Some of the ideas that I would like to see a new Government advance in the interests of the Safety Welfare Protection & Rights of Children
CHILDREN’S REFERENDUM
Hold the Children’s Rights Referendum preferably with a wording as close as possible to that published by Joint Oireachtas Committee in February 2010.
CHILDREN FIRST GUIDELINES
Introduce legislation to put the Children First Guidelines on a statutory basis with failure to comply being a criminal offence and also introduce system of independent inspection of audit and compliance with Children First Guidelines.
HSE
Remove responsibility for the Child Care System from the HSE and have that service reformed and delivered by people working under the aegis of Minister for Children.
STAYSAFE/SPHE
Empowering children with knowledge, confidence and language is an important part of the child protection process. The STAY SAFE and SPHE programmes within schools are a significant part of this.
• All teachers should receive a basic SPHE pre-service training as all teachers are involved in social and personal education of young people.
• There should be a module in the SPHE programme dedicated specifically to Child Safety, Welfare and Protection at post-primary level.
• Children’s knowledge of SPHE should be assessed regularly.
GARDA VETTING
There is urgent need for Garda Vetting of people working with children to be extended to facilitate the passing on of soft information, organisations working with or providing services to children have called for this to be done for many years but to no avail.
SARAH’S LAW
Parents and Guardians should be able to register a concern with authorities about any individual who has access to their children about whom they are genuinely worried. In some cases it should be possible for them to be told if such an individual is a known sex offender or not. This measure is already being rolled out in the UK, having being piloted to great effect; the pilot scheme in four counties saw one in ten calls to police uncover evidence of a criminal past. Out of 315 applications for information from concerned parents, details of 21 paedophiles were revealed. These were sex offenders known to the authorities who were putting themselves in a position of having access to children again, and they were stopped because those parents could register their concerns and access this information.
IN-CAMERA RULE
Review the In Camera rule in respect of court proceedings under the Child Care Act 1991. This rule was intended to protect children but instead protects a system which fails them.
SEX OFFENDERS
Sex offenders who have served their sentences are generally released into the community without supervision, though some may be under the supervision of the Probation Service. There is an urgent need for changes to this system to be made ...
• A multi-agency approach to the support and monitoring of released offenders must be developed along with a more stringent regime of signing on procedures with regular personal visits to Garda stations by released offenders.
• Secondly, those responsible for monitoring sex offenders should have the powers and the resources to make regular unannounced visits to the homes of released sex offenders.
• Thirdly, monitoring of sex offenders should include electronic tagging, curfews and other restrictions, for example an offender who only ever abuses children after he/she has taken alcohol should have it as a condition of their release that they don’t consume alcohol.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Full text Vatican Letter 1997
Dublin, 31 January 1997
Strictly confidential
Apostolic Nunciature In Ireland N. 808/97
Your Excellency,
The Congregation for the Clergy has attentively studied the complex question of sexual abuse of minors by clerics and the document entitled "Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response", published by the Irish Catholic Bishops' Advisory Committee.
The Congregation wishes to emphasize the need for this document to conform to the canonical norms presently in force.
The text, however, contains "proceedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the acts of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problems. If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchial recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.
In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature".
Since the policies on sexual abuse in the English speaking world exhibit many of the same characteristics and procedures, the Congregation is involved in a global study of them. At the appropriate time, with the collaboration of the interested Episcopal Conferences and in dialogue with them, the Congregation will not be remiss in establishing some concrete directives with regard to these Policies.
For these reasons and because the abovementioned text is not an official document of the Episcopal Conference but merely a study document, I am directed to inform the individual Bishops of Ireland of the preoccupations of the Congregation in its regard, underlining that in the sad cases of accusations of sexual abuse by clerics, the procedures established by the Code of Canon Law must be meticulously followed under pain of invalidity of the acts involved if the priest so punished were to make hierarchial recourse against his Bishop.
Asking you to kindly let me know of safe receipt of this letter and with the assurance of my cordial regard, I am
Yours sincerely in Christ,
+Luciano Storero
Apostolic Nuncio
To: Members of the Irish Episcopal Conference
- their Dioceses
Strictly confidential
Apostolic Nunciature In Ireland N. 808/97
Your Excellency,
The Congregation for the Clergy has attentively studied the complex question of sexual abuse of minors by clerics and the document entitled "Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response", published by the Irish Catholic Bishops' Advisory Committee.
The Congregation wishes to emphasize the need for this document to conform to the canonical norms presently in force.
The text, however, contains "proceedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the acts of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problems. If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchial recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.
In particular, the situation of 'mandatory reporting' gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature".
Since the policies on sexual abuse in the English speaking world exhibit many of the same characteristics and procedures, the Congregation is involved in a global study of them. At the appropriate time, with the collaboration of the interested Episcopal Conferences and in dialogue with them, the Congregation will not be remiss in establishing some concrete directives with regard to these Policies.
For these reasons and because the abovementioned text is not an official document of the Episcopal Conference but merely a study document, I am directed to inform the individual Bishops of Ireland of the preoccupations of the Congregation in its regard, underlining that in the sad cases of accusations of sexual abuse by clerics, the procedures established by the Code of Canon Law must be meticulously followed under pain of invalidity of the acts involved if the priest so punished were to make hierarchial recourse against his Bishop.
Asking you to kindly let me know of safe receipt of this letter and with the assurance of my cordial regard, I am
Yours sincerely in Christ,
+Luciano Storero
Apostolic Nuncio
To: Members of the Irish Episcopal Conference
- their Dioceses
Monday, January 17, 2011
RTE/WYB - Vatican Inv in Cover Up
I have never believed that the Catholic bishops cover up of the sexual abuse of children by priests was something unique to the Catholic Church in Ireland, nor have I believed that such acts of cover up were unknown to the Vatican.
The Murphy Report found that the child sexual abuse by priests was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities. Each of Dublin’s four Archbishops from McQuaid in the 1970s to Connell in the 1990s knew of the abuse, many auxiliary bishops knew and the vast majority of priests who were aware of particular instances of abuse simply chose to turn a blind eye. The welfare of children, which should have been the first priority, was not even a factor to be considered in the early stages. The medical profession was misled about what the Church knew about abusing priests and even when the Church was advised not to re-assign such priests, the advise was ignored. Catholic Church assurances that paedophile priests were being monitored were completely untrue and other children paid the price.
The Ferns Report found that notwithstanding the extremely unfavourably medical reports provided, priests were appointed to curacies in that Diocese and continued in positions without any effective monitoring or control. Bishop Comiskey agreed with the Ferns Inquiry that the proper response to an allegation of child sexual abuse against a priest was to remove him from active ministry pending the determination of the allegation. Notwithstanding this belief, no priest was stood aside from active ministry during the episcopacy of Bishop Comiskey and no precept was issued preventing any priest from saying Mass and partaking in religious ceremonies. Priests were moved out of the Diocese in some cases but no child protection measures were put in place to ensure that children in the Diocese to which the accused priest was sent were not placed in danger.
The Grand Jury Report into the Archdiocese of Philadelphia found that Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol were aware that priests in the Diocese were perpetrating massive amounts of child molestations and sexual assaults. In many cases the same priests were reported again and again and Archdiocese leaders employed deliberate strategies to conceal known abuse. The Report says that they chose to protect themselves from scandal and liability rather than protect children, going on to say that Cardinal Bevilacqua was motivated by an intent to keep the record clear of evidence that would implicate him or the Archdiocese. The tactics used to achieve this included conducting non-investigations designed to avoid establishing priests’ guilt, transferring known abusers to other parishes where their reputations were not known, misleading parishioners about the reason for a priest’s transfer, harbouring known abusers from other dioceses (like Archbishop Ratzinger did in Munich in 1980), making concerted efforts to prevent reports of abuse to law enforcement, manipulating medical records to keep abusing priests in ministry, interfering with medical evaluations, inventing limited ministry which they documented but did not enforce and intimidating victims and witnesses in an attempt to silence them.
The Grand Jury Report into the Archdiocese of Boston found that the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests was due to an institutional acceptance of abuse. Again top Archdiocese officials knew the extent of the problem for many years, but their response was to maintain secrecy, fail to report allegations to civil authorities, fail to co-operate with law enforcement when allegations were being investigated, fail to conduct thorough investigations, place children at risk by transferring abusing priests to other parishes, place children at risk by accepting abusing priests from other Dioceses (like Archbishop Ratzinger did in Munich in 1980) and fail to supervise priests known to have sexually abused children. In language almost identical to the Murphy Report the Boston Report concludes that for at least six decades three successive Archbishops, their Bishops and others in positions of authority within the Archdiocese operated with tragically misguided priorities. They chose to protect the image and reputation of their institution rather than the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to their care.
The Philadelphia Report also noted similar behaviour by Bishops and Cardinals in other Dioceses in the United States and found that this amounted to the Catholic Church having employed well-orchestrated strategies for decades and in all parts of the United States to keep abusing priests in ministry while minimising the risk of scandal or legal liability.
Tonight’s broadcast of the RTE Would You Believe documentary Unspeakable Crimes, shows yet again that Catholic bishops covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests did so with the full knowledge of the Vatican: while this further confirms the Vatican’s involvement in the cover up, it does not absolve Irish Catholic Bishops of responsibility for their own actions and decisions. It does however demonstrate very clearly that the Vatican sending Cardinals to Ireland to conduct an ‘Apostolic Investigation’ is, as I said before, self-serving, window-dressing nonsense.
The Murphy Report found that the child sexual abuse by priests was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities. Each of Dublin’s four Archbishops from McQuaid in the 1970s to Connell in the 1990s knew of the abuse, many auxiliary bishops knew and the vast majority of priests who were aware of particular instances of abuse simply chose to turn a blind eye. The welfare of children, which should have been the first priority, was not even a factor to be considered in the early stages. The medical profession was misled about what the Church knew about abusing priests and even when the Church was advised not to re-assign such priests, the advise was ignored. Catholic Church assurances that paedophile priests were being monitored were completely untrue and other children paid the price.
The Ferns Report found that notwithstanding the extremely unfavourably medical reports provided, priests were appointed to curacies in that Diocese and continued in positions without any effective monitoring or control. Bishop Comiskey agreed with the Ferns Inquiry that the proper response to an allegation of child sexual abuse against a priest was to remove him from active ministry pending the determination of the allegation. Notwithstanding this belief, no priest was stood aside from active ministry during the episcopacy of Bishop Comiskey and no precept was issued preventing any priest from saying Mass and partaking in religious ceremonies. Priests were moved out of the Diocese in some cases but no child protection measures were put in place to ensure that children in the Diocese to which the accused priest was sent were not placed in danger.
The Grand Jury Report into the Archdiocese of Philadelphia found that Cardinals Bevilacqua and Krol were aware that priests in the Diocese were perpetrating massive amounts of child molestations and sexual assaults. In many cases the same priests were reported again and again and Archdiocese leaders employed deliberate strategies to conceal known abuse. The Report says that they chose to protect themselves from scandal and liability rather than protect children, going on to say that Cardinal Bevilacqua was motivated by an intent to keep the record clear of evidence that would implicate him or the Archdiocese. The tactics used to achieve this included conducting non-investigations designed to avoid establishing priests’ guilt, transferring known abusers to other parishes where their reputations were not known, misleading parishioners about the reason for a priest’s transfer, harbouring known abusers from other dioceses (like Archbishop Ratzinger did in Munich in 1980), making concerted efforts to prevent reports of abuse to law enforcement, manipulating medical records to keep abusing priests in ministry, interfering with medical evaluations, inventing limited ministry which they documented but did not enforce and intimidating victims and witnesses in an attempt to silence them.
The Grand Jury Report into the Archdiocese of Boston found that the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests was due to an institutional acceptance of abuse. Again top Archdiocese officials knew the extent of the problem for many years, but their response was to maintain secrecy, fail to report allegations to civil authorities, fail to co-operate with law enforcement when allegations were being investigated, fail to conduct thorough investigations, place children at risk by transferring abusing priests to other parishes, place children at risk by accepting abusing priests from other Dioceses (like Archbishop Ratzinger did in Munich in 1980) and fail to supervise priests known to have sexually abused children. In language almost identical to the Murphy Report the Boston Report concludes that for at least six decades three successive Archbishops, their Bishops and others in positions of authority within the Archdiocese operated with tragically misguided priorities. They chose to protect the image and reputation of their institution rather than the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to their care.
The Philadelphia Report also noted similar behaviour by Bishops and Cardinals in other Dioceses in the United States and found that this amounted to the Catholic Church having employed well-orchestrated strategies for decades and in all parts of the United States to keep abusing priests in ministry while minimising the risk of scandal or legal liability.
Tonight’s broadcast of the RTE Would You Believe documentary Unspeakable Crimes, shows yet again that Catholic bishops covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests did so with the full knowledge of the Vatican: while this further confirms the Vatican’s involvement in the cover up, it does not absolve Irish Catholic Bishops of responsibility for their own actions and decisions. It does however demonstrate very clearly that the Vatican sending Cardinals to Ireland to conduct an ‘Apostolic Investigation’ is, as I said before, self-serving, window-dressing nonsense.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Chapter 19 Murphy Report
Chapter 19 Murphy Report
I have read many reports in the last few years detailing the Catholic Church’s cover up of the sexual abuse of children by many priests in different dioceses all around the world. Such reports always cause me huge sadness, so many children experienced so much sexual abuse at the hands of people they should have been able to trust. I feel so much anger too, because so many of those children were sexually abused by priests who were known to so many to be sexual predators and a danger to children. Chapter 19 of the Murphy Report, detailing the handling of allegations against catholic priest Fr Tony Walsh, follows the same pattern.
Tony Walsh was already sexually abusing children when he was a seminarian at Clonliffe College in Dublin during the 1970s. At that time he had a key to the house of another priest, Fr Noel Reynolds, who also sexually abused children, Walsh took children there and sexually abused them. As a seminarian he also sexually abused altar boys that he took to Clonliffe College. After his ordination in 1978 he was appointed to Ballyfermot in Dublin and within 48 hours of his arrival the first allegation of child sexual abuse was made against him. Nothing was done. Another allegation was made in 1979. It was hushed up. All through the 1980s allegations of child sexual abuse were made against Fr Tony Walsh yet he remained free to continue his activities. It was 10 years before the Archdiocese of Dublin even sent Walsh for assessment by anyone in the medical profession, but not before they had transferred him to a new parish in Westland Row, Dublin. This was done to avoid any further scandal and no priest in Walsh’s new parish was informed of his past.
Once parents or Gardai started asking questions of the Archdiocese Monsignor Alex Stenson engaged in the well rehearsed Church practice of being very economical with the truth. The parents of one child said they were concerned that Fr Walsh would suffer because of one misdemeanour; Stenson’s note on file read ‘I did not indicate that there was a history of this behaviour’. When the Gardai were investigating Walsh in 1991 on foot of a complaint from a parent they asked Stenson if he (Walsh) had a record; Stenson’s note on file read ‘I evaded that’.
We are also reminded in Chapter 19 that on at least two occasions the issue of reporting Walsh to civil authorities arose at meetings between the Dublin bishops in 1990 and 1991, on both occasions it was decided not to report him.
The behaviour of the Gardai at that time is also unforgiveable. One Garda informed Monsignor Stenson in 1990 that there would be ‘no question of prosecution’ of Walsh and the Murphy Commission conclude that it is unacceptable that Gardai who had concerns about Walsh failed to pursue a thorough criminal investigation.
At times like this many people express shock that none of the people who covered up for people like Walsh are being prosecuted – it is worthy of note that to this very day such people are under no more legal obligation to report than they were in the 1960s, 70s, 80s or 90s.
I have read many reports in the last few years detailing the Catholic Church’s cover up of the sexual abuse of children by many priests in different dioceses all around the world. Such reports always cause me huge sadness, so many children experienced so much sexual abuse at the hands of people they should have been able to trust. I feel so much anger too, because so many of those children were sexually abused by priests who were known to so many to be sexual predators and a danger to children. Chapter 19 of the Murphy Report, detailing the handling of allegations against catholic priest Fr Tony Walsh, follows the same pattern.
Tony Walsh was already sexually abusing children when he was a seminarian at Clonliffe College in Dublin during the 1970s. At that time he had a key to the house of another priest, Fr Noel Reynolds, who also sexually abused children, Walsh took children there and sexually abused them. As a seminarian he also sexually abused altar boys that he took to Clonliffe College. After his ordination in 1978 he was appointed to Ballyfermot in Dublin and within 48 hours of his arrival the first allegation of child sexual abuse was made against him. Nothing was done. Another allegation was made in 1979. It was hushed up. All through the 1980s allegations of child sexual abuse were made against Fr Tony Walsh yet he remained free to continue his activities. It was 10 years before the Archdiocese of Dublin even sent Walsh for assessment by anyone in the medical profession, but not before they had transferred him to a new parish in Westland Row, Dublin. This was done to avoid any further scandal and no priest in Walsh’s new parish was informed of his past.
Once parents or Gardai started asking questions of the Archdiocese Monsignor Alex Stenson engaged in the well rehearsed Church practice of being very economical with the truth. The parents of one child said they were concerned that Fr Walsh would suffer because of one misdemeanour; Stenson’s note on file read ‘I did not indicate that there was a history of this behaviour’. When the Gardai were investigating Walsh in 1991 on foot of a complaint from a parent they asked Stenson if he (Walsh) had a record; Stenson’s note on file read ‘I evaded that’.
We are also reminded in Chapter 19 that on at least two occasions the issue of reporting Walsh to civil authorities arose at meetings between the Dublin bishops in 1990 and 1991, on both occasions it was decided not to report him.
The behaviour of the Gardai at that time is also unforgiveable. One Garda informed Monsignor Stenson in 1990 that there would be ‘no question of prosecution’ of Walsh and the Murphy Commission conclude that it is unacceptable that Gardai who had concerns about Walsh failed to pursue a thorough criminal investigation.
At times like this many people express shock that none of the people who covered up for people like Walsh are being prosecuted – it is worthy of note that to this very day such people are under no more legal obligation to report than they were in the 1960s, 70s, 80s or 90s.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Murphy Report - One Year On
My Opinion Piece from today's Irish Times
I REMEMBER both my anger and sadness rising as I sat in offices of the Department of Justice early one morning a year ago reading about the nine-year-old girl who had to experience a priest put his hands inside her trousers during confession so as to abuse her, washing his hands in an altar bowl after wards. I felt sad for the boys who had to endure a priest’s predilection for “corporal punishment”, which gardaí subsequently described as brutal and having sado-sexual connotations.
I felt sad for the boys who were taken on holiday by “Fr Dante” and who were subject to his rules that all the boys were to sleep naked, that the bathroom door was to be left open when they were showering, that “punishment” was to be smacking on the bare bottom and that a different boy had to sleep with the priest every night. I felt sad for the boys who were sexually abused by Fr McNamee having been attracted to the indoor and outdoor swimming pools at his parochial house in Crumlin, which adults were excluded from using.
I was angry that another priest had sexually abused one boy while taking photographs at the same time and was so aggressive with another boy that he knocked him unconscious. On subsequently moving to the diocese of San Diego, he received a reference from Archbishop Connell to the effect that he was “an excellent priest in many ways” and “a priest in good standing”. I was angry that another priest, against whom allegations of child sexual abuse had already been made, was appointed chaplain to a school for deaf children, and that the first complaint against him there was made within a month of that appointment. This was a priest who kissed girls in confession and rubbed his hands all over their bodies inside their clothing. I was angry that despite these complaints he remained a curate in a parish for another four years.
I was angry that Fr Payne had been left in a position to sexually abuse at least seven more boys after I had told the archdiocese of Dublin about him in 1981.
As I mark the anniversary of the publication of the Murphy report, I think about the awfulness of what so many children endured and I wonder how they coped with what was happening to them. I wonder too about how their lives have been affected since; did they survive? Did they ever find happiness? How are they now?
I think about my own childhood experiences as an 11- or 12-year-old boy with Fr Ivan Payne. He had asked me to his house after serving 8am Mass during the school summer holidays; he said it was his way of saying thank you. Instead over time he got me into a pattern of going down to his house on a regular basis where he molested me as we sat on his couch watching television. I was so glad of that television – I had something to focus on while he did what he wanted. I froze. I didn’t acknowledge what he was doing in any way shape or form. I didn’t want to and I didn’t know how to. Rarely did he. My way of coping was to keep my eyes on the television. I remember on one early occasion I got up from the couch and went upstairs to the bathroom. When I came back downstairs and walked into the sitting room I could have sat in any other chair away from him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. That would have been to acknowledge what he had been doing and I felt completely unable to do that. I sat right back down beside him. He didn’t need to use any harsh words or violent acts to control me. His position as a priest of our parish and the grooming he had initially engaged in were enough to secure my compliance. I was never going to tell anyone either. He knew that too. What words would I use? Who could ever believe what I would have to tell them? Everyone would know what I had been involved in, which is how I saw it at the time.
In the months leading up to my Junior Cert I felt strong enough to tell Fr Payne I wasn’t coming to his house anymore, I needed to study. Over the next couple of years I did my best to put the past behind me but it was impossible.
I felt very bad about myself on every level. I felt unattractive. I didn’t like my body. I covered up as much as I could, often wearing too many clothes during the summer when jeans and a T-shirt would have done. I didn’t join in sport at school. I felt far too inhibited. I would never have felt free enough to run down a basketball court or play football.
Worst of all I felt I had let Fr Payne do things that no other boy in class would have allowed. As an adult I can look back and see that’s not how it was, but as a struggling teenager, such thoughts were crushing.
I noticed the boys in school and wondered about girls. When I was 17 or 18 I wanted to ask a particular girl out but I wasn’t sure what she would expect me to do. I had some idea by then of what I might want to do but was this normal? Is it what other boys were doing? Or did I only know about such things because of my experiences with Fr Payne? If so, would she react badly and tell everyone?
At a time when I should have been throwing myself at every opportunity that presented itself, I withdrew, further compounding my feelings of isolation and loneliness.
Little wonder I found solace in alcohol and clumsily tried to overdose with tablets – all I really wanted was to let people know that I was hurting badly and couldn’t cope, but I didn’t know how to say it.
In my 20s, I had experiences and relationships with women and then with men. I’m sure the realisation that I was gay would have come to me a lot earlier if I had been left to grow up and develop in my own way and in my own time, free of Fr Payne’s interference.
Over time with these experiences and relationships it became clear to me that I had great difficulty enjoying emotional and physical intimacy with the same person at the same time and I have always attributed that to my experiences with Fr Payne.
So years after the childhood sexual abuse had ended, its effects had me engaged in a pattern of behaviour which compounded the isolation and loneliness I had felt as a struggling teenager. Alcohol made that bearable but was doing its own damage.
When I first went public about those childhood experiences 15 years ago, I had no idea that my battles with church and State would be matched by a personal battle to look at what I had become and try to recover.
I think again about how many thousands of children suffered experiences like mine at the hands of priests whom Catholic bishops had covered up for over many decades.
Today, as those bishops (and the commentators who still minimise what they did and make excuses for them) bemoan how hard done by they feel at the media and public response to the Murphy report, I invite them to think about the enormous suffering caused to so many children simply because for those bishops the reputation of the church was more important.
Let it not be more important than the truth.
I REMEMBER both my anger and sadness rising as I sat in offices of the Department of Justice early one morning a year ago reading about the nine-year-old girl who had to experience a priest put his hands inside her trousers during confession so as to abuse her, washing his hands in an altar bowl after wards. I felt sad for the boys who had to endure a priest’s predilection for “corporal punishment”, which gardaí subsequently described as brutal and having sado-sexual connotations.
I felt sad for the boys who were taken on holiday by “Fr Dante” and who were subject to his rules that all the boys were to sleep naked, that the bathroom door was to be left open when they were showering, that “punishment” was to be smacking on the bare bottom and that a different boy had to sleep with the priest every night. I felt sad for the boys who were sexually abused by Fr McNamee having been attracted to the indoor and outdoor swimming pools at his parochial house in Crumlin, which adults were excluded from using.
I was angry that another priest had sexually abused one boy while taking photographs at the same time and was so aggressive with another boy that he knocked him unconscious. On subsequently moving to the diocese of San Diego, he received a reference from Archbishop Connell to the effect that he was “an excellent priest in many ways” and “a priest in good standing”. I was angry that another priest, against whom allegations of child sexual abuse had already been made, was appointed chaplain to a school for deaf children, and that the first complaint against him there was made within a month of that appointment. This was a priest who kissed girls in confession and rubbed his hands all over their bodies inside their clothing. I was angry that despite these complaints he remained a curate in a parish for another four years.
I was angry that Fr Payne had been left in a position to sexually abuse at least seven more boys after I had told the archdiocese of Dublin about him in 1981.
As I mark the anniversary of the publication of the Murphy report, I think about the awfulness of what so many children endured and I wonder how they coped with what was happening to them. I wonder too about how their lives have been affected since; did they survive? Did they ever find happiness? How are they now?
I think about my own childhood experiences as an 11- or 12-year-old boy with Fr Ivan Payne. He had asked me to his house after serving 8am Mass during the school summer holidays; he said it was his way of saying thank you. Instead over time he got me into a pattern of going down to his house on a regular basis where he molested me as we sat on his couch watching television. I was so glad of that television – I had something to focus on while he did what he wanted. I froze. I didn’t acknowledge what he was doing in any way shape or form. I didn’t want to and I didn’t know how to. Rarely did he. My way of coping was to keep my eyes on the television. I remember on one early occasion I got up from the couch and went upstairs to the bathroom. When I came back downstairs and walked into the sitting room I could have sat in any other chair away from him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. That would have been to acknowledge what he had been doing and I felt completely unable to do that. I sat right back down beside him. He didn’t need to use any harsh words or violent acts to control me. His position as a priest of our parish and the grooming he had initially engaged in were enough to secure my compliance. I was never going to tell anyone either. He knew that too. What words would I use? Who could ever believe what I would have to tell them? Everyone would know what I had been involved in, which is how I saw it at the time.
In the months leading up to my Junior Cert I felt strong enough to tell Fr Payne I wasn’t coming to his house anymore, I needed to study. Over the next couple of years I did my best to put the past behind me but it was impossible.
I felt very bad about myself on every level. I felt unattractive. I didn’t like my body. I covered up as much as I could, often wearing too many clothes during the summer when jeans and a T-shirt would have done. I didn’t join in sport at school. I felt far too inhibited. I would never have felt free enough to run down a basketball court or play football.
Worst of all I felt I had let Fr Payne do things that no other boy in class would have allowed. As an adult I can look back and see that’s not how it was, but as a struggling teenager, such thoughts were crushing.
I noticed the boys in school and wondered about girls. When I was 17 or 18 I wanted to ask a particular girl out but I wasn’t sure what she would expect me to do. I had some idea by then of what I might want to do but was this normal? Is it what other boys were doing? Or did I only know about such things because of my experiences with Fr Payne? If so, would she react badly and tell everyone?
At a time when I should have been throwing myself at every opportunity that presented itself, I withdrew, further compounding my feelings of isolation and loneliness.
Little wonder I found solace in alcohol and clumsily tried to overdose with tablets – all I really wanted was to let people know that I was hurting badly and couldn’t cope, but I didn’t know how to say it.
In my 20s, I had experiences and relationships with women and then with men. I’m sure the realisation that I was gay would have come to me a lot earlier if I had been left to grow up and develop in my own way and in my own time, free of Fr Payne’s interference.
Over time with these experiences and relationships it became clear to me that I had great difficulty enjoying emotional and physical intimacy with the same person at the same time and I have always attributed that to my experiences with Fr Payne.
So years after the childhood sexual abuse had ended, its effects had me engaged in a pattern of behaviour which compounded the isolation and loneliness I had felt as a struggling teenager. Alcohol made that bearable but was doing its own damage.
When I first went public about those childhood experiences 15 years ago, I had no idea that my battles with church and State would be matched by a personal battle to look at what I had become and try to recover.
I think again about how many thousands of children suffered experiences like mine at the hands of priests whom Catholic bishops had covered up for over many decades.
Today, as those bishops (and the commentators who still minimise what they did and make excuses for them) bemoan how hard done by they feel at the media and public response to the Murphy report, I invite them to think about the enormous suffering caused to so many children simply because for those bishops the reputation of the church was more important.
Let it not be more important than the truth.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Roscommon Child Care Inquiry
On the 22nd January 2009 Mrs A, a mother of six children, was sentenced in Roscommon Circuit Court to seven years in prison following her conviction for incest, neglect and ill treatment. The presiding Judge, Judge Miriam Reynolds (RIP) said the children were failed by everyone around them and that she was concerned that, while the former Western Health Board had been involved since 1996, the children had not been taken into care until 2004.
In the Central Criminal Court on March 5th 2010 Mr Justice Barry White sentenced Mr A to fourteen years in prison following his conviction for rape and sexual assault.
Today the HSE published the Report of the Roscommon Child Care Inquiry. The Inquiry had been established by the HSE to:
• Examine the entire management of this case from a care perspective,
• Identify any shortcomings or deficits to the care management process and,
• Make a Report on the findings and any learning arising from the investigation.
The Report is shocking and heartbreaking. No child should have to endure such abuse and neglect and the litany of repeated failures by the HSE is infuriating. The full Report can be found here - http://bit.ly/br3Bez
What is clear to me from reading the Report is that the need for the Children First Guidelines to be put on a statutory basis with failure to comply being a criminal offence could not be more urgent. The Report states that ‘prior to their admission to care, the voice of the child is virtually silent... Yet a basic requirement in the delivery of child protection services is the necessity to at least see the children and, ideally, to seek their views of their situation. This is set out as a key task in Children First... and its absence in practice has been identified as a deficit in other inquiry reports (Ferguson, 2007)’ The Report also states that while HSE staff were briefed, there was no systematic effort to embed Children First into practice. The failure to put a legal responsibility on people to be Children First compliant ensures we continue to fail children abysmally.
For me the Report also demonstrates yet again the absolute need for Government to hold the referendum to properly enshrine children’s rights into the Constitution. Again we are told that ‘The absence of the child’s voice was also evident in court proceedings. This was most noticeable in the High Court injunction proceedings taken by the parents to prevent the Western Health Board from removing the children from their parents. There, for constitutional and legal reasons, the parents’ right to be heard was not matched by equal consideration of the wishes or the needs of the children’. Further on we are told that ‘The failure to consult with, and to hear, the voice of the six children was a notable feature in this case’. We must, as a matter of urgency, have a referendum which guarantees children constitutional rights including the right that .... In the resolution of all disputes concerning the guardianship, adoption, custody, care or upbringing of a child, the welfare and best interests of the child shall be the first and paramount consideration.
In the Central Criminal Court on March 5th 2010 Mr Justice Barry White sentenced Mr A to fourteen years in prison following his conviction for rape and sexual assault.
Today the HSE published the Report of the Roscommon Child Care Inquiry. The Inquiry had been established by the HSE to:
• Examine the entire management of this case from a care perspective,
• Identify any shortcomings or deficits to the care management process and,
• Make a Report on the findings and any learning arising from the investigation.
The Report is shocking and heartbreaking. No child should have to endure such abuse and neglect and the litany of repeated failures by the HSE is infuriating. The full Report can be found here - http://bit.ly/br3Bez
What is clear to me from reading the Report is that the need for the Children First Guidelines to be put on a statutory basis with failure to comply being a criminal offence could not be more urgent. The Report states that ‘prior to their admission to care, the voice of the child is virtually silent... Yet a basic requirement in the delivery of child protection services is the necessity to at least see the children and, ideally, to seek their views of their situation. This is set out as a key task in Children First... and its absence in practice has been identified as a deficit in other inquiry reports (Ferguson, 2007)’ The Report also states that while HSE staff were briefed, there was no systematic effort to embed Children First into practice. The failure to put a legal responsibility on people to be Children First compliant ensures we continue to fail children abysmally.
For me the Report also demonstrates yet again the absolute need for Government to hold the referendum to properly enshrine children’s rights into the Constitution. Again we are told that ‘The absence of the child’s voice was also evident in court proceedings. This was most noticeable in the High Court injunction proceedings taken by the parents to prevent the Western Health Board from removing the children from their parents. There, for constitutional and legal reasons, the parents’ right to be heard was not matched by equal consideration of the wishes or the needs of the children’. Further on we are told that ‘The failure to consult with, and to hear, the voice of the six children was a notable feature in this case’. We must, as a matter of urgency, have a referendum which guarantees children constitutional rights including the right that .... In the resolution of all disputes concerning the guardianship, adoption, custody, care or upbringing of a child, the welfare and best interests of the child shall be the first and paramount consideration.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Apostolic Visitation
In May of this year details were released from the Vatican about the ‘Apostolic Visitation’ to Ireland of various Catholic Cardinals and Archbishops in response to the publication of the Murphy Report and indeed the Ryan and Ferns Reports previously.
The reasons for this Visitation are given as:
1. To offer assistance to the Bishops, clergy, religious and lay faithful as they seek to respond adequately to the situation caused by the tragic cases of abuse perpetrated by priests and religious upon minors.
(I don’t know what the Vatican means by ‘respond adequately to the situation caused by the tragic cases of abuse’ – what is ‘the situation caused’ as they see it?)
2. To contribute to the desired spiritual and moral renewal that is already being vigorously pursued by the Church in Ireland.
(I have no confidence in the moral renewal of a Church whose leaders only tell the truth about their response to the sexual abuse of children by priests when they are hauled in front of statutory inquiries and whose leaders fail to take responsibility for their actions or inactions.)
3. To explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse and the assistance owed to the victims.
(‘Explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse’? That is typical of the spin the Bishops like to put on the Murphy Report. There are no questions. They have been asked and answered at the Commission of Investigation and the ultimate finding was one of bishops covering up for priests abusing children in order to protect the Church.)
4. To monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to the current procedures for preventing abuse.
(I have no trust in a Church monitoring the effectiveness of child protection measures when its own leadership is littered with Bishops who failed to protect children from priests known to the Church to be a danger and who still fail to take responsibility for that failure.)
By having this ‘Apostolic Visitation’ the Vatican is trying to maintain the pretence that the sexual abuse of children by priests was an Irish problem, but it wasn’t Irish bishops who were covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests in Dioceses throughout the United States and in Europe. The Philadelphia Report described the Catholic Church as having employed well-orchestrated strategies for decades and in all parts of the United States to keep abusing priests in ministry while minimising the risk of scandal or legal liability.
I also feel that there has been ample opportunity for Catholic Bishops to understand what was expected of them in response to publication of the Murphy Report – on all occasions the views of victims have been ignored. Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan refused a request for a meeting in December 2009, Bishops Eamon Walshe and Raymond Field eventually offered their resignations but apparently launched a very successful campaign behind the scenes to ensure they were not accepted by Pope Benedict. Pope Benedict himself has not even acknowledged the letter sent by Marie Collins, Maeve Lewis (OneInFour) and myself at the time the Irish Bishops were meeting him earlier this year. Cardinal Brady ignored victims’ requests for him to stand aside after it was revealed that he had participated in a process of cover up for Fr Brendan Smyth in 1975 who was left free to carry on sexually abusing children for another 18 years. This Apostolic Visitation is more about Catholic Bishops giving the impression of listening to what victims have to say as opposed to actually acting on our requests. To engage with this process is to mistakenly give it credibility and I do not intend to do that.
The Apostolic Visitation is nothing more than self-serving window-dressing nonsense.
The reasons for this Visitation are given as:
1. To offer assistance to the Bishops, clergy, religious and lay faithful as they seek to respond adequately to the situation caused by the tragic cases of abuse perpetrated by priests and religious upon minors.
(I don’t know what the Vatican means by ‘respond adequately to the situation caused by the tragic cases of abuse’ – what is ‘the situation caused’ as they see it?)
2. To contribute to the desired spiritual and moral renewal that is already being vigorously pursued by the Church in Ireland.
(I have no confidence in the moral renewal of a Church whose leaders only tell the truth about their response to the sexual abuse of children by priests when they are hauled in front of statutory inquiries and whose leaders fail to take responsibility for their actions or inactions.)
3. To explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse and the assistance owed to the victims.
(‘Explore more deeply questions concerning the handling of cases of abuse’? That is typical of the spin the Bishops like to put on the Murphy Report. There are no questions. They have been asked and answered at the Commission of Investigation and the ultimate finding was one of bishops covering up for priests abusing children in order to protect the Church.)
4. To monitor the effectiveness of and seek possible improvements to the current procedures for preventing abuse.
(I have no trust in a Church monitoring the effectiveness of child protection measures when its own leadership is littered with Bishops who failed to protect children from priests known to the Church to be a danger and who still fail to take responsibility for that failure.)
By having this ‘Apostolic Visitation’ the Vatican is trying to maintain the pretence that the sexual abuse of children by priests was an Irish problem, but it wasn’t Irish bishops who were covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests in Dioceses throughout the United States and in Europe. The Philadelphia Report described the Catholic Church as having employed well-orchestrated strategies for decades and in all parts of the United States to keep abusing priests in ministry while minimising the risk of scandal or legal liability.
I also feel that there has been ample opportunity for Catholic Bishops to understand what was expected of them in response to publication of the Murphy Report – on all occasions the views of victims have been ignored. Bishop of Galway Martin Drennan refused a request for a meeting in December 2009, Bishops Eamon Walshe and Raymond Field eventually offered their resignations but apparently launched a very successful campaign behind the scenes to ensure they were not accepted by Pope Benedict. Pope Benedict himself has not even acknowledged the letter sent by Marie Collins, Maeve Lewis (OneInFour) and myself at the time the Irish Bishops were meeting him earlier this year. Cardinal Brady ignored victims’ requests for him to stand aside after it was revealed that he had participated in a process of cover up for Fr Brendan Smyth in 1975 who was left free to carry on sexually abusing children for another 18 years. This Apostolic Visitation is more about Catholic Bishops giving the impression of listening to what victims have to say as opposed to actually acting on our requests. To engage with this process is to mistakenly give it credibility and I do not intend to do that.
The Apostolic Visitation is nothing more than self-serving window-dressing nonsense.
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