The Magdalene Sisters movie

Recently I watched The Magdalene Sisters(2002), the story of teenage girls who were sent to Magdalene Asylums, otherwise known as the 'Magdalen Laundries': homes for women who were labeled as "fallen" by their families or society (though the film itself questions this). The homes were maintained by individual religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.

It was indeed disturbing; probably not a movie for everyone.  For an excellent commentary on the film see Steven Greydanus' review.

Two important points from his review.  First the story is true, and probably worse than the abuses shown in the film.:

Did the Magdalene asylums, originally established in the nineteenth century by the Sisters of Mercy as spiritual refuges for prostitutes and other women penitents, go on to hold girls and even grown women against their will, for disgraces ranging from extramarital pregnancy to mere flirting or even having been raped?

Did some women grow old and die working in the infamous Magdalene laundries, not necessarily out of personal conviction or desire for a vocation to lifelong penance, but more or less because the doors were locked?

Were girls brutally beaten for inadvertent or minor offenses, stripped naked and mocked by sadistic nuns over the sizes of their various body parts, abused in other ways?

Tragically, it seems that there may indeed be truth to these charges. While The Magdalene Sisters is a work of fiction, the abuses it depicts are allegedly based on credible survivor accounts of life in the Magdalene institutions, which are said to have taken in as many as 30,000 women between their inception in the 1880s and their final closing in 1996. In fact, there are reports that, according to some survivors, the abuses depicted in The Magdalene Sisters actually fall short of the worst that really happened, and the director himself has commented that he refrained from recreating the most terrible reported incidents for fear of overwhelming and alienating the audience.

And also the tragic flaw with the film:

Peter Mullan(director) was raised Catholic but in interviews has stated that he has considered himself a Marxist from his teenaged years, and has described belief in heaven and hell as "nonsense" and "the whole notion of celibacy" as "nuts" and "perverse."

Mullan claims that his film isn’t meant to be anti-Catholic, but is meant to expose the victimization of young women by a certain phenomenon in the Church. Nevertheless, he freely acknowledges his animosity toward his Catholic upbringing, and admits that he brought his prejudices and sympathies to this project.

In the end the filmmaker seemed to be simply campaigning against the Church as a whole(or at least women religious).  Honestly I think the film could have been Schindler's List good, but it ended up showing a human nature (and maybe Irish society) irredeemable and hopeless.  But in film(and any art) there is a way to move people to seek the redemption that any passing glance at history, especially the 20th century, is a glaring reminder. I would like to see another filmmaker try to tell this story who isn't just banging an ideological drum.

But, I am glad I watched it.  Indeed, now we know of so many abuse stories during the same time period, and the Holy Father recent review of the glaring failures of the episcopacy of Ireland (which did not include the Magdalene Asylums abuses) puts this time period in context.  Especially the hypocrisy of Catholic parents sending children away to protect their "good name" glares of a ugly Pharisaical Puritanism.  We don't cover up our sinfulness as Protestant theology(Luther) teaches, we need humility and trust Divine Mercy to heal us, our families, and our society.  Parents shame over their children's sins is part of the job, deal with it!