Tuam babies campaigner Catherine Corless has admitted she no longer wants any part of the Catholic Church.
The Galway historian, who uncovered 796 children buried in a septic tank at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, said she could not forgive the nuns because there was no remorse.
She told Joe Duffy in RTE’s The Meaning Of Life: “My mind goes back to the nuns covering it up, putting them down there one on top of the other.
“They were human beings, they were discarded. The nuns left in 1961, they left and closed that gate without marking that graveyard. And it’s because they were illegitimate.
“It was just the horrific idea of discarding beautiful little babies, children, toddlers, in a big horrible old sewage tank. How could they possibly do that?”
Revealing how her painstaking research was met with silence, she added: “In the past six years dealing with the local church I’ve gotten no hearing, no attempt to undo what was done.
“How can I believe in a church that won’t look after its most vulnerable?”
Catherine talked about the impact the discovery, the media storm and her subsequent fight for justice for the babies has had – and how it has shaped her views on God, religion and life.
The mother of four, who exposed the Tuam horror that triggered a commission of investigation, told how the kids from the home were ostracised in school.
She said: “I remember a group of little children kept at the back of the class. They were cold-looking and pale and they were thin. And they were silent.
“They were afraid to open their mouths. At break-time the rest of us would go out and they knew not to move until the room was empty.
“They were treated as a different species. They were little kids. They would go back to the home and there was no kindness, no nothing for them.”
Catherine said she had no regrets for snubbing an invite to meet Pope Francis in 2018 – blasting the Vatican as being “too fond of power”.
She added: “I don’t want anything to do with the Catholic Church. It’s a business, that’s what it is.”
And she said her dream when she gets to heaven is to be greeted by the 796 babies she has given a voice.
She said: “I’d love to meet them. I’d probably say it was a privilege.”
- The Meaning Of Life is on RTE One tonight at 10.30pm.
