The Price of Children

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“I was spellbound . . . one of the best books I’ve recently read” —Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Olive Kittredge . A powerful church. An acquiescent government. In The Price of Children , investigative journalist Maria Laurino details the shocking story of mothers and children deceived and exploited as directed by the highest levels of the Vatican. Between 1950 and 1970, the Vatican and the American Catholic Church sent nearly four thousand Italian children to the United States for adoption into “good” Catholic homes. With the religious stigma of unwed motherhood turning families against daughters and a Church and State wanting “illegitimate” children sent abroad, mothers were lied to, given forms to sign that they didn’t understand, or even told their baby had died, all to further supply this international adoption pipeline.