St. Mary's home for mothers and babies

Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

Just weeks after publishing a sensational story about a Catholic-run orphanage where hundreds of so-called unbaptized children were allegedly buried in a septic tank, the Associated Press (AP) has published a correction of many key details in the story that have since been proven false.

The Daily Caller is reporting on the AP's backtrack of two stories published in early June and written by reporter Shawn Pogatchinik.

"Both articles insinuated that the Irish Church was responsible for the neglect that led to the deaths of 796 children at the orphanage between the years of 1926 and 1961," the Caller reports. "The June 8 article published the claim that the deceased children were denied Christian burials."

According to Pogatchinik, “Babies born inside the institutions were denied baptism and, if they died from the illness and disease rife in such facilities, also denied a Christian burial.”

Pogatchinik's earlier story, dated June 3, also quoted a researcher who claimed to believe that the bodies of these babies were buried in a septic tank.

This story made headlines around the world but quickly began to unravel when the researcher in question, Catherine Corless, said her statements were being misconstrued.

As it turns out, Corless was right, and the AP has been forced to publish a retraction of this and numerous other errors contained in their reporting of the incident.

First of all, the AP reported that the children who were buried on the premises of St. Mary's mother and baby home in Tuam, Ireland, were not baptized and that Church teaching at the time was to deny baptism and Christian burial to children born to unwed mothers. As it turns out, documents show that many of the children at the orphanage were baptized and it was not Church teaching to deny baptism and burial to infants born out of wedlock.

The AP also had to retract its claim that these allegedly unbaptized infants were buried in a septic tank. "The researcher [Corless] has since clarified that without excavation and forensic analysis it is impossible to know how many sets of remains the tank contains, if any," the AP wrote in its correction.

Since Pogatchinik filed her reports on the orphanage, witnesses have said they only saw about 20 skeletal remains in a grave that was hidden under a concrete slab on the grounds of the orphanage which was closed in 1961.

Others have come forward to say that what is being described as a septic tank may actually be a kind of burial vault that was in common use at the time.

Irresponsible reporting led to the publication of articles that insinuated that the Irish Church was responsible for the neglect that led to the deaths of 796 children at the orphanage between the years of 1926 and 1961. In addition, by misrepresenting Church teaching, they attempted to make the Church and its teachings look coldhearted and cruel. Because the errors made in this story could be taken out of a Journalism 101 textbook, it seems all too plausible that the AP was so intent on slandering the Church they were willing to put aside basic journalistic ethics in order to do so.

They deserve whatever egg-on-the-face they get over this one.

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