing news in Ireland. Incarceration and enslavement of many thousands numbers of young women who became pregnant, some of them no doubt would have been the victims of rape, incest and abuse by priests, who are now middle aged and speaking out about the cruelty they suffered. So against that background the idea that their babies were not well cared for is not implausible.

TriciaF Perhaps by septic tank they really mean a cesspit. Not so technically constructed so could be bigger and not so likely to get blocked.

It would have been big enough to accommodate the effluent from a workhouse - quite a big building maybe.

I'm starting to notice people referring to themselves as 'recovering Catholics'.

I'm also an ex-catholic but I don't feel that I'm recovering - I just feel I've moved on.

The history of church child abuse world-wide utterly horrifies me, though the priests I knew were fine, and our lads never suffered abuse at our local catholic primary and secondary schools. One of my lads is now a teacher at that same secondary school.

I do remember that when the AIDS crisis first hit, and the various protestant fundamentalists such as the JWs were crowing about God punishing those sinners, the local Catholic church simply set about looking after the Aids victims, and reducing their suffering as much as possible. This was before much progress had been made in treatments.

My leaving the church had nothing much to do with other people: it was simply that I ceased to believe any of the tenets of religion - it had all been demoted to myth in my mind, for many years.

Joan we used to be called 'lapsed Catholics' which in my view made it sound faintly medical.

Yes, or some sort of memory failure...

Exactly! They always thought we could be brought back into the fold. No chance.

Good morning & namaste!

I'm a 'newbie' & not sure if I'm in the right place right now.

I was baptized RC & educated at a Jesuit boarding school during the 1950s.

I'm currently experiencing a 'crisis of Faith' & would love to 'dialogue' with 1 or 2 empathetic/sympathetic people who might understand my difficulties but I don't do well with the evangelical fundamentalist type. I am, however, deeply ecumenical & have studied a bit of eastern religions like Buddhism & Hinduism. I practice christian meditation.

I am disabled & housebound but a lady Deacon from the 'Church in Wales' visits every 2 or 3 weeks & I find her most uplifting.

I have had a long but tortuous faith journey so far & too complicated to explain here.

Meanwhile, thanks for listening.

God bless, om shanti!

Dave.

PS I am/was a trained advisor/advocate in Mental Health

I hope you find someone on here who can share your journey dave. For my part, I decided that the journey was taking up to much of my time and that living might be a better option. The "meaning of life" and the existence or otherwise of a deity are not obvious and a whole lifetime could be spent searching for these, when one could just be getting on with living a decent life and being kind to one's neighbour. Rather than searching for meaning I try and concentrate on spreading a little happiness where I am able within my limitations.

Hi back 'Mishap'!
Many thanks your kind reply which is full of so much wisdom & common sense. Yes, I think it's not what you 'believe' but rather how you 'love' which seems to be what Jesus & other religious figures taught.
I shall bear in mind what you say & thanks again.
Have a nice day!
Om shanti.
Dave x