Vatican sent Italian children born out of wedlock to America as orphans; new book uncovers program 

This is literally Human Trafficking..

06:30 “sent local priests to scour the countryside for more children”...Isn't this just human trafficking?

My husband is one of them. His mother was 19 years old, 3rd grade education. Fourth of six children and her father made her give him up. He has all the paperwork explaining all of this. His mother breast fed him for 12 days and they took him away. I cannot even imagine her pain. Horrible. Cruel. Did she come back for him and be told HE DIED?

In 1983, I had my daughter at a Catholic hospital in OC. I wasn't married, and they insisted that it would be best if I didn't see her because "you can't possibly take care of her so you're going to give her up." They put me on the med/surg floor and wouldn't even bring her to me when I asked. It took my employer's brother (who was a priest) going ballistic on them before they would bring her to me. Then, when I was being discharged I asked where my daughter was and they said, "she can't go home with you until you complete parenting classes" It took more than a week, and employers brothers intervention, before they would let me take her home. My employer was a licensed doctor in three countries. Thank goodness he and his family were there.

Thank you, 60 Minutes!

These poor children were stolen from their mothers.

Human trafficking!!

This is like the "mixed race" babies from the Korean War. Churches cause so much harm through their own judgements!

This is also an assault on the very idea of "family", not surprising coming from unmarried men with unlimited power.

That’s such a cruel thing to do to children. The Vatican should be held responsible and be taken up on charges.😡

I know that the church got money for these "adoptions".

"Pope Francis apologized" - decades later. I would tell Frank where to put his "apology".

It's things like this why people don't gravitate towards the church.

Just one of the atrocities that powers-that-be in the church are capable of doing without a hint of remorse.

The reprehensible lies and acts of the Catholic Church done to unwed, pregnant women and then the molestation and rape of children by priests should never be forgiven by a just God.

Americans are adopting 3 year olds from India, and being told that their child was abandoned! This is still going on today!!!

Well, that is the Catholic church for you. Money talks especially in the Catholic church. I have become so embarrassed and disappointed with the actions of these "men of God" that I finally walked away from the church for good. It is sad. I can no longer defend their centuries old actions. Shame on them. We won't even speak of the other atrocities visited upon thousands of other children from members of the clergy. Damn them to hell.

This is so heartbreaking 😢

Very cruel yet they will fight any atheists about "morals"

the vatican strikes again. how many awful things have these devils done

As an adoptee, none of this is surprising. The agency from which I was adopted made up fake names. Austin, TX

This isn’t just about the Catholic Church. It’s about how we as a society devalue and fail women and children. This is about child trafficking. Literally stealing and selling children. I am an adoptee. My Catholic mother was impregnated as a teenager, before Roe. We reunited 30 years ago, and we love each other, but our connection will never be truly repaired. I’ve never truly felt at home anywhere, either with my adoptive family or my birth family. My bio father is not a good man and wants no part of me or my half sister whom I found a few years ago. We feel alone in this world and robbed of our identities. I’m 54 now, and it never goes away. We need a complete overhaul of adoption in this country and the immediate restoration of Roe.

They did that in ireland also .

'unwed mothers', 'out of wedlock children'. Only the women and children get these demeaning and despicable euphemisms cast onto them. Again the men get off SCOT free. Where were the FATHERS!

This doesn't surprise me at all. We will never know the horrific things they have done .😢

To many people still believe religious organizations are trustworthy!

2000 thousand years of lying….cheating….and stealing……😢😢😢

What a terrible thing to go throughout your life. Thise who are reunited us awesome. God bless all of you.😊

I was 18 had a baby and I couldn't tell my Irish Catholic family. She was given up for adoption and I regret it to this day.

Heart breaking 💔

This atrocity is something l can believe that really did happen. I was a Catholic child of the same time period this video speaks of. Catholic Charities seemed to me at that time while growing up, to be a very busy entity. Now l know why. And l am disgusted. Women, mothers, are NOT Disposable! This is incredibly heartbreaking for all individuals involved for forced separation, lies, and the deceit to steal from and abuse these women. We can never go back to such an existance for women, unwed mothers ever ever again. Brightest Blessings to whomever chooses to read this. 😔✌️❤️🦋🙏

It seems like taking children from their families and adopting them out illegally was a global issue for decades.

Self-righteous religious leaders who are much more sinful than most laymen.

This is the basis of the book/movie called Philomena. It happened in Ireland too.

Not enough is being said about the families who forced their young daughters to give up their children and What is behind those sorts of decisions?

My heart hurts seeing the looks on the faces of these innocent children. Religion. Love it or leave it, the most vulnerable in life should not suffer because of it.

The chalholc church in Italy is so freaking rich and they wouldn't help these women and traffic the children. How much do want to bet they made a big profit doing this. I call that evil domonic forces.

The church lied. 😟 I’m Catholic and this deeply saddens me.

And no one should be shocked when organized religion decides a woman's right to defend her own body's medical decisions. Your body my choice.

I was not adopted my parents divorced when I was 4 ot was the 1950s. I grew up wihtout any memory of her but there were photos in an album. Even though I didnt have a memory of her, I longed for her all my childhood. At 31 I made my dream come true. She lived in England. I flew over to see her numerous times. Then when she had had a stroke was widowed .....she had remarried a Brit...I was called by a friend of hers they thought sje needed a nursing home. I flew over and she didnt want a nursing home. So my mate eho had become an RN at 50 said lets take her to Guatemala we can rent a house amd affrpd round the clock care. We dopid that and she ha a wonderful end of life she loved wking up I opeme her shutters and she would say how beautful the volcano amd roses in front of her window were...I hope my ending is as serene amd happy.

The British government did this starting in 1619 and did not stop it until the 1970s. Hundreds of thousands of children from unwell mothers and street children were forcibly sent overseas, and suffered terrible sexual violence.

This is very much like the British home Children. These kids were sent to Canada and other countries sold for 2$ per child.

This is why I left this organization and is now agnostic.

Im sure they sold the babies,poor unwed moms i cant imagine the pain it caused.🤧

It's absurd that, as an Italian, I get to know this from foreign media and no one is talking about it here!

The Vatican has done far worse things to thousands of children and nuns who worked there umin the Vatican. 😢

These American adoptees should sue the Vatican

Boy, oh Boy, oh Boy... The bodies just keep on piling up in regards to the Catholic church, figuratively and LITERALLY, don't they? 😒

So sad. Thought it was only Ireland that was so ruthless. 🙏🏻

So that means the people in the church are false prophets

This was a business for them plain and simple, they have to answer for their atrocities

OMG! That's so cruel.

I was born out of wedlock, almost adopted out in my country of birth. But my grandmother traveled to take me back home with her. When I was two years old my mother returned and married, I was then sent to live with her. She never wanted me so my life wasn't a very good one. My grandmother took me to her home most weekends and summers so I did get the experience of love with her. When I graduated high school I was told the man I thought was my dad wasn't, he adopted me after he married my mom. I never wanted to know my birth father, he hadn't wanted me. One thing I have noticed when there is a program about forced adoptions, which has happened often through time, there really was great shame for the mother and the child in back then. Sex out of wedlock just wasn't done, such strick rules for how to behave in society. People seem to use today's standards and feelings about things, to judge what was thought proper many years ago. That doesn't work. Not that adopting out babies was the right thing to do then, but if you can understand why some things were done from that times point of view, it can take away some of the anger, resentment and sorrow usually experienced now. Understanding this has helped me stay happy and put my life in perspective. I hope everyone searching can find their other families.

Just another reason to support my decision to leave the church.

I swear one of the worst things to happen to humanity was the catholic church and religion in general

As a Catholic born child, this is one of the most disgraceful acts my church has ever committed.

This church is the gift that keeps on giving. Keep your kids away from these monsters. I absolutely hate this church. Any charges? Any lawsuits? That is straight up child trafficking. Selling them on an open black market.

10:28 oh wow she's not kidding THEY LOOK LIKE TWINS!

I saw this last night on 60 minutes and all I could think about was the Judi Dench movie “Philomena”

"Religion poisons everything." -Hitchens

Isn't this literal child trafficking? Jesus

The wickedness and cruelty in thiis world is so deep that if you truly have a conscience, then this is the type of story that makes one cry to see that even the church that is claims to be good is this cruel. I am out of words .

The RC Church did the same thing to young women in the US in the 50s and 60s, pressuring young women to give up their children and keeping bad paperwork on purpose so these women could never find their children

What a shame. Am Italian. Such kind of things sre still existing in Italy here, in a different way. Am an Italian mother STOLEN nowadays, 2020 (!!!) from my second doughter BY THE LAW. Which law?!?!! Am Italian. Is a disgrace. Am trying to fight to have my doughter back. In Italy here is even difficoult to find a lawyer not corrupt that helps 4 my unbelieveble case. Italy is NOT a legal country and am ashamed to be an italian. Silvia Lucchini.

Back then having a child out of wedlock was scandalous ! And all the moral beliefs behind it . But , they shouldn’t have lied ; and not having the Mothers permission to sign off , is inexcusable. I understand they thought they were giving the children a better life was their intention at that time . There was so little information then on the consequences of grief or shame and the identity confusion of being adopted . Ignorance isn’t bliss in these times . I pray for healing for everyone ❤

Those born in the Catholicism are habituated to this kind of cruelty. To this fear. This shame. This guilt. These poor women. No one would ever willingly choose to be Catholic if not for the fact that they grew up in a country where Catholicism was forced on them. *I’m speaking to you the Supreme Court of the United States.*

Will Catholic answers & other catholic apologetics answer this scandal?

The Catholic Church needs an overhaul. Lots of bad things done in the name of God and Jesus.

This story has me wondering if this could possibly also happened back in the 30s. My father was adopted back in 1931 and his birth certificate was doctor and I have no idea who his family is to this day. It really bothers me, I joined ancestry DNA, only to find my mother’s family. I feel so bad for anybody that this happens too. My father went through his whole life wondering who his family was and he died not knowing, so Heartbreaking

Yet, no one blinks an eye at this human trafficking because "it's church biznez".

Will the Vatican never pay for their sins?

No one lies like a religious leader.

It was here in the USA to if you was unmarried and Catholic in the 1950s and 1960s I remember my friends older sister was sent away my father later told me why at the time I wasn't old enough to understand

This is very similar to what happened in Ireland. There was one 2013 Irish/British film that dramaticised this starring Dame Judi Dench....the movie was Philomena.

All about the money!

I don't know if it would make them feel better, but maybe the adopted individuals should come together, and the Pope should travel to them, and apologize in person, and give some sort of substantial financial compensation for their grief. They can never get back the life that was stolen from them, but it might lessen the pain and suffering.

The Vatican most likely earned loads of money on this

The Lords Servant 2024 Zero Tolerance on Scandels & Abuses ✝️ 🙏

In the Pulitzer Prize winning book the Pope and Mussolini it was proven that Pope Pius the 12th rounded up thousands of Jews and sent them back to Hitler's Germany. A little over a decade earlier. What a loving Church.

Like the orphan trains right here in the US

Old nunneries sold and after there foundations were dug up several bodies of babies were found buried underneath them. They were of the Nuns that had lived there through their decades.

What wonderful "Christians". Churches SHOULD be helping people, not hurting them. They should be a force for good, not for hatred and evil.

They should all sue for this cruel time I bet the Church never thought this would come back at bite them.

An American doctor in the 70s tried to do the same thing to me but I didn’t give her up. He refused to deliver her because I wouldn’t give her up and I ended up with a different doctor at the delivery

They were selling them at today's money, $4,500. So they were "Scauring" for more children. This is beyond horrible.

“They publicly declare that they know God, but they disown him by their works.”​-TITUS 1:16.

So sad. I can’t imagine the heartbreak these woman went through. Absolutely awful! My only hope is that all children went to good homes when they were adopted. Terrible situation on both ends of this situation.

They were selling the children.

Thank you for sharing with us!

This Catholic Church...I thought the scandals were exhausted by now!?

Heartbreaking. Another reason not to trust the Cathollic church

The church continues to set the bar for fking up others lives.

They did the same thing in Spain during Franco's regime, in Ireland and in Chile and Argentina during the years of the dictatorship.

I've seen similar TV shows and movies about Irish Catholic babies, born to single mothers in Ireland during the 1950's and 60's, that were sent to Irish Catholic married families in Boston so they could be adopted. Either way, the assumption was that 'the church' knew the best thing to do.

This is heartbreaking. The Church prides itself on family but doing this, stealing away children from their birth mothers is the very antithesis of its doctrine. So very sad. These priests should be ashamed of themselves. Such an injustice for these children and their mothers 😢

Big Government, Big Business, and Big Religion are ultimately evil. Nothing can be done. They rule the world. Just love each other.

THE DEVIL ALL UP IN THE CHURCH 💯 PRAYING GOD HELP US 🙏

Thanks so much for illuminating this 60 minutes. My lineage has something like this and it answers questions

How awful!! I’m glad to know that some of them are finding each other now, but I’m sure that many will not, and no doubt many will find that the Moms have passed before they could connect. Unfortunately this is not the only time this has happened. Read the novel ‘Before We Were Yours’ by Lisa Wingate, a novel based on a true experience of the same thing in America, run not by a church but by a woman who was in it for the money. Babies and young children were taken from mothers and families who were poor and sold as orphans to rich people. Heart-wrenching.

There have always been many inhuman beings in religion going back to prehistory....this will never change. People will always have great danger from the moral failures who comprise the "safety" of the church, especially the Catholic Church, in which the dregs of humanity have always been protected from discovery and the justice system.