

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland.

In 2013, Christian Radio host Kevin Swanson said

(Hat tip.)

Of course, this is complete and utter bullshit. Hormonal birth control works by stopping a woman from ovulating, and so there can be no fertilization, and there can be no “little tiny fetuses.” But Swanson is not about to let facts get in the way of his dreams of theocracy. “The Pill Kills” was established in 2008 to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut and aims to make hormonal birth control (and possibly all other forms of contraception) illegal in the United States. Swanson’s rhetoric is a prime example of their tactics, gruesome lies made to advance a religious agenda.

But it is not hormonal contraception or a sexually permissive culture that has created mass graves of children, but strict religious sexual morality itself. Hundreds of bodies of children were found in just one Magdalene Laundry – a place where unmarried pregnant women and others accused of sexual sin were forced to live in Ireland until very recently. There may be more mass graves at other laundries that have not been discovered yet.

I had thought that there was nothing left about the Catholic Church that could shock me or make me any more angry than I already am. But I was wrong. When I first heard this story, I thought there must be some mistake. Was there an outbreak of disease that killed these children? This is not the Catholicism I was taught. I was taught that God loves everyone, and to follow the teachings of Jesus that we should be forgiving and treat each other with kindness and mercy. But there was no forgiveness for the women sent to the Magdalene Laundries and no mercy for their children. There was no disease that plagued the Magdalene laundries. These innocent children were starved and neglected to death to uphold the sexual morality of the Catholic Church. The institution that preaches redemption through the blood of Christ did not act on that conviction. The Church acted with cruelty and spite, killing those most vulnerable to its whims. I am forced to conclude they do not believe what they say at all.