Finally, A Tiny Speck Of Justice: Spanish Nun Maria Gomez Valbuena Charged In Baby-Stealing Operation, Refuses To Testify
April 16, 2012 Leave a comment
In a small news story, the Huffington Post reports on the case involving some 300,000 stolen babies. This is big news in other countries, but here in the US, it’s not exactly front page news.
MADRID — An 80-year-old Spanish nun has refused to testify at a court hearing about her alleged involvement in the stealing of newborn babies from their parents and selling them to other families.
Spanish police have investigated hundreds of cases amid allegations of baby trafficking dating from the years after Spain’s 1936-39 civil war and supposedly a few even in the mid-1990s.
Authorities were alerted by an association of people searching for lost relatives. The group alleges the scheme involved a nationwide network, including doctors, nurses, midwives, nuns and intermediaries. Mothers were told their babies had been stillborn.
Sister Maria Gomez is the only person subpoenaed so far. She appeared in court Thursday and told the judge she would exercise her right to remain silent.
Reuters reports that Sister Maria Gomez is charged with “illegal detention and falsifying documents.”
According to Newser, one mother of a stolen infant alleges that Sister Maria Gomez also threatened to steal her other child.
Spanish nun Maria Gomez Valbuena (C) leaves a court in Madrid on April 12, 2012, after refusing to testify before the judge for her alleged involvement in a case of stolen children. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images)
“Stop asking me [where the baby is] or else I will also take away your other daughter and you will go to jail for adultery,” the mother claims Sister Maria Gomez said.
The BBC explains that thousands of babies are thought to have been stolen under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship with the aim of removing children from their “undesirable” left-wing parents and placing them under the care of “approved” right-wing families.
via Spanish Nun Maria Gomez Valbuena Charged In Baby-Stealing Operation.
We’re talking about a baby-stealing operation that continued into the 90′s. Priests, nuns and doctors were involved. One nun has been found to have over a million dollars in her bank account.
The people running the operation told the parents their baby was dead, that they couldn’t see the body, and sold the baby to paying customers. They then falsified all the documents.
I find these crimes so heinous, so offensive and reprehensible, that for the life of me I cannot fathom why it is not front page news around the globe.
300,000 children. It will be hard to follow the trail, since all the facts have been covered up, but just imagine what it would be like to find out you had been one of these babies. You were stolen from your mother and sold to the people you thought were your parents. The people you know as your parents bought you from a baby stealing operation.
In the case of single mothers, that would make at least 600,000 people whose lives have been forever altered beyond belief. If you include the parents who bought the children – who may not have known they were complicit – that would make around 1,200,000 people affected. And once again, the horror is laid at the feet of the Catholic church.
Will the church demand justice for the victims? Will the vast wealth and resources of the Catholic hierarchy be used to help those harmed, bring families back together, and see that justice be done to all those responsible? Not bloody likely. The pattern they have followed for hundreds and hundreds of years is to cover up, to deny, and to protect the wealth and power of the church at all costs. And it costs the victims of their crimes most.
Related articles
- Aged nun accused in Spanish baby-stealing cases (worldnews.msnbc.msn.com)
- Spanish Nun Refuses to Speak at Baby Theft Hearing (abcnews.go.com)
I’ve been saying it for years. Glad I lived long enough to see study after study back me up:
Questions about women and womens’ health have dominated the political debate over the past weeks, and at least one female Republican lawmaker is unhappy with her party’s record. New York Assemblyman Teresa Sayward (R), who is retiring after serving a decade in Albany, told the New York political program Capital Tonight that she does not support any of her party’s presidential candidates, because of their stances on women.
This bill is actually more disturbing than the Republicans seem to realize. Giving doctors such a free pass risks the lives of both the expectant mother and the fetus she carries. Prenatal care isn’t just for discovering birth defects and disabilities. It is also for discovering life threatening issues such as an ectopic pregnancy which often requires an abortion to save the life of the mother. With rare exceptions, 
