But they're married to Jesus so it's OK.

That sort of thing didn't just happen in fascist states. Before Roe, it was very common for single, young, white women to be strong-armed into giving up their babies for adoption. In some cases, their babies were taken away without their permission.

Well, I'm glad that our armed services still refuse to recognize or honor the Lincoln Brigade, who at least made an effort to stop Franco.

Don't want us selling indulgencies, eh? Fine, we'll just steal & sell your children.

Are you sure this is just not a back story for an Almodovar character?

Sad.

But it's us secular humanists that are wrong. This is just one more chapter in a very long history of Christianity's senseless cruelty. So very cruel. Why any decent human would associate themselves with this religion in any way, I'll never understand.

Wow. To think of someone denying me my son . . .

@6 make that "with ANY religion in any way" They've all got their bullshit.

@7: no kidding. I can't imagine it.

This really needs more attention. As stated prior, the fact that this gets so little mention in the media, while Susan Sarandon calling the pope a nazi is front-page material, is horrible.

"A Spanish magazine published photographs of a dead baby kept in a freezer at the San Ramon clinic, supposedly to show mothers that their child had died."

Fuck. I mean... fuck.

If you've read Richard Wright's book Pagan Spain, this is not very surprising. In 1957 people in Spain told him (privately) many stories of the horrific abuses of Franco's government. But Spain hosted US military bases, so the American press wouldn't touch those stories.

Wow, who knew those evil Satanic nuns from the "Omen" movies were based in fact?

@15

Absolutely, if by "lynched" you mean "given a stern talking-to".

It never ends. Earlier this year it came out that the church had done much the same in Australia http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion… and Ireland http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Full-sc…

Not an isolated incident and not relegated to just fascist countries. I expect similar will be discovered in more countries.

hey guys... everyone just found out about an adoption in the family after my (catholic, obviously) cousin's mother passed away. Turns out she'd given birth to a baby in asia, and the baby was adopted by a european family, it was all done through the canadian embassy. Any ideas on where he can get started looking for this elder sibling? Everything we can find is about adopting Asian children, or is US related.

As a Spaniard born in the 70s, this may finally explain why I don't look like my siblings, ha!

This is terrible. Australia and Ireland, too! I wouldn't be surprised if women in other nations have suffered the same fate.

This is horrible, but has been known for quite some time. It is of course good that Spain is finally *officially* grappling with this shameful episode in its past (among many shameful episodes that came out of the Spanish Civil War). But thank goodness it's over. What's more troubling, to my mind, is the Catholic Church's support of current politicians (i.e., Rick Frothy Mix), right-wing Spanish politicians, and right-wing Italian officials. The Church looks upon Spain from the 30s to the 70s as its heyday and would love to see such power return.

Every organization is going to have its bad apples. What I'd like to know is how the Catholic Church in Franco's Spain compared to other organizations of similar scope in Franco's Spain.

This sort of thing has been pretty common knowledge in Spain for years. The only change is that government is no longer as opaque about it as it once was, though there are still a lot of legal hurdles in place for desperate families who believe they lost a child. I would quibble with this:

Even now we Spaniards tend not to question authority."

Perdona señora?? Será utd., porque los demás... Questioning authority is a friggen national passtime. Every guy in every bar in the country (and we have lots and lots of bars) is sure they could handle the economy better than the government. We may feel powerless to change the course of governments often, but question them? All. The. Time.

@22, the "bad apple" defense is the one used to explain away the worldwide prevalence of child rape in the church and the cover-up by the larger RCC. 300,000 children don't get kidnapped in a single country because of a "few bad apples" but because of an ongoing collaboration between a fascist government and the church it strongly empowered and which promoted the fascists from the pulpits. It's hard to say how other organizations of similar scope were in Spain at the time because there was no other non-governmental organization of similar scope at the time (not an accident, but a brutally enforced policy), and because there was so little daylight between the church and the state.

Kind of like how we treat psychologists here in the US ... "psychologist, lying? I could never!"

I read this earlier. I should be shocked, but am not. The church has done incredibly shameful and criminal things in God's name.

So, The Omen really was an omen.

(@14: Yes, I know you got there first, but I liked my joke too.)

@26: What are you, some kind of scientologist?

Not only in Spain, Australia, and Ireland, either. Even in the U.K., about 150,000 kids were stolen by the Catholic Church and relocated to Australia and other places. And a good many of those kids, especially the ones who were shipped off to Australia, were subject to child labor and molestation by the priests who oversaw the camps and schools they were sent to. Margaret Humphreys wrote about it in her book, Empty Cradles. A fascinating, if horrifying, read.

hey, 22, the catholic church did EXACTLY the same thing in argentina in the 70's, where the fascist government was doing EXACTLY the same thing to its "undesirable" citizens and their babies on a smaller scale, so how many bad apples are we talking about, and how highly-placed in the church? so much for your apologist assertions. catholics are not on the whole evil, but there's no doubt in my mind that the church hierarchy is and always has been.

The Catholic Church should long ago have been reclassified as a criminal enterprise.

@22, are you suggesting that "a few bad apples" stole over 300,000 babies by themselves?

The whole "bad apples" argument always wearies me, because one hears it from cops, too. And the metaphorical conversation always goes like this:

Cops/Church: It's only a few bad apples. They're horrible and we're good and you can't blame us for them!
Public: Okay, fair enough. Help me catch, convict and jail the horrible ones.
Cops/Church: NO! You just don't understand these bonds of loyalty within this special organization, of commitment to things higher than you are able or willing to understand! Now shut up for a minute while the incriminating evidence gets accidentally destroyed or mislaid.
Public: Ooookay, so if you cover up for the bad guys then you must be bad guys too.
Cops/Church: It's only a few bad apples! They're horrible and we're good and you can't blame us for them!

And repeat.

The "a few bad apples" defense takes on ironic dimensions when you consider the rest of the proverb. A few bad apples corrupt the rest because they were kept in with the good, and the rot spreads. Just as there were undoubtedly more priests who knew that there were predators in their midst, but were reluctant to go forward, not mentioning the church higher-ups who condoned child abuse or state-sponsored kidnapping. If you enable child abuse or this horrible affair, then you are an accessory to the crime, and can't honestly be called "good." If there were once a few bad apples, they have spoiled the rest, and made it such that laypeople cannot fully trust the Catholic Church even in it's own affairs.
Seriously, how does this cross-brandishing Spanish Ob/Gyn sleep at night?

This article made my blood run cold. I was adopted through a "catholic system" in Canada in the 1960's at a "catholic" hospital not far from where I live now. I've had a good life but to think that my birth mother may have suffered a similar fate breaks my heart. I just don't know what to do or think, it's just too painful to believe this kind of thing happens. Just disgusting.

Reading that makes me physically ill. The same thing was done in Argentina and other countries during the Dirty War of the Seventies, and the same groups (church and right-wing figures) were in collusion.

Disgusting.

Argentine priests would often give information to the military goverment about people who now are "desaparecidos". they were kidnapped, tortured, killed, and their bodies were never found. some of them were pregnant women. their kids were stolen and their identities changed. Argentine human rights groups, specially Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo) have found more than 100 of those children who are now adults. according to the records of the organizations there are close to 400 "nietos" (grandchildren) left to find. but there might be more. some of the monsters that did this are in jail now, and some of them are priests. hopefully we will find all of those kids and put the criminals where they belong.

A greater concern that somebody ratting you out might be the chance of it coming out in family law proceedings such as support or custody or related matters. Most states have provisions in their codes of civil procedure maintaining the confidentiality of counseling records, and most state appellate courts have strongly reinforced the importance of that confidentiality ... and most trial and motions judges just blow right past them to rape the privacy of litigants in family law cases. If mom and dad start arguing over custody of the LW, or who should pay for her education, she should be prepared to have those records come out.

Whoops! Wrong thread