Over the past week or so, I’ve written three pieces on the Tuam Home where 796 infant bodies were supposedly buried in a septic tank. (Here, here, and here.)

Today, Kevin Clarke over at America has a good piece unraveling the story.  He offers a paragraph which I found particularly interesting:

The “fresh horror” of the Galway babies now apparently represents “the Irish Holocaust,” called so by, hmm, not clear, though many might argue that the starvation of one-third of the Irish population by British policy and the flight of a third more during the previous century might make a better candidate for that title. In fact many locals throughout this controversy have remained unimpressed by the home babies story as many “mass graves” dating back to the famine times have been unearthed from time to time in this part of Galway. The Great Hunger was just one of the many hungers which claimed lives here throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

There is no justification for inhuman acts, but at some point, particularly when we are dealing with cases 70 years old that took place in a very different surrounding culture than exists now, I believe that we have to let the dead bury the dead.

Humans have done horrible things to each other, particularly the most vulnerable, since the beginning of time. It’s not an excuse. Just a fact.

Yes, perhaps there should be the requisite investigations if something substantial is found to investigate.

But the suffering of the innocent continues today. Throughout the world.

Maria Grizzetti at her blog Incarnation and Modernity has a jolting communication from a Domincan priest, Fr. Najeeb Michaeel who lives in Mosul, Iraq, where perhaps countless people have died in recent years and which currently appears to be overrun by Sunni Muslims:

Many thousands of armed men from the Islamic Groups of Da’ash have attacked the city of Mosul for the last two days. They have assassinated adults and children. The bodies have been left in the streets and in the houses by the hundreds, without pity. The regular forces and the army have also fled the city, along with the governor. In the mosques, they cry “Allah Akbar, long live the Islamic State.” Qaraqosh is overflowing with refugees of all kinds, without food or lodging. The check points and the Kurdish forces are blocking innumerable refugees from entering Kurdistan.

Is this his final letter to the world?

What we are living and what we have seen over the last two days is horrible and catastrophic. The priory of Mar Behnam and other churches fell into the hands of the rebels this morning. . . . and now they have come here and entered Qaraqosh five minutes ago, and we are now surrounded and threatened with death . . . . pray for us. I’m sorry that I can’t continue . . . They are not far from our convent . . . . Don’t reply. . . .

I realized that I know at least two people who know Fr. Najeeb. Small, small world.

Maria links to a news story that gives additional information. Although I have taken the liberty of quoting the letter in the entirety that she offered, I’m guessing she won’t mind since the point is to get the information out and to ask for prayers. She also links to another piece which confirms this from an interview last year with Fr. Najeeb:

“We are not protected by anyone, just the prayers . . . we need your prayers . . . I believe in the power of prayers . . . they can change the mind of persons . . . I ask in the name of all Christians in Iraq . . . to pray for us.”

By no means am I saying that the Tuam victims, whoever and however many they may be, don’t deserve our tears. But I don’t think we honor them when we turn a blind eye to the suffering that goes on right now. In their memory, pray for peace in Mosul.

Let us pray.