Comboni Missionaries

Brian Hennessy, one of the Mirfield 12, has worked very hard to put all our information together in a document called “The Comboni MIssionary Order of Verona, Italy and Their Response to Child Sexual Abuse”. It documents all instances of abuse, the abusers and those in the Order who were told about the abuse.

It also documents the Comboni Missionaries own rules and procedures, as regards sexual abuse by clerics, and shows how they did not follow them properly.

It shows what the procedures that the Catholic Church have recommended be followed in instances of clercial child sexual abuse. He shows how they didn’t follow those either.

Home Office Panel

The document is a masterpiece and will be presented to the Home Office Panel on Insitutional Child Sexual Abuse which has been set up by Government Minister Theresa May and will investigate the Comboni Missionaries. It is an encyclopaedia of our case and the abuse by the Comboni Missionaries at Mirfield.

After sending the document out for correction to those amongst us involved, he then sent it out to UK Catholic Bishops and to the leadership of the Comboni Missionaries asking for comment. None was forthcoming so he sent it out to 800 individual Comboni Missionaries.

The case is compelling.

One Decent Comboni Missionary

He got abusive responses from two Comboni Missionaries who hadn’t even read it. There’s none so blind as those that won’t see. There’s none so deaf as those that won’t hear. However, one Comboni Missionary took time out to read the whole document. It took him three hours.

Afterwards he emailed Brian back with the words “I am so ashamed”. With his Vow of Obedience, this is a very brave man. We won’t give his name or any indication of whom he is.

Parallel Universe

It just shows you that the truth will out. It will have its day. One sometimes wonders if one is living in a parallel universe, where the rules are all different.

Sometimes, in this parallel unverse, it seems that the ‘wrongdoers’ are those who have been abused rather than those who abused and those who have, and are, covering it up.

This is not just true amongst the Comboni Missionaries but even amongst some of the Boys, themselves, some of whom were even abused themselves.

Theology Lessons

There were only 3 replies to Brian’s email, two negative and one positive. We don’t know what the other 797 think. However, we would reckon that there must be at least a few more decent men amongst these 800 ‘holy men’ who can recognize right from wrong – especially after so many lessons in Theology.

The current attitude of the Comboni Missionaries (and some of their apologists amongst the Boys) to Mark Murray and the other members of the Mirfield 12 cannot last forever.

They won’t apologize and they won’t even admit that the abuse took place even though Brian’s tome documents more than 1,000 instances of sexual abuse on 18 different boys by several different Comboni Missionary priests over two decades.

Father Enrique Sanchez

This rotten edifice, this lie that is the Comboni Missionaries, will surely come tumbling down. “I’m so ashamed” said this decent Comboni Missionary. He shouldn’t be. It wasn’t he who perpetrated the abuse. It wasn’t he who covered it up. However, he knows some people who did – and it goes right to the very top of the Order.

Father Sanchez, Tear down those walls!

Tear down those walls!