One of the readers of our site brought a portion of recent Irish Catholic history to my attention that I had never heard a word about until now. This history is so shocking that I can't bring myself to write about it.  I know that defenders of the Catholic Church would use anything that I might write to accuse ME of bigotry and God knows what else.  So instead I simply urge anyone with an open mind to type the words "Magdalene Laundries" or "Magdalene Sisters" into their browser's search engine box (such as Google) and explore a few of the hundreds of links that come up.  Then, judge for yourself if a "Holy Mother" would treat her children as the Roman Catholic Church treated so many innocent young women, whose only crime - in some cases - was that they had charms that - God forbid! - were likely to attract the attention of "the opposite sex".

        Here is a documentary (apparently produced with Italian subtitles) about these women "Sex in a cold climate".
        Miramax produced another documentary film about this story in 2003, called "The Magdalene Sisters", which may well be available to rent.