Tuam mother and baby home: the trouble with the septic tank story

[struggle4progress]

138. I doubt your account of Catholic teaching in Ireland regarding the burial

of stillborn children and unbaptized infants. Not being Catholic, not being an expert on Catholic or Irish history, and not being an expert on burial practices in Ireland, I can only make some general remarks here

Given the long Catholic tradition of regarding the unborn as having a soul, at least by the time of quickening or perhaps even upon conception, it seems unlikely that the Catholic church in Ireland ever taught that an infant who never took a breath post partum was never truly alive. Moreover, as early church teaching opposed cremation, and later church teaching, while allowing cremation, has continued to recognize that cremation in some cases can reflect an explicit repudiation of Christian doctrine, it also seems unlikely that the church would encourage cremation of the remains of stillborn or unbaptized children. Further, the church has long taught that anyone may perform a baptism in an "emergency." Finally there is, so far as I know, no church doctrine requiring burial in consecrated ground, or any teaching that there are permanent consequences for those laid in unconsecrated ground

Irish burial practices probably reflect a complicated combination of very old Irish folk practices, Christian influences, and Irish history. Cillini-type burial grounds appear at least by the early middle ages. Catholic-Protestant conflicts from the early modern era in Ireland appear to have limited prospects for public Catholic burial ceremonies until 1832, when Glasnevin Cemetery was established: in the prior century, it was still illegal in Ireland to perform Catholic funeral rites. Thus the habit of burying Irish Catholic dead in unmarked or barely marked graves on former church grounds may have arisen as a result of suppression of Catholic practice, and Cillini-type burials may have revived accordingly. Glasnevin Cemetery allowed burial of stillborns in consecrated ground; most children buried there are in unmarked graves. After Glasnevin opened, the Dublin hospitals seem to have regularly sent stillborn remains there for burial. The actual evolution of common social notions -- in the interaction of Irish folk tradition, Catholic practice, and political suppression of Catholic practice -- is probably an interesting topic, but it's not immediately clear how closely such notions reflect Catholic doctrine