Our horror at the mass baby grave in Ireland shows an instinctive religiosity

Why is it that we are more shocked by what happens to dead babies than to live ones? The story that almost 800 dead babies were buried in a disused sewage tank outside Tuam in rural Ireland turns out to be problematic. It is certain that 796 babies did die under the care of nuns in a home for unmarried mothers there between 1925 and 1961 and that is in itself a shocking statistic. But what gave the story wings was the claim that their bodies had been dumped in a septic tank, widely attributed to Catherine Corless, the local historian who uncovered the scandal.
In an interview she has denied that she ever used the term "dumped". More to the point, it was impossible that 800 children were placed there, since "only" 204 died in the years before the home was connected to the mains water supply, in 1937. In her first account of the discovery, Corless described the structure as a "crypt". Only later did she identify it, from a map, as a septic tank. If the bodies were placed in it long after it had been drained and disused, this would seem much less shocking. That less shocking story is at least plausible: the alternative would be that the nuns buried some babies decently in the unofficial graveyard but just dumped others in the cesspit. On what basis could they possibly have chosen?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/jun/11/horror-mass-baby-grave-ireland-instinctive-religiosity