By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) – An Irish inquiry into alarming deaths among newborns in church homes for unmarried mothers will release its final report on Tuesday, exposing one of the darkest chapters of the Catholic Church and leading to claims for state compensation.
The reputation of the church in Ireland has been shattered by a series of scandals over pedophile priests, abuse at work, forced adoption of illegitimate babies and other painful issues.
Pope Francis begged forgiveness for the scandals during the first papal visit to the country in nearly four decades in 2018.
The remains of 802 children, from newborns to three-year-olds, were buried between 1925 and 1961 in just one of the so-called Mother and Baby Homes, an interim report in 2017 found.
The then Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, described the cemetery in Tuam, in the western county of Galway, as a “room of horror”.
The investigation was launched six years ago after evidence of an unmarked mass grave church in Tuam was uncovered by local local historian Catherine Corless, who said she was haunted by childhood memories of skinny children.
Family members claim the babies were abused because they were born to unmarried women who, like their children, are seen as a stain on Ireland’s image as a devout Catholic people.
Government surveys show that the death rate for children in homes where tens of thousands of women, including rape victims, were sent to give birth was often more than five times that of those born to married parents.
The Church operated many of Ireland’s social services in the 20th century. While run by nuns, the houses received state funding and, as adoption agencies, were also regulated by the state.
Although Irish voters have overwhelmingly approved of abortions and gay marriage in recent years, the Mother and Baby Home scandal has revived anxiety over the way women and children have been treated in the not-so-distant past.
Varas Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Monday that the report of more than 3,000 pages was difficult.
“One of the things that struck me was the extent to which it was a huge social failure and a huge society that stole from us that we have a stolen generation of children who did not get the education they should have, he told national broadcaster RTE.
(Reported by Padraic Halpin; edited by Mike Collett-White)