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Volume 10 1951~1957

Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 388 NAI DFA/5/345/96/II

'Discussion with Monsignor O'Grady
at the Department on the 16th January, 1956.
Mr. Morrissey, Miss Kenny and Mr. G. Woods were present'

Dublin, 16 January 1956

  1. Monsignor O’Grady said that he had received our letter of the 8th December1 but had not brought it with him. He would, accordingly, be glad if we would refresh his memory on the points raised. Mr. Morrissey told him that, first, we were interested in the question of Branches of the Catholic Charities Organisation, which according to information which had reached us were not registered as Adoption Societies in certain States of the USA. Monsignor O’Grady replied that all Branches of the Catholic Charities Organisation were legally registered and there was no such thing as an unregistered Branch. He said he wanted to emphasise the point, which he did a number of times. He did not, however, offer any amplification of his statement: he expanded his remarks instead to deal at some length with questions relating to legislative and judicial processes in the USA and since he proceeded from there to speak of the independence of the US Judiciary, it shortly became impossible to see the relevance of his remarks.
  2. Turning abruptly from the question of the American Judiciary the Monsignor began to speak about certain irregular ‘adoptions’, which had recently been placed in the States of Texas and Wisconsin, by what he described as a ‘commercial operator’. This man, he stated, had made money from these operations and his activities had caused the Catholic Charities Organisation grave embarrassment. Monsignor O’Grady was asked where the children were coming from: he answered they were coming from Ireland. He was asked did he mean that this man was operating in adoption cases, which had been cleared to the Department of External Affairs. The Monsignor answered that he did and he wanted to issue a word of warning to us about them.
  3. These statements came as a complete shock and Monsignor O’Grady was informed that we were quite unaware of the activities of the ‘operator’ in Texas and Wisconsin. We could not conceive how the children got into his hands since, as the Monsignor himself was well aware, our inflexible rule was to deal only with the Catholic Charities Organisation. We should, therefore, like to have more details of the irregular placements. He was reminded of the various precautions taken by the Department, which appeared to be foolproof in their security, and if children were, notwithstanding, being placed irregularly in the USA, the fault must lie with the local Branches of the Catholic Charities Organisation. The Monsignor was asked if the ‘operator’ in question had been associated or connected with a Branch of the Organisation. He avoided a direct reply to this question. It was again emphasised that the vetting of the applications in the Department’s Passport Office was quite exhaustive and we were unable to perceive how irregularities could occur at our end. Mr. Morrissey finally remarked ‘If children are being misplaced in the USA, it means that we are being deceived by persons on the American side’. Monsignor O’Grady replied ‘I’m afraid that is true’.
  4. Monsignor O’Grady said he would like to explain to us something of the difficulties which confronted his Organisation in those areas of the USA where the Catholic population formed a very small percentage of the total. He said that it was necessary to bear in mind that Catholics formed only 8% of the agricultural population of America. There were individual States of vast geographical extent, in which the percentage was even lower. In those areas it was impossible to maintain thriving Branches of the Organisation. There was a lack of funds, which restricted the employment of specialised personnel and there was the physical difficulty of the vast areas to be covered. The inference to be drawn from these statements of the Monsignor appeared to be that the Catholic Charities Organisation was not in fact equipped at all its Branches to deal satisfactorily with adoptions.
  5. Monsignor O’Grady said he would like to advert to a plan which he had put forward during his last visit to Ireland, under which the arrangements for the placement of Irish children in the USA would be handled en bloc by his Headquarters Organisation. The idea behind this scheme, he explained, was that the arrangements would be handled by certain selected diocesan organisations, which had the necessary funds and trained staff to carry out the preliminary family surveys and also to provide adequate supervision of the child’s treatment and upbringing after the placement was made. He said he could give an assurance that this scheme, if adopted, would put an end once and for all to irregularities. It was pointed out to the Monsignor that from our point of view there were a number of difficulties in this scheme, not the least of which was the fact that it would involve dispensing with the advance vetting of the individual placements by the Irish authorities and that was a feature of the scheme, which was likely to be strenuously opposed.

    Monsignor O’Grady was asked whether it would not be possible to channel applications, coming from those States in which his organisation appeared to be weak, through his head office at Washington for a final clearance before the documents were dispatched to Ireland. He did not welcome the idea. He said it would not be feasible without the addition of extra staff to his office, which was already over burdened, and they were quite opposed to taking on further duties.

    He told us that an arrangement had been worked out with Canada on the lines he was suggesting, and nowadays all children coming from Canada for adoption were being placed in certain selected dioceses. The Canadian authorities had made this arrangement directly with the diocesan organisations concerned, and it was working well. It was not clear to us from the information given here by the Monsignor whether the scheme involved the handing over of the children en bloc or whether the Canadian authorities had retained the right to examine and approve of the individual placement arrangements in advance.

    On the assumption that some review of our present procedure would have to be considered, in view of his statements in regard to the weakness of the Catholic Charities Organisation in certain States, Monsignor O’Grady was asked whether, in the event that Irish children were channelled into certain selected dioceses, it would be possible to preserve the present arrangements for individual vetting of the placements by the Irish authorities before final clearance was given. He said he thought this would be feasible; it did not seem to present any insurmountable difficulties. He was asked whether he could give any general idea of the dioceses or areas which would be selected for the Irish children. He said that off-hand he could not give any definite information.

  6. Monsignor O’Grady said that in approaching the question of the placement of Irish children from an ‘area’ viewpoint he would divide the Catholic Charities Organisation into three categories:
    1. The areas, already discussed, in which the organisation was not really adequately equipped to deal with placements.
    2. The areas where the organisation was strong and agreeable to accept Irish children.
    3. The areas, where although there was a strong organisation of Catholic Charities, for one reason or another the local directors concerned were not prepared to accept Irish children for adoption.

    The Monsignor spoke briefly about category (2) and mentioned some of the dioceses which he thought would come into it. These were: Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Newark, Albany and Syracuse. He spoke about the State of Illinois, where he stated his organisation was in a very flourishing condition, and remarked that the city of Chicago could itself accommodate all the Irish children that were available for adoption.

    With regard to category (3), we reminded Monsignor O’Grady that we had adverted to the areas, in which Irish children were not accepted, in our letter of the 8th December and we were still anxious to have a list of the areas concerned. As was stated in our letter, we had no wish to intervene in these areas, but it was desirable that the various Irish institutions, which were handling adoption cases, should be in possession of precise information of the areas concerned. Our complaint was that some of the branches of the Catholic Charities Organisations in those areas were not being frank about the position with prospective American adoptive families and were resorting to various devices in order to avoid appearing unhelpful. Monsignor O’Grady was shown a case, which had reached the Department a few days earlier, in respect of an adoption proposed for a family in the State of Rhode Island and in which every requirement, in the matter of affidavits, medical references, etc., had been meticulously fulfilled but there was no ‘home study’ from the Catholic Charities Organisation. Instead, and Monsignor O’Grady’s attention was drawn to the document, there was a ‘personal’ recommendation of two short paragraphs given by no less a person than the Reverend Director of the local Catholic Charities Branch. This reference was given in April, 1955, and on the basis of it the American family and the Irish institution concerned had put themselves to a great deal of trouble making the necessary preparations for the placement of the child. The application, of course, would be refused by the Department of External Affairs. The Monsignor agreed that it was most misleading on the part of the Director of the Catholic Charities Branch in Rhode Island to have given such a reference, when his organisation was not prepared to act officially in the case.

    We remarked that presumably States such as Rhode Island would not be included in the scheme. Monsignor O’Grady replied that there would be no alternative but to exclude the States, where the local policy of the Organisation was opposed to the admission of Irish ‘adoptions’. We said we were not particularly concerned about Rhode Island but the exclusion of States such as New York, where there existed a large Irish element in the population, might be a different matter. Yet, New York at the present time was also refusing to accept Irish children. Monsignor O’Grady said he would have to look into this aspect of the question. He was glad we had mentioned it because it was obviously desirable that adoptions from Ireland should go to the ‘Irish’ areas in the USA.

  1. The meeting terminated at this point. Monsignor O’Grady said he would give further thought to the scheme for selected Dioceses. There would be a meeting of Diocesan Directors of his Organisation in February and he would consider putting his proposals before them. We informed him that in the meantime we would also give further consideration to the proposals.

1 See No. 379.

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