Cultural relativism aside, I’m sure we can agree on “terrible” if we talk it out. I’m not asking for a “well X country is worse than Y country, so, Y country isn’t THAT bad”. I’d say for this discussion we can go as far back as 1800 for “past” as I’m currently convinced there isn’t a country with a perfect track record going back even that short a time.
I’d argue that the fledgling state didn’t have much of a choice but to effectively outsource all civil services to the catholic church, considering that they couldn’t afford running it themselves.
Their only fault on their part is how it was allowed to stay that way.
But why would the state need to forcibly send unwed mothers to give birth at these sites and then in some cases involuntarily adopt out the children? None of that was necessary even if they couldn’t afford a state run system.