Stolen Babies of Spain

Spanish Catholic Church Colluded With Conservative Politicians In This Sinful Act

This 1971 photo shows Catholic nuns with a lady who purchased a baby in a Malaga hospital, Spain 

Photo courtesy: BBC

A BBC documentary, called This World: Spain’s Stolen Babies and aired in October of 2011, shows that a secret network of Catholic doctors, nurses, priests, and nuns were complicit with the right-wing Catholic fascist dictator General Franco of Spain (1939 – 1975) in stealing new-born babies and then trafficking them in the name of good and holy cause. Even after the death of the dictator in 1975, this illegal, unjust, and unchristian act continued up to the early 1990's.

General Franco was a rabid right-winger who ruled authoritatively, without giving any legitimate right to the citizens of Spain, and he considered his opponents, especially leftists and communists, as enemies of the state.

To curtail the influence of communism in the country, he pursued a secret policy of stealing babies born to leftist and communist parents (who were thought to be a threat to the government and the Catholic Church and religion) and giving them to government-approved “Catholic” parents for adoption at an exorbitant price. Later, babies born to single mothers, irreligious mothers, and poor mothers, too, were taken and sold similarly. In the name of keeping people Catholic, priests and nuns also cooperated in this vicious venture by providing false birth certificates to these stolen babies and telling birth-mothers that their babies died immediately after birth. The Spanish Church thought that it got a contract from God to keep the country Catholic by any means – lawful or unlawful. It was also a financially profitable business for the Spanish government and the Catholic Church. 

Where was God in all this? Why does God flee away when members of the Catholic hierarchy commit mortal sins and give scandals, but comes on the mortal-sinning lay persons with all the vengeance? The Catholic priests are supposed to be alter Christus --  another Christ -- according to the teaching of the Catholic Church. In certain countries, some Catholic bishops and priests are after lay Catholic politicians who are pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia as well as lay men and women who are divorced and remarried -- telling them not to receive holy communion in the Mass because these persons are living in mortal sins. But in Spain, at that time, the priests and nuns, who committed mortal sins serially by stealing these babies, kept on receiving holy communion in the Mass. Nobody was there to bar them from saying Mass or receiving holy communion. This is called scandal of the first rate. 

Pope Francis, nowadays is telling us Catholics to abandon this very judgmental, condemning, and greedy attitude and be merciful and self-sacrificing instead.

To know more on this shameful and sinful episode of the Spanish history, you may read the following:

• Spain's stolen babies and families who lived a lie (October 18, 2011)
• 300,000 babies stolen and sold for adoption by Spain Catholic Church (Video)
• BBC documentary exposes 50-year scandal of baby trafficking by the Catholic Church in Spain (October 16, 2011)
• Hundreds of Spanish babies 'stolen from clinics and sold for adoption' (January 27, 2011)
• Spain Confronts Decades of Pain Over Lost Babies (July 6, 2011)
• Spain's Baby-Snatching Scandal Focuses on Nun's Alleged Role (April 11, 2012)
• 80-year-old Spanish nun faces charges in massive baby-stealing ring (April 12, 2012)
• Spain's Stolen Babies Scandal: Empty Graves and a Silent Nun (April 13, 2012)
• Stolen babies scandal haunts Spain (April 26, 2012)
• Lost Children of Francoism
• Mother Finds Stolen Baby in Spain After 44 Years (June 16, 2013)
• In Spain, A Criminal Ring of Nuns and Doctors Stole Hundreds of Thousands of Babies (April 21, 2016)
• Spain: 'Stolen babies' scandal finally goes to trial (May 17, 2017)
• Spanish authorities agree to open 'stolen' archives (May 24, 2017)
• 'They told me my baby had died ... but now I know she may have been stolen and trafficked' (June 8, 2017)
• The Spanish Civil War
• Spanish Civil War
• Spanish Civil War
• Spanish Civil War Photos

(Updated on August 31, 2017)  
(Updated on April 13, 2018)