Anyone Who Thinks Lisa Montgomery Should Be Executed Should Read This Article

 Lisa Montgomery is the woman who was found guilty of having killed another woman, supposed to be here friend, only to cut her open and take her unborn baby. Here's the story. Anyone who thinks she should be put to death now, executed, should read this. It took place, as some may know, in not far away Skidmore, Missouri.

Society Failed Lisa Montgomery in Every Way Possible. 

So Now We’re Going to Kill Her

Here's just the core, just some of the story and this article. 

...Montgomery’s crime was certainly heinous. She had befriended a young pregnant woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, after the two met at a dog show. After arranging a meeting—ostensibly to purchase a rat terrier puppy—Montgomery killed Stinnett, then gutted her open to kidnap her then eight-month old fetus. Montgomery cleaned the baby—remarkably, the child survived—then brought her home to her husband. She pretended it was her own baby; it is possible she did not understand that the baby was not hers...

...Lisa Montgomery had little if any chance in life. She was born in 1968, the child of two troubled alcoholics. She had brain damage, likely caused by exposure to alcohol when she was a developing fetus. Mental illness ran in her family. Her father had a daughter from a previous marriage; the two girls grew up together. As part of an excellent story on the Montgomery case, the Huffpost tracked down the older sibling, Diane Mattingly, who described the traumatic world in which young Lisa grew up. It was a world of unimaginable cruelty and horror.

Her mother, Judy Shaughnessy, beat her daughters with belts, cords, or hangers. On one occasion, to punish her children Lisa’s mother killed the family dog in front of them, smashing its head in with a shovel. Her father was often away from home for long periods time. Her mother would bring home other men; fights would erupt, and the violence spilled over to include the young girls. When Mattingly was about 8, one of the men whom her mother brought home began raping her, as Montgomery, then only 4, lie in bed beside her. Mattingly escaped when child protective services removed her from the home.

Lisa was not so fortunate. Her mother married another violent, erratic man, Jack Kleiner, who beat his wife and the children regularly; he would often make the daughters strip naked before whipping them. The sexual component of that punishment morphed into ever greater abuse as Kleiner began molesting then raping young Lisa. The abuse lasted for years. The parents also allowed men who did work on their house—a plumber and an electrician— to rape Lisa as payment for their services. Lisa was thus a victim of child sex trafficking.

Shaughnessy and Kleiner divorced when Montgomery was 15. During those proceedings Shaughnessy told the court her husband raped Montgomery, saying once that she walked in on him while “he was in her. He was pumping her.” The court admonished her for not reporting the crime to authorities, but then itself failed to report the abuse. Kleiner was never charged. Lisa also told authorities of her abuse—she confided to a cousin who was a law enforcement officer—but the officer failed to report Lisa’s situation. At school, Lisa’s work was substandard, and she was placed with special needs students. She often came to class dirty and unkempt. School authorities suspected abuse, but they too failed to investigate or to report their suspicions to the police.

Like many victims of violent sexual assault, Montgomery blamed herself for her predicament. She also began to disassociate herself from what was happening to her. Her stepbrother told the court that “Lisa told me that when these men raped her, she would go away in her mind and try not to be present.” Clearly Lisa had only a fragile grip on reality because she needed to escape reality to survive. That break from lived reality would plague her later life.

As with many children who experience chaotic, unstable childhoods, her adult life mimicked those conditions. When she was 18, at her mother’s instigation, she married her stepbrother who then coerced her into sterilization. She drank heavily, could not hold a job, had multiple car accidents, and neglected her own children. She lived in extreme poverty and was constantly moving from home to home; by the time she was 34 she had moved sixty-one times. She was said to often space out, to be disconnected from reality. After she was sterilized, she repeatedly told people that she was pregnant.

If this young woman's circumstances shouldn't be taken into consideration then I don't know who we are. We certainly aren't a "Christian", forgiving, understanding nation, I'll tell you that. And this would no way be anything remotely close to anything called or considered justice.

Catholics Hit a New Low

We've known Catholic leaders, mostly Priests, have abused children and students and not for just years, which would be horrible enough, not just decades--even more frightening--but for hundreds of years. Centuries. Catholic leaders have been abusing, sexually abusing children of the Church and for centuries.

It's a fact.

Stunning and unforgivable as all that is, it's a documented fact.

And it's across not just a nation.

Not just nations.

Not just a continent.

But across continents.

Across the world.

And again, for centuries.

It should be unbelievable.

Sadly, very, very sadly, it's not unbelievable.

Far from it.

Now, the impossible has happened.

It's gotten worse.

Much worse.

They've outdone themselves. There's another new discovery, this week.

Pope admits clerical abuse of nuns including sexual slavery

It is stunning the continuing revelations that seem to take place within this Church. 

You wouldn't think you could outdo abusing children. But they've done it.

Here's hoping there are no further revelations out there from these people (no pun intended).

Hopefully this is the last, worst thing they'll have to also admit to.

At what point, Catholics, are you going to say "Enough!"

At what point are you people going to rein these people in?

Catholicism: Sexual Abuse Over the Centuries

So one more time the story breaks. This, a few days ago.

Catholic Priests Abused 1,000 Children 

in Pennsylvania, Report Says 

Again.

One more time.

This one, below, was just last year.

Vatican Cardinal Charged 

With Sexual Assault 

This next one was from this July, before this latest Pennsylvania incident was reported.

Vatican meets #MeToo: 

Nuns denounce priests who abused them

Not only have they abused children but they've abused nuns in the religion, too.

How long are we going to put up with this?

How long are we going to tolerate Catholic Priests abusing students, children and yes, nuns, too?

How long are they going to get away with it?

How long are Catholics going to sit in the pews, listening to these men, then giving them money and supporting them?

What kind of insane world is this?

This episode, just announced, goes back decades. It's been estimated it goes back about 7 decades, to be specific. Seventy years.

Seventy years of children being abused. Boys and girls. Students. Children.

But please, keep in mind, this has been going on, as said in the headline here, for centuries.

Centuries.

Hundreds of years. Literally.

Some reminders: This one especially resonated with me due to the numbers of children found who had died. Had been killed.

Mass grave of babies and children found 

at Tuam care home in Ireland

Order of nuns that dumped up to 800 babies 

into a septic

Tuam mass grave 'contains bodies of 

800 babies' at site of Irish home

This sexual abuse of children has not only occurred through the centuries but across the globe, across the planet, nation to nation.

Catholic Church sex abuse cases by country

The Roman Catholic Church: 

A Centuries Old 

History of Awareness 

of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse

How Long Has This Been Going On?

This was revealed this week, too.

Head of Catholic Bishops Paid Pedophiles to Disappear

Too frequently, repeatedly, in fact, up to now, this is what we've gotten in response, from the Church and its leaders.

When do we all, around the world, nation by nation, finally say and demand "Enough!"?

When do Catholics?

Link:

Prosecutor: Priests 'weaponized' the faith to abuse kids 

KCUR Throws Softballs for the New Bishop and The Catholic Church

The local NPR station, KCUR interviewed the new Catholic Bishop, James Johnston today and what a disappointment.

Leading The Flock: Bishop Johnston 

KCUR

Coming at this time, when the local Catholic Diocese is just off a rather large child abuse sex scandal, the Bishop--and worse, the Church--got off easy, very easy. All the Bishop got for an hour were the easiest of, as I said in the title, "softball" questions. There was no "holding their feet to the fire", holding the Bishop and the Church accountable that, first, the sexual abuse of children in their care ever occurred and then, worse, that it was covered up. And it was covered up for years and years, at that.

The interview began hopefully enough with a recording of Catholics in an actual mass at the local Church of the Immaculate Conception, reading the written words of some of the now-adults who had been abused by the Priests here in this Diocese.

But from there, it was lost.

It was as though these children weren't ever abused, sexually abused.

Forget that the previous Bishop had been found guilty in a local, civil court, "LET'S MOVE ON!"

From there, the interviewer, Brian Ellison, immediately went into questions about the Bishop himself, where he came from, what his background and family life were like, etc.

Students? Children? Sexually abused??   FUGGEDABOUDIT!

Adults? In the Church? Covering up for the sexual abusers??   WE OUTTA' HEAH.

I can't imagine a more touchy-feely interview and conversation, given that so many children were, again, abused and sexually abused and by Catholic Church Priests and then covered up by some and ignored by others, all in the Catholic Church.

And sure, I understand that there has to be some "niceness", some respect to the guest but we're talking the sexual abuse of children here. It isn't over. Bishop Finn may have finally been foisted, however reluctantly, out of his position in and with the Church and Bishop Johnston  is now in his place but for the people who were sexually abused, rest assured, it is not over.

The biggest question, I think, that needs to be both asked and answered and then held to, would be "What provisions have been made within the Church and within this Diocese to make sure sexual abuse of a child and worse, of children, never occurs again?"

It's true partly because this sexual abuse occurred at all but it's especially true because this is far, far from the first time these kinds of sexual abuse cases have occurred in the Catholic Church. Far from it.

Sexual abuse has occurred in Catholic Churches and schools and Dioceses, as the world knows, in not just areas, not just states of the US, but all across the US, all across Europe and, in fact, the world.  And it's happened over not just years or part of a century but FOR CENTURIES. Literally for centuries. They don't like to talk about that or have you know it or think about it.

At what point does the Catholic Church learn? At what point do the Bishops and Priests and leaders in the Church learn from these abuses and put policies in place so they never occur again? (Reminds me of an old joke.  Q:  How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?  A:  CHANGE??)

Next was the question:  "How are you going to clean up the mess he's (Bishop Finn has) left?"

For his answer, the new Bishop gave an extremely vague and, I'm sure, intentionally warm and fuzzy answer about there being lots of people in the area who care and who have "a desire to make a difference."

That was it.

They then brought on one Kathleen Chastain, Victim Services Coordinator of the Church.

And for that, I say we have to pause right there.

Note:  This is a church. This is a Catholic Church. It's supposed to be about Jesus and Jesus Christ and love and everything good and they have to have a Victim Services Coordinator, Offices of Child and Youth Protection.

Does that not say something right there?

What other church organization, self-professed Christian or otherwise, has to have a Victim Services Coordinator, let alone Offices of Child and Youth Protection?   (Those Catholics can sure do hierarchy and bureaucracy, can't they? Like no one else, governments included).

So Mr. Ellison asked Ms. Chastain how long her position has been around. Ms. Chastain answered that "...there has always been a Victim Advocate..."

Holy Mary, Mother of God.

That tells you how long the problem has been going on right there, folks. THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A VICTIM ADVOCATE.  But you think they'd maybe let Priests marry or something, to solve the problem?

NAAAAHHHH.  Again, FUGGEDABOUDIT.

Forget that, apparently and even obviously, the "Victim Advocate" has little or no power or effect whatever or the problem wouldn't keep not just occurring in the Church but recurring.

What amazes me is that more Catholics aren't embarrassed by child sexual abuse in the Church.

The other thing that amazes me is that Catholics stay in the pews, they stay in the Church, even given all these, again, recurring sexual abuse cases of children.     CHILDREN.

Ms. Chastain said her job "is to provide support for those suffering from abuse by the hands of the Church"--her words, not mine--"and then to provide outreach."   She described "outreach" as  "a more pro-active approach like the healing services we provide...". This is masses dealing with this issue of child sexual abuse.

Can you imagine that? Think about it. Can you imagine going to Church, ostensibly to be a better person, maybe to hear about God and Jesus and God's love and everything good and then HAVING TO SIT THROUGH AN ALMOST ONE HOUR MASS, kind of confessing THE CHURCH'S SINS, the Priests and Bishops sins and then going home? How screwed up is your Church if it's asking for forgiveness? And then, how screwed up is your Church when it has to ask the people for forgiveness again and again and again, in different locations, all round your nation, all around the world and for centuries?  And you're still attending?  You're still giving them money?

OH HELL NO.

Mr. Ellison asked Ms. Chastain if the local Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese ever put an actual figure on the number of people sexually abused here.

The answer?   No.

Oh, heck, no because that would mean, a) you care and b) you intend to own up to your problems and faults and make restitution. The Catholic Church and their leaders will have none of that. They've already paid out millions upon millions of Church offerings from people in the pews. The last thing they want to do is maybe "come clean", at long last, and risk paying out yet more money.  "Run along, run along. There's nothing to see here."

Ms. Chastain actually said "I don't know if there's any way we could put a number to that." That is, put a number on the actual childen---again, children---who were sexually abused in this Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese.

Isn't that a beauty?

The one question I wanted to hear both asked and answered was and still is---What, precisely, reforms and hard rules have been put down to make certain this never, ever happens again?

It was never asked.

For anyone who's ever been a Catholic and exposed to what they do, this is all pretty stunning because the one thing they make you do and say, week after week, in their Catholic Mass, is that we are "not worthy."

Jesus (said ironically and for effect).  That's rich.  They have sexual abuse scandals of children in their own care, from state to state to state and nation to nation, continent to continent, over decades and even centuries and they have the people in the pews, the followers, say they're "not worthy."  Irony and hypocrisy doesn't get any heavier or thicker than that.

Then Mr. Ellison compliments Ms. Chastain and so, by default, the Church by saying she and the Church deserve credit for being so forthcoming "about how things were not addressed in the past."

That's pretty clueless right there.  So they're talking "honestly and openly about how things were not addressed in the past."  Big deal.  WHAT, PRECISELY, ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE SURE THIS DOESN'T, THAT THIS NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN?

Then Mr. Ellison asks when this change took place.

Wow.  That so totally does not matter. The only three things that matter are holding people accountable that let this happen to begin, the tending to the abused and then MAKING SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Who gives a freak when this change, this new supposed honestly took place? That's irrelevant. Again, it's a softball, pointless, unnecessary question.

Mr. Ellison came close, close, to holding the new Bishop and the Church accountable, a little over halfway through when he pointed out that SNAP said the Church's services about these episodes were only, in effect, "window dressing" (my words) and for outward consumption, that they weren't real contrition or solutions. The Bishop quickly diverted the question by saying he was sincerely sorry and that if anyone doubted it, he couldn't stop them.

Well I'm glad he cleared that up.

"We're done here."

Mr. Ellison asked just what a Bishop does all day.  Man, that is some hard-hitting question, right there. This entire conversation was dripping with, again, irony and hypocrisy on the part of the Catholic Church.

From there, it went on to questions from the callers and to "looking to the future", according to Mr. Ellison. The first caller, a Catholic, he said, tried to pin the Bishop down on the Bishops in the Church, through the Council of Bishops (see? more of that wonderful Catholic bureaucracy) holding individual Bishops accountable for their actions. It came close to the issues but that was as good as it got.

Look, I love NPR and KCUR but this interview went off the rails from the start and ended that way. It was weak and soft and empty. At the end, I'm surprised all three of them, the interviewer, the Bishop and the "Vitcim Advocate" didn't all get up, hold each other and sing "Kumbaya."

I'm just glad that Bishop Finn and now Bishop Johnston and all the Catholic leaders, nationwide and worldwide, were all able to sweep all this child sexual abuse stuff under the rug and move on.

Aren't you?

Links:

Missouri bishop to succeed Bishop Finn in Kansas City-St. Joseph

Left hanging in the wake of Bishop Finn's ouster

Francis appoints new bishop for scandal-rocked US diocese

Kansas City diocese holds service for sexual abuse healing

Catholic bishop apologizes for 'betrayal' of sexual abuse

Kansas City bishop found guilty in priest child abuse case

Kansas City Bishop Convicted of Shielding Pedophile Priest

Further Tragedies From Missouri and Kansas Republicans

This is why Missouri needs Republicans out of office in Jefferson City.

Senate Leader Ron Richard on Campaign Contribution Limits: "It’s Just Not Going to Happen."

Recipient of large campaign donation checks unmoved by calls for ethics reform

We, Missouri, are the only state in the Union that doesn't have limits on campaign contributions.

It's shameful. 

It's stupid. 

It's irresponsible. 

It's certainly not for the people.

It's legalized bribery and it needs to end and soon as possible.

And here's a quick, terrific example of why Kansans need Republicans out of office in Topeka:

Kansas won't join effort to tighten domestic abuse gun laws

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Kansas apparently won't join several other states that have passed recent laws aimed at making it more difficult for domestic abusers to have weapons.

That's brilliant, huh? A man might abuse his wife or partner but can still  get weapons due to the Republicans actions.

Republicans clearly, clearly need to be voted out of both state houses.

Let's get busy.

Links:  Jeff City Gift Takers, Ranked  

The Jeff City Gift Culture, by the Numbers

If you aren’t worried about the future of Kansas, here are some reasons to start

Republican Hypocrites of the Week

Today is Denim Day

More than five million people have registered for Denim Day USA, organized by an advocacy group called Peace Over Violence. It encourages people to wear denim today to raise awareness about rape and sexual assault.

KC Catholics in NY Times this morning

Actually the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic diocese, taking a hit:

Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph to Pay for Failure to Report Abuse

CHICAGO — A Roman Catholic diocese in Missouri has been ordered to pay $1.1 million to victims of sexual abuse for breaking its promises on improving the way it deals with abuse cases.

An arbitrator ruled that the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is responsible for damages after concluding that, contrary to a prior agreement, it did not promptly report a priest who had taken hundreds of pornographic photographs of young girls, according to a filing in circuit court in Jackson County, Mo.

The case grew out of a $10 million settlement with abuse victims in 2008, under which the bishop, Robert Finn, promised that he would report those suspected of child abuse to law enforcement officials in the future. At the time, Bishop Finn said in a statement that he agreed to rules “that should assure our community, our congregation and our families that the diocese will continue in its exercise of vigilance and in its devotion to training and education so that we may be confident that there will never, ever be a repeat of the behaviors, the offenses or the claims that have been associated with this matter.”

But the 18-page court filing says that promise was violated in 2010 in the case of the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, a diocesan priest who was discovered with hundreds of photographs of girls, including so-called upskirt images, on his laptop. Although the presence of the computer images was reported to church officials, law enforcement authorities were not notified.

And here is where it gets good, at least to me and some of us:

In 2012, Bishop Finn was found guilty of one misdemeanor charge for failing to report Father Ratigan, who was arrested in 2011 and pleaded guilty the next year to child pornography charges. He was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison.

So, okay, sure, today we find the local Catholic diocese is fined another $1.1 million. Fine.

What seems the more important, bigger, still-pending issue is that one man, one Bishop Robert Finn was, as a reminder, found guilty in a public court AND HE STILL HAS HIS SAME JOB IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Is that a great organization or what?

In what other organization, what company, do you think you could be found derelict in the completion of your duties and still have your same job?

And it's not as though he was some lowly janitor or something. He was entrusted to protect the people of the diocese, especially and particularly the students, the children of that same diocese.

So I ask you, especially you Catholics out there:

Why does Bishop Robert Finn still have his job?

And why do you allow this?

So much Catholic news popping up lately

Really, the stories are hitting all over--mostly good ones, for the people and children.

First there was this in The New York Times Sunday from op/ed columnist Frank Bruni:

The Church's Errant Shepherds

Mr. Bruni rightly points out that yet more extremely damaging but sadly predictable documents are coming out from the Catholic Church on their sex scandals, this time, from Milwaukee:

BOSTON, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. The archdioceses change but the overarching story line doesn’t, and last week Milwaukee had a turn in the spotlight, with the release of roughly 6,000 pages of records detailing decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests there, a sweeping, searing encyclopedia of crime and insufficient punishment.

The one thing that has to be kept in mind foremost at all times are the children and their families that are hurt and affected, just as SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, always insists.

Behind that, however, are the many millions of dollars spent on covering up the Catholic Church's transgressions because, in the first place, the sexual abuse of their students occurs and then the Church compounds the gravity of the situation by covering it up, time and again, and trying to protect the priests that commit these acts, instead of protecting those same children, both the ones already abused and the ones who might be, in the future.

The article goes on:

"...over the last few decades we’ve watched an organization that claims a special moral authority in the world pursue many of the same legal and public-relations strategies — shuttling around money, looking for loopholes, tarring accusers, massaging the truth — that are employed by organizations devoted to nothing more than the bottom line.
      

In San Diego, diocesan leaders who filed for bankruptcy were rebuked by a judge for misrepresenting the local church’s financial situation to parishioners being asked to help pay for sex-abuse settlements.

      

In St. Louis church leaders claimed not to be liable for an abusive priest because while he had gotten to know a victim on church property, the abuse itself happened elsewhere."

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where it gets REALLY good, at least for Kansas Citians and what we've been exposed to and seen in the last few decades:

       

In Kansas City, Mo., Rebecca Randles, a lawyer who has represented abuse victims, says that the church floods the courtroom with attorneys who in turn drown her in paperwork. In one case, she recently told me, “the motion-to-dismiss pile is higher than my head — I’m 5-foot-4.”

And, for me, the clincher, since Bishop Finn still holds his office, even though he was found guilty in a court of law:

      

Also in Kansas City, Bishop Robert Finn still inhabits his post as the head of the diocese despite his conviction last September for failing to report a priest suspected of child sexual abuse to the police. This is how the church is in fact unlike a corporation. It coddles its own at the expense of its image.

Can you say "Travesty of justice"?

It's beyond disgusting, besides being deeply, deeply immoral and out and out ugly and wrong, in so many ways.

Yet these are the people who are supposed to be "Godly" and moral. 

And they still don't "get it."

 Finally, at least today, there's the breaking news this week you may already have seen:

Diocese settles suit alleging abuse by priest led to suicide

KC Diocese Settles Sex Abuse Death Case On Trial Eve

And of course, this is both good and bad news. There wouldn't be anything good about it at all but the Church is being held accountable yet one more time, if only financially, for transgressions of their male hierarch (read: priests).

Once again, we all have to ask--Catholic, non-Catholic, all of us--when does this end?  When do these people learn? When will there stop being if not any physical or sexual abuse acts and reports of Catholic children and students, at least far less?  And then, when will they begin truly not covering up for the abusive priests and transferring them to other parts of the country or world?

Five decades ago would have been too soon.

The excuses by them and for them, by others, have to stop.

The abuse must end.

Bill Maher on the Pope, Part II

And this is where it gets really funny.  And true:

Here's your "Catholic Education" for you

So many of us don't know our history:

Catholic Church enslaved 30,000 Irish women in Magdalene Laundries until 1996

From the article:

The Irish Prime Minister gave a partial apology today for the government’s role in a 74-year scandal in which, a new official government report says, over 10,000 women were forced to work without pay at commercial laundries called Magdalene Laundries, operated by the Catholic Church for “crimes” as small as not paying a train ticket.

Wikipedia notes that the estimate of the number of women who were used as forced slave labor by the Catholic Church in Ireland alone goes as high as 30,000 over the entire time the Magdalene laundries were in operation.

The last Magdalene laundry closed in 1996.

Women were locked in, couldn’t leave Magdalene Laundries for months, sometimes years

The women were locked in and not permitted to leave.  And if they tried to get away, the cops would catch them and bring them back. They were quite literally Catholic slave labor working for the government and even Guinness, which would pay the laundries for the women’s slave labor.

Half of the girls enslaved in these Catholic Church prisons were under the age of 23.  The youngest entrant was 9 years old.

Singer Sinead O’Connor was perhaps the most famous Magdalene Laundry slave

Singer Sinead O’Connor was forced to work in a Magdalene Laundry in Dublin:

When I was a young girl, my mother — an abusive, less-than-perfect parent — encouraged me to shoplift. After being caught once too often, I spent 18 months in An Grianán Training Centre, an institution in Dublin for girls with behavioral problems, at the recommendation of a social worker. An Grianán was one of the now-infamous church-sponsored “Magdalene laundries,” which housed pregnant teenagers and uncooperative young women. We worked in the basement, washing priests’ clothes in sinks with cold water and bars of soap. We studied math and typing. We had limited contact with our families. We earned no wages. One of the nuns, at least, was kind to me and gave me my first guitar.

This, however, is, for me, the most difficult to believe and hardest to forgive them for:

No apology from the Catholic Church

Absent from any of the media reports on the scandal that I could find was an apology from the Catholic Church which operated the Magdalene laundries and made handsome profits from contracts with government and hotels.  Oh, found one. It seems the Catholic Church blew the women off.  I know, you’re as surprised as I am:

Victims of the child sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Irish Catholic Church have received an apology and compensation, but no one has taken responsibility for what happened in the laundries. Cardinal Sean Brady, the most senior Catholic cleric in Ireland, met with Justice for Magdalenes in 2010. He said “by today’s standards much of what happened at that time is difficult to comprehend” but that it was a matter for the religious orders who ran the laundries to deal with. The religious orders have declined to meet the women.

The Irish Cardinal wasn’t interested in hearing from people who were hurt and abused — if not sexually, certainly physically and mentally, by the Catholic Church.  And it’s not the Catholic Church’s fault. 

 Where have we heard that story before?

The laundries were run by nuns, many of whom treated the women sent to work there as slaves:

Senator McAleese’s inquiry found that half of the girls and women put to work in the laundries were under the age of 23 and 40%, more than 4,000, spent more than a year incarcerated.

Fifteen percent spent more than five years in the laundries while the average stay was calculated at seven months.

The youngest death on record was 15, and the oldest 95, the report found.

The Irish state is also implicated in the scandal because the police would take women to the asylums after arresting them for trivial offenses and would return runaways.

The story of the Magdalene laundries shows what happens when an institution — in this case the church and the government — is considered beyond criticism. It probably isn’t a coincidence that the last of the laundries closed in 1996, shortly after the first wave of the Catholic pedophile priest scandals hit Ireland.

Let me reiterate that for a moment.  The Catholic Church had slaves as late as 1996.

There is more to the article, too. There are women's brief accounts of what was done to them. It would be worth our time to go the the original article so we all know more of what happened. 

The world needs to know what happened, we need to never forget and we need to make sure things remotely like this are ended and that they're not repeated, of course, ever.