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Nuns and babies. Ireland.

W

wacko

pfm Member
Saw part of a harrowing Al Jazeera (is Al Jazeera the best news channel on tv now ?) investigation into the part Irish Catholic nuns played in the death (literally starved to death) of hundreds of babies born "out of wedlock," and the use of the mothers as unpaid workers in Tuam Co. Galway. The corpses were thrown in a septic tank.
It will not be an isolated case. The official Commission Report has still not been published.
I was sent to a Catholic school. I'm very glad I did not send my kids to one.
 
I heard about this story a few years ago. It was in The Guardian.

It wasn't on Al Jareera as I don't watch that.

Religion has a lot to answer for.


The report will be buried for as long as the catholic church can bury it for.
 
There have been numerous reports and mentions over the past several years on R4 - usually referred to in connection with the Magdalen Laundries.

As hyper-critical as I am of many aspects of religion, the acts were in no way in line with any religious teachings of any religion - they were down to personal biases and inhumanities, driven by draconian social norms of the time. What the Church IS responsible for is a massive cover-up.

Changing subject slightly - there was a programme, again on R4, yesterday, about the Mormon Church, worldwide. A massively crude summation - the Church is reorganising what is owned, how, within the Church. That way the likely billions US$ of compensation for sexual abuse within the Church, will not be paid as the Church will effectively have no funds. Well worth a listen if your curiosity is pricked.

BTW - Al Jazeera has gained a great many awards and compliments for in-depth and unbiased reporting. It was formed by ex BBC World Service journalists when the World Service was dramatically down-sized some few years back.
 
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I went out with a girl who had scars across the back of her left hand where the nuns beat her hand with a stick to force her to use her right hand.

Such barbarity in the name of religious dogma is not substantially different to anything the Taliban does
 
Similar tales from my father, who went to a Catholic school and spent 5 years having the daylights beaten out of him by the De La Salle brothers. I fear it was institutional. Not taught, sure, but ingrained just like the Taliban stuff is today.
 
ks.234 said:
Such barbarity in the name of religious dogma is not substantially different to anything the Taliban does
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Where in any religion is left-handedness a crime? It has nothing to do with Catholicism, just as very little of what the Taliban does is in any way supported by teaching in any religious text.
 
Attempts to enforce right handed writing was not exclusive to Catholic schools. My wife was punished at primary school for using her left hand.

In the days of pen and ink left handed writing was difficult and messy.

I think that the problem in the Catholic schools was a feeling that the teachers were following god's will. Any defiance was seen as an affront to the religion and God. This was the mindset of the teachers. Many would not be considered good teachers in this day of age as they depended on simple obedience and had little understanding of the learning processes that suit different children. In particular they would have had no understanding of learning difficulties such dyslexia.
 
Vinny said:
Where in any religion is left-handedness a crime? It has nothing to do with Catholicism, just as very little of what the Taliban does is in any way supported by teaching in any religious text.
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Read the bible, there is loads of negative stuff. Latin for left is "sinistrale" which gives us " sinister".
 
Vinny said:
Where in any religion is left-handedness a crime? It has nothing to do with Catholicism, just as very little of what the Taliban does is in any way supported by teaching in any religious text.
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Left handed ness is a sign of the devil. The nuns said they were beating the devil out of her. It’s an old superstition, the word ‘sinister‘ means left, as opposed to ‘dexter’ (hence dexterous) meaning right.

(Oops, Steve got there before me)
 
ks.234 said:
It’s an old superstition
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EXACTLY. Superstition. Nothing to do with any centralised teaching of any Church.
My brother is left-handed and even my parents passively discouraged it, but no more, in the 1960's.

Sinister/sinistra/sinistrum - look them up. They meant left and only that originally. Classical Latin scholars attached the "evil" connotation.
Using corruption and evolution of the meaning of words over centuries is a pretty lame way to justify anything. The English language is stacked brim-full of words that have changed meaning from nominally good to bad and vice versa.
 
Vinny said:
EXACTLY. Superstition. Nothing to do with any centralised teaching of any Church.
My brother is left-handed and even my parents passively discouraged it, but no more, in the 1960's.
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How do you explain the scars then?

PS. Religion is nothing more or less than superstition. Superstition is central to religious teaching
 
stevec67 said:
Read the bible, there is loads of negative stuff. Latin for left is "sinistrale" which gives us " sinister".
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Except the Bible wasn't written in Latin, but in Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT). Children of all religious denominations (and none) were forced to use their right hands up until the 1950s. Not for religious reasons, but because, in the days before ballpoint pens, a left-handed writer would be prone to smudge the ink on his/her writing.
 
Joe Hutch said:
Except the Bible wasn't written in Latin, but in Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT). Children of all religious denominations (and none) were forced to use their right hands up until the 1950s. Not for religious reasons, but because, in the days before ballpoint pens, a left-handed writer would be prone to smudge the ink on his/her writing.
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Must be a lot of badly scarred left hands out there then?
 
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