Chile: Catholic priests investigated over stolen babies

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Chile: Catholic priests investigated over stolen babies

Jonathan Franklin in Santiago
theguardian.com, Thursday 15 May 2014 18.34 BST

The Catholic church in Chile is under investigation over allegations that priests played a central role in a network that stole newborn babies from single mothers.

Police investigators are now probing dozens of cases in which unmarried women who became pregnant were pressured by priests to give up their child for adoption. Those who refused were anaesthetised during delivery and, upon awakening, told that the child had died. The healthy babies were hidden from their biological mothers and given away in order to be raised by married couples in "traditional" Catholic families.

Church leaders now admit they have known about the network for at least 10 years. Unlike in Spain and Argentina, where babies were stolen from families considered to be too poor or too subversive to raise the children well, the motivation in Chile was to shield the reputations of well-off families from the social stigma of unmarried motherhood.

Most of the cases now being investigated date from the 1970s and 1980s, but some were reported in 2005.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/chile-catholic-priests-investigated-stolen-babies

[trotsky]

1. 2005??

Ugh.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Doubly complicit.

Not just the theft of these children, but also the promulgation of the horrible social stigma artificially nailed to unwed motherhood.

They fomented the conditions that led to it as well.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Wow....

[cleanhippie]

4. Holy Shit, St. Batman!

And yet the laity will continue to fill pews ad coffers....

[Goblinmonger]

5. Wonder where the usual apologist are?

This is just fucking reprehensible. I'm sure the Pope Francis spin machine is working overtime and there will be a "isn't he a wonderful Pope" moment happening very soon.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Looks like we're in the 'ignore it and it'll go away' stage of denial.

[Lordquinton]

7. I feel like I'm in Egypt.

[skepticscott]

8. Yes, they seem to be adopting that tactic here

Just as they do in the real world. They fantasize that if "liberal" and "progressive" Christians would just be "sexier" to the media, that everything would be solved, and that we'd have lots of warm and fuzzy coalitions to made the world better and more religiousy.