Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Yay! Something for Catholics to Apologize For!

Go read. This is insane:
Spanish society has been shaken by allegations of the theft and trafficking of thousands of babies by nuns, priests and doctors, which started under Franco and continued up to the 1990s.

I first met Manoli Pagador in Getafe, in a working-class suburb of Madrid. She was attending a meeting for people affected by the scandal Spaniards call "ninos robados" - stolen children.

She has three daughters and lots of grandchildren, but she has never got over the loss of her first-born - a son - nearly 40 years ago.

She had come to think she was crazy for believing he was alive, instead of dead and buried as hospital doctors had told her.

"Now," she said, gripping my hand tightly. "Look around the room at the other women here. All like me. The same background. The same experience. I'm not mad and my family finally believes me."

In 1971 Manoli, who was 23 at the time and not long married, gave birth to what she was told was a healthy baby boy, but he was immediately taken away for what were called routine tests.

Nine interminable hours passed. "Then, a nun, who was also a nurse, coldly informed me that my baby had died," she says.

They would not let her have her son's body, nor would they tell her when the funeral would be.
Of course this is isolated baby-stealing by a few rogue priests and nuns and doctors and fascists and the proportion of baby-stealers in the general population is not that different. And nobody knew nothing about nothing nohow. And nobody has said they fucked the children yet and that counts for something.

8 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

And all the perps will be transferred to other parishes, so nothing to see.
~

Smut Clyde said...

a few rogue priests and nuns and doctors and fascists

About 20% of adoptions, said another BBC account.
Child-trafficking seems to have become a formalised income stream for the church. Not gonna go down well.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Can we classify the Catholic Church as a criminal organization yet?

No?

Perhaps, as Garry Trudeau noted during Watergate, if they would only knock over a bank, we would HAVE them!

Smut Clyde said...

At least we are now able to quantify the "family values" that the catholic church strives so hard to defend, and discover that they work out to about 2000 peseta per infant.

tigris said...

At least we are now able to quantify the "family values" that the catholic church strives so hard to defend, and discover that they work out to about 2000 peseta per infant.

Yes, but self-righteous slut-shaming and gay-bashing? Priceless.

J— said...

El País has a big special section on this (in Spanish). They started with maquis (anti-franquista guerrilla) and expanded over time. What hits me is that apparently this continued into the 90s, long after the Franco regime's collapse.

M. Bouffant said...

Can we classify the Catholic Church as a criminal organization yet?

They are smart enough to work in cells that are completely unconnected. One for each country.

And the whole "Vatican City statehood"/diplomatic immunity thing. So I'd suggest declaring the church an international terrorist conspiracy & declaring it part of the Global War on Terroristisms.

Smut Clyde said...

declaring it part of the Global War on Terroristisms.

REGIME CHANGE! Democracy for the Vatican!

What hits me is that apparently this continued into the 90s, long after the Franco regime's collapse.

Sounds like the church had come to depend on the income stream from fecundity redistribution.