Nuns refuse to compensate victims of the Magdalene Asylums

[static]

1234567890

[Panacea]

Absolutely disgusting.

The Prime Minister is right; he can't force a contribution. But I'll be a lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment, and other crimes could. The government and survivors and their families should sue the nuns.

These kinds of workhouses were popular in the 19th century, and they were all abominable. The nuns owe it to the survivors to compensate them and seek reconciliation. IMHO, it is a sin for them to refuse.

[Andara Bledin]

Didn't the nuns make money off of the labor of the people then enslaved? Shouldn't all of that profit be required to be paid to those whose work it was, regardless of any question of reparations?

[static]

1234567890

[Panacea]

Didn't the nuns make money off of the labor of the people then enslaved? Shouldn't all of that profit be required to be paid to those whose work it was, regardless of any question of reparations?

They did. However, they may no longer have access to the money. It's probably already been spent.

However, what they do have should be given to the victims in compensation, and no one should have to ask. The Church should step up to help, too.

[Pixilated]

If any of those nunneries are left, and they have ANY money at all, their bank accounts should be frozen until some sort of agreement is hammered out. I'll bet that'd bring some cooperation in a hurry. If they won't cooperate, they can do what Mother Teresa's nuns do in India: go out and beg. Their arrogance in refusing to help makes them deserve nothing else.

But since that's likely not going to happen, yeah, the victims need to sue the hell out of them. Pun definitely intended.

[Dakhur]

Freezing bank accounts is time-consuming and assumes the banks will co-operate.

A simpler method is to simply confiscate Roman Catholic property to the value required. Should the church wish to regain the property, it purchases it back. Otherwise, it's sold to recover the monies owed.

This is a simple debt recovery issue, the same as taking a house to cover a mortgage. Don't allow the religious sidebar to confuse the issue.

[Pixilated]

That sounds fine too. Hey, whatever works.

I'd also hope that if these nunneries depend at all on public donations, those donations slow to a trickle, if they don't stop entirely.

We had something similar here in Canada, in Quebec. The premier of Quebec at the time insisted that nuns would never, ever abuse the children under their care and refused to even consider compensation. It was disgraceful. That was one of many, many things that made me walk away from the Catholic Church.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Well you can always sue the Catholic church for the wages withheld. If the the Catholic church doesn't want to pay, it can always force those nuns to apologize as part of an agreement. There is always a remedy.

Still, since we live in the age of the New Jim Crow (book name reference, not something I'm making up) in the US, I'm struck that I don't have a whole lot of outrage for this. I mean yes it's bad, but I'd worry more about the systematically imprisoned here in this country before we pitch too many fits about Ireland. In essence we're talking the same thing though. Someone broke the law and an entity profiteers off of them while society is to busy or too apathetic to care. We should probably spend less time trying to guilt the guilty and more time rooting out the behavior.