Adoptees are looking for answers years after unwed Italian mothers were pressured to give their babies up for adoption under a program run by the Catholic Church.
In the 1950s American Catholics were eager to adopt thousands of Italian children from an impoverished country. They thought they were saving orphans. They were wrong. Most of the children were not orphans. They were the children of unwed mothers who had been pressured into giving up their child by their families and a powerful church. Today, thousands of American adoptees are still struggling to piece together their lost lives, decades after the Vatican's orphan program ended in 1970.
She read from one letter, addressed to Monsignor Andrew Landi, an American priest living in Rome who ran the orphan program. 'I beg that my children be repatriated,' the mother wrote, 'If I cannot again see my children, I will shorten my life.'Laurino also found correspondence that showed Landi sent local priests to scour Italy's countryside for more children to be sent to America. The Church charged $475 per child – what would now be around $4,500.
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