( CNN ) -- The revelation that nearly 800 children may have been buried in an unmarked mass grave at a former Catholic-run home for unwed mothers in Ireland is `` sickening '' and must be investigated , the country 's top Catholic clergyman says . Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has issued a statement urging anyone with information about mass graves to go to the authorities . `` The Gospel message is that authentic faith is measured by how we treat children who represent Jesus Christ , '' Martin said in the June 5 statement . On June 1 , the Irish Mail on Sunday cited a local historian as saying she believed 796 children who had died between 1925 and 1961 at a home run by the Sisters of Bon Secours had been buried in an unofficial grave beside the home 's old location in Tuam , County Galway . Local children stumbled upon the grave in the 1970s , Irish media reported , but the site was never examined afterward . The historian , Catherine Corless , told The Irish Times Saturday that she had bought death certificates for the children but she found that there had been no burial records . The revelation has sparked calls for an investigation and renewed questions about the treatment of unmarried mothers and their children by the Catholic Church and institutions associated with it . 'Full bodied inquiry ' The Dublin Archdiocese said Martin had asked the Diocesan archivist to compile information on mother and baby homes in Dublin several months ago . Hundreds of documents had been collated but none so far contained information concerning mass graves , it said . `` The Archbishop has said he will share this information with any inquiry the government will establish . He expressed the hope that a full bodied inquiry will be set up , examining all aspects of life in the homes and crucially how adoptions were organized . '' In an interview with Ireland 's national broadcaster RTE Sunday , Martin said it was important that any commission investigating the graves be given `` full judicial powers . '' `` I also think it 's very important that the commission be clearly separate from church/state or any other organization that was involved in it , '' he told RTE . `` I 'm not too sure we can throw the entire blame at the church , I think that would be wrong to do that . There was a society in which there was a sort of collusion between the church and state institutions , '' Martin said . The archbishop called for a commission to be established to study the social context of the period . Government response . Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Charlie Flanagan said in a statement Wednesday that `` active consideration '' was being given to how to address the details that had emerged . `` Many of the revelations are deeply disturbing and a shocking reminder of a darker past in Ireland when our children were not cherished as they should have been , '' he said . Government departments are working together to establish the best course of action , said Flanagan . Opposition parties Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail have urged a comprehensive government inquiry into the matter . Archbishop Michael Neary , who heads the Tuam archdiocese , last week welcomed any government move to examine what happened at the home . `` It will be a priority for me , in cooperation with the families of the deceased , to seek to obtain a dignified re-interment of the remains of the children in consecrated ground in Tuam , '' he said . 'Magdalen Laundries ' The Tuam case is the latest high-profile episode in which the state and Catholic Church have been called to account over care of the most vulnerable in Irish society . A government report last year into the so-called Magdalen Laundries , run by various Catholic orders , acknowledged that Ireland 's government sent thousands of women and girls to `` harsh and physically demanding '' workhouses , where they worked and lived without pay , sometimes for years . The laundries operated from 1922 to 1996 . While some were sent there by courts , others were unmarried mothers , victims of sexual abuse , orphans considered a burden to relatives or the state , or were mentally or physically disabled . And earlier this year , Philomena Lee -- whose decades-long search for the son she was forced to give up for adoption in the 1950s was the subject of an Oscar-nominated film -- launched the Philomena Project in hopes of compelling the governments of Ireland and the United States to open access to adoption records . Lee met with Pope Francis in February . Read more : Outcry over reported mass grave . CNN 's Laura Smith Spark contributed to this report .
Archbishop of Dublin has asked for anyone with information to find it . According to local legend , children in Dublin stumbled upon the grave in the 1970s . A local historian has claimed that children from a state - run home were buried there .