Kathleen Hoy Foley was 16, alone and pregnant from a rape in 1964 when she decided to put the baby up for adoption, intending to forever close that chapter of her life.
“The day I walked out of that hospital, it was the day it ended for me,” Foley, now 65, told the Daily News. “I was emancipated. I truly believed I was free.”
She wasn’t.
More than 30 years later, the child defied the odds and found her, shattering the life Foley had created and forcing her to reveal a dark piece of her past that she had wanted to keep hidden from her grown daughters and husband.
Penn, now age 48, became interested in meeting her birth parents after having her own child in 1996. First she found out that her biological father was dead and then she was rejected by Foley. She admitted to the New York Daily News that her mom’s reaction was like “a knife to my heart.”
“It’s really sad,” Penn added. “It is very hard for somebody in this time to put their brain back in 1964 in that society. I’ve never experienced it. But I would hope that whatever happens in that situation that at this point, I would get myself help and I wouldn’t take it out on the person I gave birth to.”
Foley was contacted by the unwanted child she put up for adoption 15 years ago. How Elaine Penn found her birth mom is questionable. Foley claims Penn hired a private investigator and that Catholic Charities unlawfully passed over important information. With a closed adoption the birth certificate is supposed to remain sealed and the birth mom’s name never revealed.
Elaine denies hiring an investigator and says she found leads in public documents. She first made contact with Foley’s lawyer who ended up being her biological mom’s son-in-law.
Even though Penn has reached out to her mom several times over the past 15 years, the two haven’t met in person. Foley, now age 65, doesn’t want to ever meet her daughter and she has become an advocate for women who have given up a child and prefer to remain anonymous.
Today, these aging women, including frail elderly women, are enduring egregious abuse from State governments that are opening court sealed adoption records and intimidating these women into forfeiting private medical and personal histories to stranger-adoptees.
Adoption agencies are placing aging and elder women at extreme physical and emotional risk by releasing deeply intimate and identifying details to strangers claiming rights as adoptees. (Betrayal by Catholic Charities permanently ended my life--and the lives of my family--as I knew it.)
Adoptees seeking to satisfy their own curiosity, some looking for revenge, are hunting down and ambushing elder women and their families, dismissing as unimportant the damage and destruction they create. (Among many cruelties, the stranger-adoptee in my situation posted my 80 year old mother's name on the internet, along with accusatory sexual insinuations.)
Despite whatever irreversible consequences may occur, society, via the media, insists on romanticizing this trend of pursuing women and forcing public exposure of past traumas.
Socially and politically this sanctioned abuse and punishment of aging and elderly women is disguised as a human rights issue for those who were placed into adoption.
Left without social support and legal options, it is, sadly, up to the woman in hiding to protect herself the best way she can.
“It’s really sad,” Penn added. “It is very hard for somebody in this time to put their brain back in 1964 in that society. I’ve never experienced it. But I would hope that whatever happens in that situation that at this point, I would get myself help and I wouldn’t take it out on the person I gave birth to.”
I never knew I had a choice. Never knew that I did not have to accept being violated by that despicable stigma affixed to me as a teenager. Birth mother—a slur that branded me a slut; a whore. The label that blamed me for getting pregnant from rape. The label that ignored the rapes; turned my torment into a hot and heavy teenage romance with me unable to keep my legs closed.
Getting pregnant was what I deserved for wanton sexual escapades. Just punishment for my sexual lust. I was to confess my sin—I did. Do my penance—I did extra just to make sure. And my sins and my secret shame would be washed away by a confidential adoption. That is what they promised—Catholic Charities; my mother. Do my penance and I would be free. I believed them.
Over thirty years later my confidential records were breached and a stranger—the adoptee—was wreaking havoc in our lives. Which is why Phil was on the phone with our attorney and I was listening to him say what I had never in my entire life heard before. There in our kitchen, that tiny moment in time, me fifty years old, I slowly began to see that I was not required to stigmatize myself any longer; that I did not have to join society and continue to condemn myself with the label Birth Mother; a label so vile, it made me retch.
I looked up at Phil when he sat down at the table across from me.
“Rape is not making love,” I finally managed, giving voice to what I had never been able to speak aloud. “Being forced to breed did not make me a mother. They don’t call girls who had abortions, mothers.”
Quote by Scoopster:
Mornin' all..
Jeez the Bruins really blew that game last night.
Quote by TriSec:
Morning, comrades.
Adoptions these days come in two flavors, "Open" or "Closed".
An Open adoption is the newfangled one. Often, the birth mother will meet with prospective adoptive parents, give final approval, and may or may not be involved in the child's care. (usually just visitation rights.)
A Closed adoption is just that, the birth mother plays no role in the decision, and rescinds all rights to the child, and usually has the paperwork sealed so she can't be tracked back to at a later date.
Like everything else, there is often a grey zone between the two.
Javier has a double - it's an International Adoption (the rules are slightly different) and was completely closed. We know the birth mother's name, but nothing else.
Quote by TriSec:Quote by Scoopster:
Mornin' all..
Jeez the Bruins really blew that game last night.
Heh. The Celtics were also channeling the Red Sox, I noticed. Charlotte? by 25 points?
Quote by Will in Chicago:
Good morning, bloggers!!
Raine, this is a very powerful blog. I think that Ms. Foley's privacy rights were violated.
No right in a society should be absolute. I do not think that an adopted child, in general, has a right to find out who is a parent. (I suppose an argument can be made against this position in case of a severe medical emergency, but this is most likely a theoretical objection. I suspect that there would be very few cases like this.)
We need to stop stigmatizing people who have to make difficult choices. As a man, I am annoyed that some other men believe that they can make medical decisions for mentally competent adult women.
Quote by TriSec:
*non-sequtir*
I seem to recall posting some time ago that I was unable to find in the Qu'ran where it states "Thou shalt have a silly little beard" (referring to the Saudis, in that instance.)
However, as I continue down this path, I seem to learn more things every day. There is another subset of rules and regulations called the "Hadith". These are either the direct teachings of Mohammed, or things that he did.
So, because Mohammed had a beard, it is considered "Hadith", and most Islamic males sport some kind of facial growth. (It's not universal; Asian muslims generally do not.)
So there. I do now have a feathery chin addition, but that's my "hospital beard". I didn't shave for a week while I was in, and I wound up keeping it.
Quote by livingonli:
Good morning, folks. I guess I could be on the other end of this since I was a foster child and I was raised by my foster parents. I only know my biological mother as a name on my birth certificate, although I have been curious as to the circumstances considering I have my own issues with fear of rejection and abandonment which may have effected my own emotional development. I was an emotional wreck after my foster mother died and I guess I wondered what issues effected me to make me the way I am.
Quote by livingonli:
Good morning, folks. I guess I could be on the other end of this since I was a foster child and I was raised by my foster parents. I only know my biological mother as a name on my birth certificate, although I have been curious as to the circumstances considering I have my own issues with fear of rejection and abandonment which may have effected my own emotional development. I was an emotional wreck after my foster mother died and I guess I wondered what issues effected me to make me the way I am.
Quote by Raine:I Was thinking about you and Tri as I wrote this today.Quote by livingonli:
Good morning, folks. I guess I could be on the other end of this since I was a foster child and I was raised by my foster parents. I only know my biological mother as a name on my birth certificate, although I have been curious as to the circumstances considering I have my own issues with fear of rejection and abandonment which may have effected my own emotional development. I was an emotional wreck after my foster mother died and I guess I wondered what issues effected me to make me the way I am.
This situation isn't an easy one -- I hope I wasn't overly presumptuous. When you see what people are saying about this woman it's amazing. She was a rape victim -- in 1964.
Quote by livingonli:
Good morning, folks. I guess I could be on the other end of this since I was a foster child and I was raised by my foster parents. I only know my biological mother as a name on my birth certificate, although I have been curious as to the circumstances considering I have my own issues with fear of rejection and abandonment which may have effected my own emotional development. I was an emotional wreck after my foster mother died and I guess I wondered what issues effected me to make me the way I am.
Quote by trojanrabbit:
CBS report
Quote by BobR:Quote by livingonli:
Good morning, folks. I guess I could be on the other end of this since I was a foster child and I was raised by my foster parents. I only know my biological mother as a name on my birth certificate, although I have been curious as to the circumstances considering I have my own issues with fear of rejection and abandonment which may have effected my own emotional development. I was an emotional wreck after my foster mother died and I guess I wondered what issues effected me to make me the way I am.
If you don't mind me asking - how old were you when that happened? And have you made any attempts to find your birth mother?
Quote by TriSec:
So, I just bought a "Baby Ruth" bar. There's a bright banner on the label proclaiming "4 grams of Protein!!!"
Really? It's a freakin' candy bar!
Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and Scoop...let's connect on that medicine. I seem to have taken a turn for the worse this past weekend, PT/OT is having limited benefits. (and in some areas, it's actually worse than when I started.)
Apensuwi at Gmail, for a direct-connect.
Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and after I'm elected Pope on the 432 ballot (shortly after Hell freezes over), I shall take the name "Hilarius II".
Quote by Raine:We'll know very shortly if they picked you. There is white smoke billowing in Rome.Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and after I'm elected Pope on the 432 ballot (shortly after Hell freezes over), I shall take the name "Hilarius II".
WSe should know shortly who the next pope is.
Quote by Mondobubba:
Mala, has white smoke come out of the Vatican?
Quote by wickedpam:Quote by Raine:We'll know very shortly if they picked you. There is white smoke billowing in Rome.Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and after I'm elected Pope on the 432 ballot (shortly after Hell freezes over), I shall take the name "Hilarius II".
WSe should know shortly who the next pope is.
that was quick - bet it's the guy from Milan.
Quote by wickedpam:Quote by Mondobubba:
Mala, has white smoke come out of the Vatican?
according to Ed, TMZ and CNN is did.
Quote by Raine:I hope we have a black pope. Just to make the wingers heads esplode.Quote by wickedpam:Quote by Raine:We'll know very shortly if they picked you. There is white smoke billowing in Rome.Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and after I'm elected Pope on the 432 ballot (shortly after Hell freezes over), I shall take the name "Hilarius II".
WSe should know shortly who the next pope is.
that was quick - bet it's the guy from Milan.
First a black President and now a black Pope!!! DAMN YOU OBUMMER!
Quote by Raine:I hope we have a black pope. Just to make the wingers heads esplode.Quote by wickedpam:Quote by Raine:We'll know very shortly if they picked you. There is white smoke billowing in Rome.Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and after I'm elected Pope on the 432 ballot (shortly after Hell freezes over), I shall take the name "Hilarius II".
WSe should know shortly who the next pope is.
that was quick - bet it's the guy from Milan.
First a black President and now a black Pope!!! DAMN YOU OBUMMER!
Quote by Raine:
the new Pope is from Aregentina
Quote by Raine:
Archebisop Of Buenos Aries -------- HE is a jesuit priest.
Quote by wickedpam:
I'm not sure what that means...
Quote by Raine:
Archebisop Of Buenos Aries -------- HE is a jesuit priest.
Quote by TriSec:
Great, another freakin' Jesuit.
Quote by TriSec:Quote by wickedpam:
I'm not sure what that means...
One of the many sects of Catholicism. Boston College, and indeed most catholic schools, were founded and are run by Jesuits.
All you need to know is most of the abusive priests are also Jesuits, and the Jesuit leadership in both the USA and Rome has done their best to cover up and obfuscate.
Compare and contrast with leading Franciscan candidate Sean O'Malley, who was brought in to Boston as a reformer, and has enforced much of the youth protection policy enacted by the church, and has gone out of his way to reach out and try to heal the wounds.
When I do go to Catholic Mass, we go to Sacred Heart in Waltham, a Franciscan church. We left St. Mary's, Jesuits, to do so.
Quote by wickedpam:
from TMZ
Here are the facts
-- He's from Argentina
-- He's 76 years old
-- He's the son of Italian immigrants
-- He's the first Latin-American pope ... and the first from the Americas.
I'm sorry if your the son of Italian immigrants how does that make you anything truely Latin-American?
Quote by TriSec:Quote by wickedpam:
I'm not sure what that means...
One of the many sects of Catholicism. Boston College, and indeed most catholic schools, were founded and are run by Jesuits.
All you need to know is most of the abusive priests are also Jesuits, and the Jesuit leadership in both the USA and Rome has done their best to cover up and obfuscate.
Compare and contrast with leading Franciscan candidate Sean O'Malley, who was brought in to Boston as a reformer, and has enforced much of the youth protection policy enacted by the church, and has gone out of his way to reach out and try to heal the wounds.
When I do go to Catholic Mass, we go to Sacred Heart in Waltham, a Franciscan church. We left St. Mary's, Jesuits, to do so.
Quote by wickedpam:
little more from tmz
Here are the facts:
-- He staunchly opposes gay marriage and abortion
-- He's known for his advocacy on behalf of the poor, primarily in his home country
Quote by Mondobubba:
So I was trying to find a list of Jesuit popes, didn't find one but, I did find this. Hooo daddy! :tinfoil: Crinkler! Come lets up dive deep into the conspiracy pool!
Quote by Scoopster:Quote by Mondobubba:
So I was trying to find a list of Jesuit popes, didn't find one but, I did find this. Hooo daddy! :tinfoil: Crinkler! Come lets up dive deep into the conspiracy pool!
Quote by TriSec:
'tis my jaded view on the Jesuits, I'm afraid. The scandal has left an indelible scar on my person. There's also some personal issues surrounding the lengthy ART/Adoption process that I have yet to get over.
I will not let go of my hate.
I still await the day when Javi comes home and says "So-and-so is an Altar Boy, can I be one too?" The answer will be no. (Yes, I know the BSA has the same issues...the difference being I'm in uniform standing next to him.)
He was accused of conspiracy in a priest kidnapping in 2005
According to the National Catholic Reporter:
Three days before the 2005 conclave, a human rights lawyer in Argentina filed a complaint charging Bergoglio with complicity in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests under the country’s military regime, a charge Bergoglio flatly denied.
Quote by Mondobubba:
Here's a Francis fun fact:He was accused of conspiracy in a priest kidnapping in 2005
According to the National Catholic Reporter:
Three days before the 2005 conclave, a human rights lawyer in Argentina filed a complaint charging Bergoglio with complicity in the 1976 kidnapping of two liberal Jesuit priests under the country’s military regime, a charge Bergoglio flatly denied.
Linky poo.
Under Argentine law, an accusation can be filed with a very low threshold of evidence. A court then decides if there is cause to investigate and file charges.
The accusations against Bergoglio, 68, are detailed in a recent book by Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky.
In May 1976, priests Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics were kidnapped by the navy. They surfaced five months later, drugged and seminude, in a field.
At the time, Bergoglio was the superior in the Society of Jesus of Argentina.
At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.
Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them — including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader's home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010 biography.
Bergoglio — who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship — told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features, enabling him to escape across the border. But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.
Quote by Raine:
This is an AP article I'm sorry it's posted over at Faux news.I don't know what to believe. I'm not catholic.At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.
Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them — including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader's home, where he privately appealed for mercy. His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010 biography.
Bergoglio — who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship — told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with similar features, enabling him to escape across the border. But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.
I'm barely Christian.
Quote by Mondobubba:
That just might be the anti-clecicism of the Guardian show through.
Quote by Will in Chicago:
This pope is an interesting choice, but I have to ask if he is meant to be another caretaker pope. He is 76 years old.
Quote by Raine:I wondered that as well.Quote by Will in Chicago:
This pope is an interesting choice, but I have to ask if he is meant to be another caretaker pope. He is 76 years old.
What is the average age of the Pope?
It used to be a once in a lifetime/generation event from what I've always understood. This is the 4th Pope I can remember. My first recollection of a new Pope was that John Paul I who died after about a month or so in office. He was followed up with John Paul II.
"Dirty War" Questions for Pope Francis
March 13, 2013
Exclusive: The U.S."news" networks bubbled with excitement over the selection of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to be Pope Francis I. But there was silence on the obvious question that should be asked about any senior cleric from Argentina: What was Bergoglio doing during the “dirty war,†writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
If one wonders if the U.S. press corps has learned anything in the decade since the Iraq War - i.e. the need to ask tough question and show honest skepticism - it would appear from the early coverage of the election of Pope Francis I that U.S. journalists haven’t changed at all, even at "liberal" outlets like MSNBC.
The first question that a real reporter should ask about an Argentine cleric who lived through the years of grotesque repression, known as the "dirty war", is what did this person do, did he stand up to the murderers and torturers or did he go with the flow. If the likes of Chris Matthews and other commentators on MSNBC had done a simple Google search, they would have found out enough about Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to slow their bubbling enthusiasm.
Bergoglio, now the new Pope Francis I, has been identified publicly as an ally of Argentina's repressive leaders during the "dirty war"when some 30,000 people were “disappeared†or killed, many stripped naked, chained together, flown out over the River Plate or the Atlantic Ocean and pushed sausage-like out of planes to drown.
Pope Francis: questions remain over his role during Argentina's dictatorship
Jorge Bergoglio was head of the Jesuit order in the 1970s when the church backed military government and called for patriotism
Uki Goni and Jonathan Watts
The Guardian, Wednesday 13 March 2013
Despite the joyful celebrations outside the Municipal Cathedral in Buenos Aires yesterday, the news of Latin America's first pope was clouded by lingering concerns about the role of the church -“ and its new head -during Argentina's brutal military dictatorship.
The Catholic church and Pope Francis have been accused of a complicit silence and worse during the "dirty war" of murders and abductions carried out by the junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.
The evidence is sketchy and contested. Documents have been destroy ed and many of those who were victims or perpetrators have died in the years that followed. The moral argument is clear, but the reality of life at that time put many people in a grey position. It was dangerous at that time to speak out and risk being labelled a subversive. But many, including priests and bishops, did so and subsequently disappeared. Those who stayed silent have subsequently had to live with their consciences -” and sometimes the risk of a trial.
Its behaviour during that dark period in Argentine history was so unsaintly that in 2000 the Argentine Catholic church itself made a public apology for its failure to take a stand against the generals. "We want to confess before God everything we have done badly," Argentina's Episcopal Conference said at that time.