Mother and Baby Homes report shows ‘dreadful failure of church, society and State’

THE Bishop of Limerick has said the way women were treated in mother and baby homes was “a dreadful failure of church, society and State.”

Brendan Leahy was speaking in the wake of the publication of the Mother and Baby Homes report which outlined the experiences of unmarried mothers in these facilities nationwide.

The report revealed that up to 9,000 babies died in the 18 homes across a 70-year period. Those, he said, who should have shown love and caring didn’t live up to Christianity. “Instead, they flew in the face of Jesus’ invitation to ‘come and see’ or ‘come follow me’,” he said at Sunday Mass in St John’s Cathedral.

Many generations, he said, have found inspiration in Jesus’ vision and his words and wanted to take up his invitation and do great things in his name.

“Yet throughout the ages we have seen how when Christians forget the Gospel, good works turn to sand,” he added.

“At a time of great need, women and children should have experienced in their family and neighbours, Church and state institutions, the warmth of the extended Christian family embracing them and caring for them and sheltering them. It should have been for them a significant time of being able to come and see the close tender love of Jesus. But instead, too many found frozen hearts, prejudiced minds and callous treatment,” he said.

He asked for forgiveness for those children taken away from their mothers, and for all the times when so many single mothers tried to find their children that had been taken away.

See this week's Limerick Leader, broadsheet edition, for further coverage of the Mother and Baby Homes report