‘Our babies were taken’: Woman sues archdiocese claiming forced adoption

Kathleen Chafin was a college student in 1968 when she and her boyfriend found out she was pregnant.

They planned to get married and after the child’s birth move to the college’s housing for married couples, Chasin claims in a federal lawsuit. But her local priest in her hometown of Omaha intervened forced her to give her newborn up for adoption, the suit alleges.

The priest, the Rev. Thomas A. Halley, came to Chafin’s home over spring break and berated her, telling her: “Chafin had brought shame to her family; Chafin giving birth out of wedlock was equal to murder; Chafin had damned her soul; and Chafin was doomed to spend eternity in hell,” according to the lawsuit.

Now a property manager in Seattle, Chafin says she “was forced, under duress, by Father Halley” to live in a home for unmarried pregnant women. And when the child was born, he was taken away, she says.

“I reached for my baby only to find my arms and legs were tied down to the labor bed,” Chafin told NBC affiliate WOWT in Omaha. “I was never allowed to see or hold my child — no matter how much I asked.”

Chafin’s $10 million federal claim, filed last week in Omaha, says Halley is now dead but that he was a representative of both the Archdiocese of Omaha and the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus, which are both named as defendants in the suit.

Neither the archdiocese nor the society could be reached for comment Tuesday.

Chafin became inspired, in part, to find her baby by a critically acclaimed 2013 movie, “Philomena,” that featured Judi Dench playing real-life mom Philomena Lee and her search for the son she lost to a forced adoption in Ireland in 1951.

The movie chronicled the “lifelong pain” endured by young mothers like Lee and Chafin, the lawsuit said.

“Our babies were taken from us. We were forced into it. We were shamed into it. I was drugged and tied down and to say I willingly gave up my child for adoption is a lie,” Chafin told the Omaha NBC station.

Chafin met her birth son in 2015, after he answered an online ad. They have kept in touch ever since. She had six other children in addition to that first son.