I just finished reading Philomena Lee and the account in the not too distant past of the Roman Catholic Church selling babies for adoption in Ireland.
This book highlights the actual life of a woman and her child, and was made into a movie starring Judy Dench in 2013 . It points the way back to the past and to the shame and degradation that young women went through in the event that they became pregnant out of wedlock, a shame that was not shared by the men who put them in that condition in the first place.
They were frequently shunned by their families and placed in convents, where they were referred to as "Magdalenes” (of course), and made to feel filthy and ashamed, lower than all of life itself. They were treated shamefully by the nuns, their hair shorn, their living space primitive, their lives harsh and unrelenting as they awaited the arrival of their babies.
What I was not aware of not until reading this book was that the Roman Catholic Church, and this was sanctioned at the highest levels, then sold these children into families in the US, where adoption laws were much stricter. The majority of the children disappeared without their mothers being informed. The only way these girls could be released from this hell and have a chance to keep their babies would be if their families paid a "ransom", which in many cases they did not, so exorbitant was it in some cases, and in others, the women/girls were disowned; hence the babies were lost to them forever, and they were forbidden to try and find them again.
The book tells the story of Anthony Lee who was ripped from his mother’s arms when he was three and sent the to US where he became Michael Hess. It tells of his tortured childhood, where he never lost the sense of being abandoned, and of feeling unworthy as a result. From a young age, he always searched for his mother. His inner torture became more acute when he realized that he was gay, thus facing another deadly stigma from a church who abhors homosexuality as much as they abhor women, whilst turning a blind eye to the attacks of its own clergy on the young and defenseless.
Michael Hess (ironically) rose to prominence in the Republican Party, another bastion of chauvinism that typically displays homophobic tendencies whilst embracing the ideal of "family" (what ever that means these days). He kept his sexuality a secret until he died of Aids and was buried in the graveyard of the convent where his mother gave him life. He had to pay the nuns to be buried there.
The poignancy and the heartbreak of this story is that all the time that Michael was looking for his mother, she was also looking for him, the bond between mother and child too strong for even a "mighty church" to destroy. At one point towards the end of his life he arrived at the convent within a three week period of his mother who was looking for him, but the nuns did not reveal this information to either of them. She only found him after he died, as she visited his grave-site.
The abysmal cruelty of the confinement of these young girls and the selling of their children lasted until the 1970's when public controversy shut the program down. The story leaves one with a sense of intense sadness, who wins here? It also leaves one reflecting on the diabolical cruelty that was displayed to these young mothers in the name of a loving Christ, and should cause all of us to look deeply at the roots of this or any other "faith" that causes such distress and heartbreak, in God's name.
It seems to me that at the root of all of this is a deep distrust and fear of women certainly, but also of our sexuality in general, that deep primal Divine force that makes us Human.
This book highlights the actual life of a woman and her child, and was made into a movie starring Judy Dench in 2013 . It points the way back to the past and to the shame and degradation that young women went through in the event that they became pregnant out of wedlock, a shame that was not shared by the men who put them in that condition in the first place.
They were frequently shunned by their families and placed in convents, where they were referred to as "Magdalenes” (of course), and made to feel filthy and ashamed, lower than all of life itself. They were treated shamefully by the nuns, their hair shorn, their living space primitive, their lives harsh and unrelenting as they awaited the arrival of their babies.
What I was not aware of not until reading this book was that the Roman Catholic Church, and this was sanctioned at the highest levels, then sold these children into families in the US, where adoption laws were much stricter. The majority of the children disappeared without their mothers being informed. The only way these girls could be released from this hell and have a chance to keep their babies would be if their families paid a "ransom", which in many cases they did not, so exorbitant was it in some cases, and in others, the women/girls were disowned; hence the babies were lost to them forever, and they were forbidden to try and find them again.
The book tells the story of Anthony Lee who was ripped from his mother’s arms when he was three and sent the to US where he became Michael Hess. It tells of his tortured childhood, where he never lost the sense of being abandoned, and of feeling unworthy as a result. From a young age, he always searched for his mother. His inner torture became more acute when he realized that he was gay, thus facing another deadly stigma from a church who abhors homosexuality as much as they abhor women, whilst turning a blind eye to the attacks of its own clergy on the young and defenseless.
Michael Hess (ironically) rose to prominence in the Republican Party, another bastion of chauvinism that typically displays homophobic tendencies whilst embracing the ideal of "family" (what ever that means these days). He kept his sexuality a secret until he died of Aids and was buried in the graveyard of the convent where his mother gave him life. He had to pay the nuns to be buried there.
The poignancy and the heartbreak of this story is that all the time that Michael was looking for his mother, she was also looking for him, the bond between mother and child too strong for even a "mighty church" to destroy. At one point towards the end of his life he arrived at the convent within a three week period of his mother who was looking for him, but the nuns did not reveal this information to either of them. She only found him after he died, as she visited his grave-site.
The abysmal cruelty of the confinement of these young girls and the selling of their children lasted until the 1970's when public controversy shut the program down. The story leaves one with a sense of intense sadness, who wins here? It also leaves one reflecting on the diabolical cruelty that was displayed to these young mothers in the name of a loving Christ, and should cause all of us to look deeply at the roots of this or any other "faith" that causes such distress and heartbreak, in God's name.
It seems to me that at the root of all of this is a deep distrust and fear of women certainly, but also of our sexuality in general, that deep primal Divine force that makes us Human.