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Magdalene Laundry nuns defend their actions in new Irish radio documentary

Sisters hit back at criticisms of Catholic run institutions - claim there’s nothing to apologize for

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Saturday, March 9, 2013, 8:21 AM

Updated Saturday, March 9, 2013, 8:45 AM

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Magdalene Laundry - girls at work

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A radio documentary has heard two Magdalene Laundry nuns defend the actions of the religious orders who ran the infamous institutions.

The Irish Times reports that two nuns involved in running Magdalene laundries have hit back at criticisms of the four congregations which operated the 10 such laundries in Ireland up to 1996.

The unnamed sisters spoke to the RTE radio programme The God Slot.

Sister B said: “All of the shame of the era is being dumped on the religious orders.”

When asked if an apology might be appropriate after the recent McAleese report on the laundries, Sister A responded: “Apologise for what?”

The paper states that reporter Claire McCormack interviewed the nuns for America magazine. She was allowed share the interviews with The God Slot on condition that the nuns, their congregation and where they worked were not named. Their words are voiced by an actor.

Sister B claims in the interview that religious congregations in Ireland have been ‘stigmatised by the media’.

She added: “Some people claim generational hurt but we are suffering the generational hurt as much as any of the residents out of this and it is unfair.

“The sins of society are being placed on us, the scapegoat, and we are being sent off into the desert because that’s the only way they can get rid of the stigma. It’s the media who are portraying us in this light.”

When asked whether an apology might be in order, “Sister A” responded: “Apologise for what. Apologise for providing a service? We provided a free service for the country.

“Okay, it may have been putting away an ugly part to society, which it was in a sense, but it was the family who chose to put them there.

“Some of the orders accused educated the country, nobody is blamed for that. Society at the time had a great need to help these women and we stepped in.

“There was a terrible need for a lot of those women because they were on the street, with no social welfare and starving. We provided shelters for them. It was the ‘no welfare’ state and we are looking with today’s eyes at a totally different era.”

When asked why the four congregations were not speaking out more, Sister A said: “Because we would be stoned! Society is more inclined to believe the bad stories and people have forgotten the good we have done through all our years.”

See more: Irish News , Irish Catholic Church , Irish Catholic Priest

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53 Comments

15 - 53 | See all comments

butlerreport | Mar 16, 2013, 12:16 PM EDT

This should not have been reported with identifying the nuns. Anonymity has been a hall mark of dealing with the crimes of the church in Ireland - throughout all the reports the priests have never been named.

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Pittsburghkid | Mar 16, 2013, 11:28 AM EDT

The stoning will quit when the Catholic Church supports Abortion, and Homosexual Marriage.

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CharlieM | Mar 16, 2013, 09:06 AM EDT

Thanks, jacersagain, this time from someone who isn't a nun. It's refreshing to see you express thoughts totally beyond the ken of the sophomoric gang of Catholic-bashers who seem to haunt this website. They should be grateful that, when they meet their maker as they most surely will, He and not they will be sitting in judgement.

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seamus60 | Mar 16, 2013, 08:17 AM EDT

Theres some real second rate waffle in the way of excuses for these nuns denial of their fore sisters." Wayward girls abandoned by society". A society that was shaped in thought by the thought police, the church. " Girls families made the decisions". Only after a long hard talking down to from the local priest who would always high-light and or exagerate the shame that would accompany a child born out of wedlock. The shame being a well designed product of the same thought police mentioned above. These nuns not prepared to identify themselves WHY ?. What could they be afraid of ? now that the laundries are closed down. Their complaints should go directly to the Vatican as its there the responsibility rests. It is there they have been tarnished by their leaders inaction.

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JimmieM | Mar 16, 2013, 05:20 AM EDT

Easy isn't it to criticize the past when you don't have to walk a mile in their shoes? You may get a chance to judge fairly soon...The Obama is working on bringing back the days of world wide poverty.

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jacersagain | Mar 16, 2013, 12:29 AM EDT

@ misswhisps ... thank you for kind comments but I really, in humility, bow my head down to you and your fellow-sisters. You don’t believe me saying that, eh? Well, you’d want to have seen me, in front of my computer here in home, silently bowing my head when I ‘red’ your posts, All Thanks fully belong to you...

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jacersagain | Mar 15, 2013, 10:43 PM EDT

(more...) What I want to know is how the nuns of the Magdalen Homes and the Hospital nuns and their religious orders are going to be as equitably compensated for the unpaid work they carried out within Irish society in and of those times, and by whom? Try to do the maths... allow for millions of hours of work put in by all the nuns in their various capacities. Let’s see what figures you come up with, if you dare to.... I haven’t dared to... It would be astronomically beyond my simple brain but I’m sure there’s a brain out there good enough to calculate the worth of the Magdalen and Hospital nuns’ unpaid work. Maybe misswhisp might enlighten a few, based on her experiences...

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jacersagain | Mar 15, 2013, 10:39 PM EDT

Just as worms come out of worm holes, so do some people come out and speak of their past in Magdalen Homes. I think misswhisp has, just like the two nuns above have, bravely come out of a worm hole to speak about the disregarded and unappreciated good that the vast majority of nuns in Magdalen Homes did. The ones coming out of worm holes only to complain are looking for monetary compensation these days, chasing the God of Mammon instead of embracing the love of mercy that God gives to all who repent (“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for the rich (man or woman) to enter the Kingdom of Heaven”). I do fully accept and agree that women of the Magdalen Homes should be given recognition (especially with social welfare rights) of the contribution that they made alongside the nuns who ran Magdalen laundries that (mostly) cleaned and re-cycled hospital linen for patients in hospitals run by unpaid nuns in those days. What I want to know is... (More)

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jacersagain | Mar 15, 2013, 10:31 PM EDT

I can’t agree with Seano's comment that there is an equal negative to a positive where the work carried out by all who worked in Magdalen Homes in by=gone years is concerned. (Equal positive vs. negative only exists in the phenomenon of magnetism... that invisible power that no scientist has ever yet come to grips with to explain, unless you accept the evidence out of what became known as ‘The Philadelphia Experiment’ – look it up online or e-bay the book on it for a good mind-blowing read.) On the contrary, as good man Seano knows, the vast majority of people on this planet Earth of ours are wholly good-living, well-meaning people. About 2% are "bad" in various ways and affect all of the 98% rest, in some way or another, just like the few bad apples in a barrel affect or infuse the good apples if left without care by someone of the good. That does still not excuse people concentrating on the "bad", as media people, LGBT people and internet trolls constantly do. In fact, as Seano truthfully says, the “bads” are an abomination.

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seanomelb | Mar 15, 2013, 08:20 PM EDT

I found a half sister who was in a home run by nuns and her recollections are far different from yours misswhisp. For every positive there is a negative and in this case the negatives are an abomination. BTW I am not referring to MT in those remarks. I believe MT was misguidedby power and adulation.

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TOMMY60438 | Mar 15, 2013, 05:45 PM EDT

WHY BASH MOTHER THERESA, THERE ARE NO EVIDENSE OF ABUSE OR AN INVESTIGATIONS OF ABUSE LIKE MADGELENE LAUDRIES, WERE GIRLS WHERE PLACED WITH THE BLESSING OF THE GOVERMENT FOR BEING IMMORAL (A FALLEN WOMAN) BEING THERE ONLY CRIME. THAT WAS WHAT THIS ARTICLE WAS ABOUT. AND WITH THE INTERVIEW WITH THE SISTER FROM THE LAUDRIES WHO SAID THERE WAS NOTHING TO APPOLOGIZE FOR, WELL I THINK EVERYONE OVER FIFTY AND CATHOLIC HAS DELT WITH SOME MEAN ASS SISTERS AT ONE TIME.

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eiriamach | Mar 15, 2013, 12:30 PM EDT

No one has forgotten " the good [they] have done through all [their] years," but it is vitally important that we not forget the evil either. Ignore evil and it repeats itself and grows until it's like water to a fish and life seems impossible without it. It's sad to read of the nuns' self-excusing attitudes.

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Eireannach | Mar 15, 2013, 08:19 AM EDT

It's awful that these persecuted communities have to speak up for themselves. The Irish media is all too ready to indulge in an orgy of vindictive blame games over and over. They need to take a good long look at themselves It is they who are damaging Ireland with their self-righteous rants, and 'holier than thou' lecturing. They need to grow the f*** up.

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jacersagain | Mar 14, 2013, 07:51 PM EDT

One time, some good years ago, I met an old man who actually met and shook hands with Mother Theresa in a Nun-run hospital in Drogheda (Ireland) where he was recovering from a severe bout of alcoholism, one of many he had had previously, some of them extremely violent. He never drank alcohol again from that day that he held Mother Thereesa's hands and listened to her words to him. Miracle? The old man claimed it was, a private one. I never met him again but always remember his claim.

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jacersagain | Mar 14, 2013, 07:39 PM EDT

I meant to add to my last post that what Mother Theresa did in her lifetime was no different from what the Magdelen Laundry nuns did in their lifetimes... i.e. look after those who were abandoned by all of Irish society in those times. The two nuns are right to speak out against tarring of all Magdelen nuns.

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