The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.
In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.
Religion is such hypocrisy. No wonder people are turning away.
On one hand, they tell people don’t use birth control, no abortion ; on the other hand, they don’t protect them.
Antitheism needs to rise.
Wow, thinking religion is bad just because there are more babies than you can really comprehend looking at in this septic tank, and you had to ask yourself ‘wait I’ve read this one before’?
Bigot.
Sure man, whatever you say. I’m happy to be bigoted when it comes to religion. Most religions promote being a bigot anyway, so whatevs.
Yeah! How many times has a religion done this?
And that first one you thought of doesn’t count. Or the next 3 cause those were all recent mass graves. Or those old ones if you thought of those. So just don’t count the first 20 times of this from religions that pop into your head and then tell me how often you really think this happened.
Heretic.
This is satire right? Fuck I can’t tell anymore.
religions don’t deserve to exist.
They can exist - if they pay taxes.
I’d rather they not, though.
Religion is the last mental illness you can’t call out or treat. When you have Mike Huckabees et al going around ushering in the End Times, we should have the power to medicate these people into a barely functional stupor.
Inb4 hot takes that are especially relevant in June.
Pray for my soul.
I agreed up until the end. Forcefully medicating people into a “barely functional stupor” is a horrific human rights violation.
It’s not. If you see someone with a clearly broken leg and unconscious, do you wait for the person to wake up?
No, because that person is not able to have any say in the matter (they are unconcious). All we can do is operate in their best interest, by getting them medical help.
However, a person with mental illness is concious (in this case) and can advocate for themselves and we shouldn’t deny them the right to do so. That would be oppression.
Do you think all schizophrenic people should be forcefully medicated even if they don’t pose a threat to others? Because a lot of religious people aren’t a threat to anybody. They aren’t all extremists.
However, a person with mental illness is concious (in this case) and can advocate for themselves
They can’t effectively advocate for themselves when they’re delusional or paranoid.
Do you think all schizophrenic people should be forcefully medicated even if they don’t pose a threat to others?
Nobody mentioned schizophrenia but you. And the assumption was very evidently that the people in question did pose a threat. In the case of Mike Huckabee, an actionable and immediate one.
And yes, I know involuntary commitments have been horribly abused in the past. But I also know that there are times when such a process is necessary. I know people close to me who would not be alive and had the potential to harm others if they hadn’t been sectioned. And the most severe case wasn’t schizophrenia, it was during a bad bipolar manic phase. Not that there are good ones.
I know involuntary commitments have been horribly abused in the past.
It’s not all in the past. They are still abused today.
All we can do is operate in their best interest, by getting them medical help.
The end.
So is allowing someone with delusions to cause mass murder. I’d say that’s even worse, just based on the body count.
Not every religious person wants to commit mass murder.
Sure but you might be making some assumptions that don’t really apply here.
You mean assumptions about the 800 dead hidden babies in what is a very common finding inthese settings? Those assumptions?
Yes, those assumptions.
Do you think they had a valid and good reason to hide 800 dead babies in a septic tank?
It wasn’t a septic tank.
It was a structure with 20 compartments which was originally designed as some kind of sewage management system but was never used as such.
So your question is really, do I think they had a valid and good reason to bury 800 infants, who had died from various bacterial and viral infections over a long period of time.
The obvious answer to that is yes.
It was a refuge for mothers and children. There’s no indication of any abuse or neglect of the deceased at this time. I’m sure there are many valid criticisms to be made about this time and this place, and certainly there are valid criticisms to be made about religion, but this refuge is not the baby murder facility you’re looking for.
There’s a snopes article with a lot more information which challenges the assumptions you’re making:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/18/796-children-septic-tank-ireland/
Except that Snopes article does not even agree with you.
It’s time you stopped excusing and glossing over the atrocities committed.
Sources on how fucked up Irish mother and baby homes were:
the idea of banning religion is painfully tyrannical, like how could you do that without instituting a thought police or a state sanctioned belief system…
however, in reality, they most toxic part of religion of organised religions, when they are big institutions fighting for political power rather than maintaining their beliefs and communities.
possible solution: progressive tax on religious institutions based on their size, a small community of 50 to 100? tax free, you have 1000s of congregants? start rising, megachurches with 1000 thousand people? 95% tax…
banning religion? I didn’t say ban it.
i assumed you wanted them gone.
I do. religion is a profound evil, and the cause of nearly all human suffering.
I don’t think religion itself is evil. But corporate religion. Organizations and individuals that claim religion as the reasons for thier own sin for profit. People waving the bible as an excuse to do harm unto others.
Worship of a higher power or purpose shouldn’t ever be used as a reason or means to commit sins. That’s the major problem. Corruption and hypocrisy is rampant because people gather power under the flag of religion. Power easily corrupts the more it gathers.
agree 100%
but will be pedantic and complain about your usage of “sin”, as it is a Christian concept and not necessarily a bad thing.
Sin/evil deeds then. Many decent religions denounce evil deed and have good morals. Then there are other religions that promote sacrifice of life (your own or others).
God has caused the bloodiest and most brutal wars ever fought, which were all based on religious hatred. Millions have died simply because ‘God told’ Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians it would be a ‘good idea’ for them to kill each other.
- George Carlin, Comedian and Social Critic
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been . . . the most destructive to . . . the peace and happiness of man.
- Thomas Paine, Political Philosopher (1796)
The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.
- Richard Nixon, even this Dick thinks so
My brain took a moment to register the word infant. As in the child was already born.
How could these nuns think they would be admitted to heaven?
Because they didn’t allow abortion. That’s how
Sounds like they were all about the 4-5-6-7-8-9th trimester abortions.
If you wait till it’s born, it’s not abortion anymore but sending those poor little angels directly to God who’s the only one who will ever be able to properly care for them or whatever kind of bullshit they used to justify what they did…
“The remains ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years old.” So not abortions but stillbirths and dead children. Conditions were appalling, rampant disease etc.
I’m guessing that God probably knows the infant mortality rates throughout history.
Honestly if hell could be livestreamed I’d love to have a kick out of watching a 24 hour stream of them burning on it.
Catholic Islam is a radical sect
Sorry *Christianity
You were right… same God, different prophet
One of the selling features of Christianity is that you just need to ask Jesus forgiveness and it will be granted.
With Catholics you’re supposed to confess to a priest, but same difference to them, basically
If they pay an indulgence, even the rich will get into Heaven.
(So there must be a massive divine operation passing camels through the eyes of needles)
Religion is fucked up.
Don’t trust any religious people.
They’re all sick in the head.
There’s only two religions in the planet that do this kind of fucked up shit with any frequency, and it’s only because they’re the norm in both of those regions. Don’t make yourself sound like a literal Reddit atheist. You’re here exactly because Reddit sucks. Don’t bring it back.
Many people are religious without doing this kind of shit.
Only two? Hahahahahaha
Show me examples of Buddhists, Native Americans, or Paganists doing this kind of stuff. The literal reason Islamism and Christianity are particularly bad is because they’re mass-adopted and politicians take advantage of that.
Just remove all religion from politics and there won’t be any problems. Human rights dictate freedom of religion AND FROM religion, not just the later.
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All religions are poison. Picking which is worse between lead poisoning or arsenic?
That’s all you bud.
I’ll be poison free.
If you think every religious person is evil then I’m sorry, but your religious trauma is not an excuse. Go back to reddit.
The people are not all necessarily evil. They are mostly indoctrinated and duped. The religion itself is just as evil as any other virus that weasels in.
A lot of words to apologize for evil.
Not necessarily evil. But every religious person is damaging to society and the environment out of ignorance, because, for example, their voting is based on beliefs disjunct from reality, including absolute morals that will vilify a substantial part of the populace for no sane reason.
No. You go back to church.
Fuck your god.
This is not a position born out of logic and reason, but out of hate. I hope you get better at some point, you obviously have suffered a lot to become filled with rage this much.
This is not a position born out of logic and reason, but out of hate.
Bingo.
All religions are hate groups. EVERY SINGLE ONE.
You nailed it.
You’re so close to getting better yourself.
You’re so close to getting better yourself.
You don’t sound like someone who is doing well, why would anyone want to be like you? The folk replying to you are applying empathy and patience while you shut everyone down with vitriol.
Being angry isn’t fun, anger slowly drains you of your joy and energy. Anger only feels like fun when the alternative is to face pain
So like I used to be anti-religion. But when I studied the history of religious thought, it seemed like every criticism I had of religion I was able to find a religious tradition which explicitly accounted for that criticism, and it made me realize a lot of the essential beliefs that I had about religion in general were simply untrue. Like there are religious traditions that literally deny institutionalization (so you can’t even associate religion in general with organized religion), there are literally religions that explicitly reject the existence of any kind of deity (so you can’t even identify religion with a belief in some kind of a god). In general, it seemed like the only thing that literally all religions had in common was that they represented a set of metaphysical beliefs that an individual has attached themself to for whatever reason. And I realized that it’s kind of impossible to never make any metaphysical assumptions about the world we live in. And I started to ask myself questions like “is it even possible to reject the entire category of religious thought in a meaningful way while still retaining the ability to reason about the world?” And “is there actually a good reason why I don’t want to think of my own humanist ideas about the world as religious in nature, or does it just make me feel kind of funny because I had already prejudiced myself so heavily against the concept of religious thought?”
Weird. I had the exact opposite experience.
I find every religion to be a liars den of lies.
And all religious people are liars fools or worse.
Humanism and religion are polar opposite ideas.
Don’t apologize for religion. It’s gross.
Keep that shit away from me and my kids. You bring it near my kids we are going to have a fucking problem.
I feel like you didn’t actually try to understand any of what I just said. I hate to break it to you, but it’s literally just a fact that there are religions that make metaphysical assumptions that are literally equivalent to secular humanism. If you think that they’re actually contradictory, it just means that you probably actually haven’t tried to study the history of religious thought from an actually critical perspective where you didn’t just presume that you already had it all figured out.
Buddhists - Rohynga Genocide
Native Americans - Aztec human sacrifice, up to 20,000 per year.
Paganists - not a thing. Paganism is a description, not a religion. But there are plenty of neo-Nazi neo-pagan groups who love burning churches.
Have you heard of the Rohingya genocide? Buddhists absolutely do fucked up shit.
I would agree with you that not all religion is bad. But singling out Christianity and Islam as the exclusively bad ones is absurd. All religions have some really important things to teach us philosophically, but at the same time, pretty much every religion has been used to justify some pretty bad atrocities.
And let’s not forget what the peace-loving Sinhalese Buddhists did to the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Holy shit. A nuanced take on religion on lemmy not downvoted into oblivion
Christians, Muslims and Jews. Disproven. Now go away, troll (or misinformed idiot)
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Tell me you know nothing about buddhism without telling me you know nothing about buddhism. While we’re at it, opinions on hinduism?
Smaller religions have been sacrificing children since the stone age.
I’m not saying its all bad, but singling out two religions in your general area and blaming the problem on them being “political” as if religion isn’t based on dictating social norms is ridiculous.
I agree with the freedom to believe, though. Doesnt mean that there arent inherent dangers to this stuff. You’re in a thread about murdered babies, please keep that in mind.
While we’re at it, opinions on hinduism?
Well, there was the mass murder of Muslims at the time of India’s partition. And the murder of Gandhi by a reactionary Hindu fanatic. Then, there were the anti-Muslim riots organized by the BJP when it was getting started. And now, there’s the persecution of non-Hindus by the same BJP now that that snake Modi is in power.
So, I’d say that Hinduism is a vast, diverse family of religions, but brutality and bigotry are certainly part of at least some variants of it.
Religion is a social cancer. Sometimes it’s benign and the host reabsorbs it. Other times it’s spreads and kills living tissue
I’d say it’s like a tailbone. It was once useful (when we were apes), but has long since lost all purpose. Now it is just a useless appendage and if you touch it the wrong way, you can end up paralized for the rest of your life. We can’t go without though, because it’s attached to out spine and muscles.
If you’re not religious why are you upset that some people didn’t get a proper burial?
There were death certificates so it’s unlikely there’s foul play, unless there’s some details this poorly written article is missing. It’s just they didn’t observe proper religious ceremony on the disposal of the deceased.
So your argument is that religious people are bad because some religious people don’t always follow religious ceremonies? Like if you don’t think religion is good, why would you be upset over improper disposal of the deceased?
Yeah, I’m sure there was no foul play in an abusive institution dealing with most vunerable members of society.
Why do people simp for organized religion so hard?
Wait what? 20 deaths a year and because there is a death certificate there is no fouls play?
The article mentions “tens of thousands” of births but doesn’t state the numbers of people that were at this particular site. The infant death rate ranged from over 60/1000 down to 20/1000 for developed countries and higher for worldwide estimates.
Lacking numbers for the number of births there’s no way to compare to the averages, but yeah 20 deaths per year could very well be a normal rate. We tend not to think a lot about infant death rates because it’s not a fun subject, but it’s it’s a historical fact.
I get that people are addicted to being outraged, but a higher infant death rate over 60 years ago compared to today’s rate may not be something to get super emotional about until there’s specific allegations of foul play or at least some data to indicate there was something out of norm besides improper disposal of the deceased.
There were death certificates so the government at the time was aware of the number of deaths, and they didn’t seem to think it was out of the norm. Though it’s possible they just didn’t care. But in that case the government would be complicit in this so there should be hard questions asked about the government, not just the church. But that doesn’t seem to be happening, so it seems the controversy is just about corpse disposal 60 to 100 years ago.
There is plenty of evidence for the abuse and unaliving of children before the bodies were hidden.
Sources:
These homes existed purely to punish unwed mothers, because Catholicism. Don’t even try to minimise the deep national trauma still felt today because it might show a weirdo cult in a bad light.
Priests molested altar boys. That’s some real fucking trauma that left lifetimes of emotional scars on people that still alive now.
But sure something that happened to some dead bodies over 60 years ago is something you want to devote your two minutes of atheist hate towards today. You’re well adjusted and have everything in the proper perspective, LOL.
That’s not very fair. It’s fairly safe to assume that each of those babies were linked to lifetimes of emotional scars, too, just not for the babies.
You don’t think it was traumatic for young women (plenty of whom are still alive) to be kidnapped into these institutions, physically and mentally abused, and have their newborn child (again, a great number still alive and wondering who they are) forcibly removed from them, with no idea where they ended up?
You realise you don’t need to be religious to believe that people deserve a proper burial right? There doesn’t need to be some man in the sky watching everyone 24/7 for people to be buried with dignity
Yeah, burial is mostly just to make sure critters don’t drag your rotting bits out into the open and your putrid parts don’t contaminate the water supply.
Cremation works really well to prevent that and doesn’t waste as much land.
And there’s no point trying to convince Westerners of the environmental benefits of sky burial.
That’s the practical aspect, but I believe the dignity and respect shown throughout the process gives people some closure.
I dont agree with the original commenter, but come on.
This is a thread about babies.
Do you really think people need a religion to see that throwing their dead bodies in a septic tank is an incredibly disrespectful and dehumanizing act?
I dont need to wish for a christian burial to understand the implications of christian nuns doing this.
Proper disposal of the deceased isn’t limited to religious people.
I don’t give a fuck about proper burials.
Burying bodies in cemeteries is an incredibly selfish thing. All cemeteries and golf courses should be converted into income based housing.
I only said religious people are fucked in the head. Full stop.
All religious people are mentally unwell and a danger to society.
I hope that cleared it up!
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Saucy! No sequitir! Illogical! And removed by mod!? LOL
Honestly I think that thinking that having a place for people to grieve their loved ones is a selfish thing is realy fucked in the head.
Sure, plant and dedicate a tree. Or a bench by a lake. Or keep an urn on your mantle. Or thousands of other ways. But, sorry you can’t live here because we need this space exclusively to grieve?
Well, the tree thing is reality for those that chose forest burials (at least thats a thing in my country).
I think we would run out of benches by lakes rather quick. Also, that is a thing already.
Keeping an Urn is not legal everywhere. I agree the it should be.
The thing is, that humans want to do something with he their loves ones remains. We are incredibly social creates, to the point where our bonds last beyond death. We have buried our dead for thousands and thousands of years. Neanderthals buried their dead. It’s just an extremely human way to process grieve, complete independent of any religion.
So having a dedicated space to do so makes total sense. Of course that takes up room. But I’d argue that having a park like, walkable and often very beautiful place in your neighborhood is a net win for everybody. Unless you think that we should also get rid of parks and other recreational areas.
And, you have the possibility to visit a dedicated place of grievance close by, which is sensible especially for elderly people.
We would run out of benches by lakes.
But not land to bury dead people forever?!
I find your lack of logic… disturbing.
Fair enoth.
Anything of value to add to the rest of my comment?
You don’t need a grief theme park full of buried corpses. You can grieve anywhere.
Believe me, I’ve done it too many times to mention, both for family and friends.
It’s good that this works for you. I’m sorry to here that you had too.
Other people wish to have a dedicated space to grieve their loved ones.
I am (honestly) interested to hear your other arguments against graveyards.
Holy shit.
Article - 800 dead babies.
You - There was no sign of foul play why would you heathens care about burial?
Get your fucking head checked.
This is the second time this week I’ve seen this argument:
- Religion has historically done X
- religion is bad
- why do you care about X, that’s religious!
(The last one was about marriage)
I suspect that you’re a religious person making a slippery slope fallacy.
slippery slope fallacy
Did you just randomly select some fallacy from a list in an attempt to sound clever?
Could have been worse, could have been atheists running the home.
There would have been no remains.
If there was an infant death, it would also have been reported to authorizes and given proper respects. The number of deaths is way to high, but SIDS is real and atheists wouldn’t have dumped the bodies in a mass grave in the backyard.
Most of the infants died from bacterial or viral infections.
This was my original comment:
Get informed and stop being an apoligistI indeed misinterpreted the intention of the comment I replied to and leave this here so the comment chain still makes sense. However, I still disagree with the word choice especially with putting SIDS forward.
Sources:
You vastly misinterpreted the intention of my comment. I was merely pointing out the other thing the church is guilty of.
You linked me the Behind the Bastards episode, but I also linked that same souce earlier.
Sorry, in the context of the many apologists in this thread still trying to smear the historian and to gloss over the atrocities and you bringing up SIDS I missed you intention.
I still disagree with youur comment though. I think that is it less likely for an atheist organisation to commit the same atrocities and there being no known incidents of similar coverups. Still, any organization starving and mistreating children will try hide their crimes and their victims bodies regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof.
In short: I agree with your intent but I disagree with how you worded it.
My only point is that even if an infant dies under the watch of a secular or atheist org, which even with top facilities, statically will happen eventually, the deceased will be treated with dignity. SIDS is the first example I could think of because people still aren’t sure what causes it or what to do about it.
I think I understand where you are coming from. The undignified disposal of corpses is the least of the commited atrocities in in this facility. The infant mortality rate was 5 times the average of the time, the children were malnourished and abused. Take a look at the other sources.
In this context mentioning SIDS comes across as an apology. If a non-denominational facility would murder and abuse children at this rate they’ll also hide the corpses. The core issue isn’t dignified burial but abuse and murder.
Ah yes, because atheists eat babies. I remember now.
Finally someone gets the reference! Stupid down voters.
We should hang out and put a fetus on the grill.
Imagine how bad it might have been if it had been Satanists…
Better marinade, I guess?
Given the shit apologists write ITT you really need to use the “/s” marker.
Yeah, like that’ll help.
Wait, I think you’re right, I always write my comments in the deadpan sarcasm of a Gilfoyle from Silicon Valley. I assume it carries over TCP/IP and HTML… Guess not.
Oh, and here: /s, apply to my first sentence.
Ever since Trumps 1st term satire and sarcams have been slowly dying. Since then it’s gotten so bad that now matter how outlandish your post/comment is - there is a maga cult member who’ll top whatever you wrote and is completely serious about it.
Yeah, I’m going to use /s every time.
My dad recent got a decent payout for being the internationally trafficked childhood victim of one of these unwed mother homes…
Not worth his lifetime of trauma, nor the issues that came with being sold at age 4 to a “keeping up appearances” family that sent him away to boarding school on top of everything…
But it’s something… he’s mid 70s, so you know, totally enough time to use the money.
Scopes reports that the babies were buried in an adjacent structure and that the number is undetermined. An amateur published that number without evidence.
Until additional information is uncovered, it is not possible if the grave was a result of legitimate or initiate reasons.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/18/796-children-septic-tank-ireland/
You say the number is inaccurate, which begs the question: what exactly is an acceptable number of infant remains to find in an orphanage septic tank?
There’s an extensive Wikipedia article outlining known facts and atrocities - dumping the bodies is probably the least atrocious thing they’ve done.
EDIT: I believe OP is trying to distract from the atrocities by focussing on a minor one and misquoting Snopes.
Raises. It raises the question.
If you read the scopes article, the number is zero and zero is a great number. “The human remains found by the Commission are not in a sewage tank but in a second structure with 20 chambers…” How did these children die? Were they murdered? Was there a pandemic? Neglect? Famine? Over what time range was this collective grave used?
After the story in Canada that sparked the burning of multiple churches was found out to be entirely false, I’m going to wait for actual facts here.
Entirely false
Yeah, only wackjobs think the Catholic church committed genocide in Canada.
Wow, what an awful but fascinating read. Really changes the perspective on this.
It wasnt a place that harmed or neglected children, but rather a place that housed the most vulnerable at a difficult time and endured immense hardship.
Ma redding comprension has improwved wunder fully…
Actually it was a place that harmed, neglected and even tortured children.
"There can be no Justice without redress for survivors and that redress must be paid for by Religious Orders who have harvested enormous wealth by inflicting misery and death on the most vulnerable in our society.
There can be no Justice without an Inquest into the dead of Tuam. They died horribly and unnecessarily. They had no life as children. The State owes them the dignity of an Inquest and a Death Certificate that truly shows why they died.
There can be no more betrayals of our dead children."
Also check out the Wikipedia article. The investigations and excavations are ongoing, so there will be proof of even more atrocities uncovered.
Honestly, I’m disgusted how you misquote Snopes in an attempt to smear the historian and to gloss over the atrocities committed at Tuam and similar facilities.
The Snopes article pretty much contradicts your comment entirely.
Other Sources:
If your society cannot or will not support an unmarried pregnant woman on her own, your society is a failed one.
This is probably from poor medical care.
But abortion is immoral, right?
nope, not if you wait for 9 months before exercising that option, apparently.
Not in the 4th trimester
Catholics… If hell exists it’ll be full of 'em.
Naww… hell is gonna be cool. The real hell will be “their heaven”
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well beat my record.
What in the fuck
