Philomena: The Woman. The Film. The Project.

The movie is breathtaking!  One could hear audible gasps when action became tense, but tears and sniffles could also be distinguished from the otherwise silent audience—intent on missing not a moment of the mesmerizing and spellbinding scenes. 

This is more than a story of a mother trying to find the child who had been dragged away from her some 50 years before.  It is a story of undying love and infinite human connections, innocence, faith, anger and forgiveness, devotion to the overriding principles of Church even when its precepts seem not to be in alignment with God’s teachings. 

It is about a remarkable woman who is among the very few who could endure the pain and anguish and desperation that she had and yet come out on the other side (a process about which John Steinbeck wrote so poignantly in his book, The Pearl).  Truly, most of us (I included) would not be able to forgive and rise about the narrow-minded, irrational, and insensitive acts that tortured her all those years. 

Her real story starts out in Ireland in the early 1950s.  Her mother had died and she and her siblings were sent to a convent school for years.  When she was finally able to leave and get a job to support herself, she did not know that she knew nothing of the kind of life she would face as a young woman.  She was so innocent of even basic knowledge that she had absolutely no idea about what sex means and how a baby is born! 

Out on the town with friends, she met this young boy with whom she became immediately enamored.  They enjoyed the “perfect” evening which culminated in her very first sexual encounter.  Within months she realized she was pregnant and was disowned by her father who once again signed her away to a convent where most of the sisters considered her “condition” a penalty for unrighteous behavior.  They forced her to give birth without any kind of medication (a breech birth), claiming that her torturous pain was the penance she must pay for her “licentiousness,” a teaching she unquestioningly accepted not only then but throughout most of her life—because it came from Church ideologies.  

She carried an unremitting guilt for years—guilt over the sexual activity in which she engaged that was considered so sinful at the time.  When the nuns took her beloved son, Anthony, away from her when he was three and a half, she was told her loss was the penance she had to pay for her wicked life—and she believed it.  She believed she deserved the cruelty that was inflicted upon her. 

Yet, she adored her son.  He had been so loving to her but also possessed a special, caring quality that carried over to his relationship with the young daughter of a woman that Philomena had met at the convent.  He took the little girl (nearly the same age) under wing and they became inseparable, so when the American family came to adopt a little girl, they felt obligated to adopt him as well.  The little ones were torn away from their mothers and taken to Missouri where they assumed new names, a situation that would make it harder to locate them later. In fact, none of the mothers there were ever allowed to say good-bye to their children. 

Though flashbacks were liberally utilized as well as the inclusion of the occasional video clip (actual and created), most of the story is about the search for Philomena’s child (with the aid of the journalist, Martin Sixsmith).  She had met him through her daughter, Jane—constantly at her mother’s side, at all times offering her devoted, boundless, inexhaustible love and support. 

After Philomena left the convent, she went to Liverpool and eventually became a psychiatric nurse—a profession that inadvertently served her well because it helped her accept her earlier circumstances.  She eventually did learn how to forgive herself.  

Before she was taken to the convent, she was forbidden ever again to meet her boyfriend again—a sadness that I believe she still carries, yet her life has been full and she is happy with what she is doing with it.  In fact, while practicing her profession, she met her husband, a male nurse.  They married and together had a son and daughter.  Her husband passed away not too long ago, but they lived a rich, loving life together. 

Part of what helped her get through life was her dear brother who always tried to be there for her.  He is still her rock and confidante.  

I won’t ruin the film for you, but let us just say that mother and child reunited by story’s end in a genuinely unexpected, agonizing, heart-rending moment. 

Philomena was encouraged to have her story written as an example to the world that these conditions had happened not only to her but to thousands of others.  She was at first hesitant but finally came to the realization that she had survived all these years not only to have her own story told but to do something significant for all the other families who had similar stories to share. 

Thus, in association with the Adoption Rights Alliance, a new program has been born:  The Philomena Project. 

The governments of Ireland and the United State have been and remain complicit in squelching the ability of those intimately involved in the adoptions to locate birth and adoption records so that reunions can be arranged.  The governments continue to hide from the public the nefarious acts that took place.  These mothers were forced to perform hard labor for four years to cover both the costs of the birthing procedures and the subsequent fees for their own accommodations.  They could eventually leave but only after their children were bought by American families seeking to adopt Irish children.  These innocent mothers were coerced into signing papers to give up their children even though they wanted to keep them.  

For the convent, it was a money-making proposition.  For the mothers and their children, it was the cruelest of all treatment that could be wrought upon them because of the “sins” of the mother—or so the nuns and priests rationalized. 

The convent still exists (but under the auspices of “nicer” nuns) and you can visit it if you wish.  In fact, it was these “new” nuns that provided some very important documents that made the creation of the book and movie possible. 

Today one can find the once-hidden gravesites of the many young mothers (one as young as 14) and babies, one or both of whom died during childbirth (according to teachings, an apparent punishment for transgressions).  What madness went on there?!  The contempt for and indifference to the needs of these young women were astonishing.  I guess, in a way, the nuns considered that their charges were sub-human and therefore not deserving of humane treatment. 

Though this convent no longer takes babies from their mothers as was done years past, the secrets from behind those walls rarely come to the fore.  But things are changing and events are moving quickly.  The Adoption Rights Alliance along with the support of the Philomena Project is making a difference.   The widely read book, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Sixsmith

(based upon her actual story), and the subsequent film have brought to light a situation about which most of us have long been unaware. 

It is not too late for many of these mothers to be reunited with their children.  Wrongs cannot be righted and lost time cannot be undone, but the lie can be rectified as the truth comes out.  These children were not freely given up by their mothers as many of the children have been told.  There is still time for reunion for most!  Children want and need to know who they are and why they were kept from growing up with their biological mothers—they have that natural right! 

“The ultimate and most important goal of the Philomena project is the release of the documents and the reunification of families that were separated by forced or illegal adoptions.”  Parenthetically, though Philomena has lived most of her life in England,  it is not the English government that is not forthcoming with adoption records (their policies are quite the opposite).  

The Irish government, in the meantime, has formally apologized for what happened but the position of the Catholic Church remains one of denial.  It claims that these “adoption convents” (otherwise known as the mother-and-baby homes) and the Magdalene Laundries (whose history has been exposed through recent documentaries) were anything but malevolent but rather served an altruistic purpose. 

The Philomena Project is hoping that, through petitions signed from all over the world, the Church will finally relent and allow mothers and children to locate each other through the many extant records still held or controlled by Church authorities. The Church claims it is protecting the privacy of the mothers who, in fact, never asked for that information to be hidden.  

What is more, during their entire stay at the convent, the names of the mothers were changed against their will, making subsequent identifications even more difficult to acquire.   Once gathered, however, these records can be centralized at the Philomena Headquarters for all seekers who wish to unearth the information for which they have long been looking. 

Philomena and her daughter insist that their movement is not an attack on the Church.  In fact, at this point, most of the records have been relocated to and under the “protection” of the Irish Health Service Executive.   Our country, by the fact that so many of these toddlers came here, also has a moral imperative to help to get records open that have so long been closed.  

I don’t believe that our nation is as resistant as Ireland is to keeping secret whatever information we might have.  In fact, going online in Washington, D. C., helped Philomena and Sixsmith to obtain a lot of pertinent information that helped them move forward on their journey to locate her son. 

Regardless, if the American government cannot convince the Irish government and the Church to allow access to the materials, there are those who will consider bringing the issue before the United Nations. 

In the meantime, the night of the screening offered me the extraordinary privilege of chatting with Philomena and Jane during the reception that followed the Q and A.  Jane is so devoted and so helpful to her mother.  Philomena is very simply a phenomenal human being!  She speaks easily with a new-found confidence in who she is and her purpose in life.  Despite her obvious travails throughout her 80 years, she seems to be better for it (though nothing can really erase the wrongs done and the torment experienced by Philomena and her son—who, by the way, became a prominent official for the Republic National Committee some years ago). 

When you meet her, you examine the kind of person you are inside and then want to be more like her.  What a role model for humanity!  She truly changed me.  As I left her to the others who also wanted some of her time, I kissed her on the cheek and thanked her for the saintly person she has become and for the legacy that she leaves. 

● You may contact the Philomena Project to get more information, to sign a petition, to get involved, and especially (if you are one of the mothers or children) to try to locate the loved one who was taken away from you:  philomenaproject.org.

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(Rosemary Jenkins is a Democratic activist and chair of the Northeast Valley Green Coalition. Jenkins has written Leticia in Her Wedding Dress and Other Poems, A Quick-and-Easy Reference to Correct Grammar and Composition and Vignettes for Understanding Literary and Related Concepts.  She also writes for CityWatch.)

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CityWatch

Vol 12 Issue 13

Pub: Feb 14, 2014