COMBONI MISSIONARY ORDER: HOW COULD HE DO IT? – HOW DO THEY (THE CLERICS OF THE COMBONI ORDER) SLEEP AT NIGHT?

I was working yesterday with a thirteen year old vulnerable and frightened child.

When I was with this child, I could not help but ask myself: “how could he do it?”
How could Comboni, Father Romano Nardo, plan and groom and use deceit on me – a vulnerable and frightened fourteen year old child – for his own sexual gratification?

Driving back home, I could not escape from this thought: ‘how could he do it?’ In my mind I looked at the child I had just spent time with, and felt total disgust and despair about what had happened to me and my fellow seminarians at Mirfield.

What disturbs and upsets me more than anything in this whole sordid affair is the thought that our perpetrators’ actions were based around how best to sexually abuse children – and they planned it in detail.

Father Romano Nardo planned his abuse on me; gradually grooming and working on me, and using me and abusing me; getting to know my family and also abusing them and their hospitality.

That is why, when I asked Father Nardo: “can I wash you Father?” his answer – and it is as clear now, as it was then – was: “I was waiting for you to ask that.” Yes, Nardo planned his abuse, and he groomed me well.

What is the response and action of the Comboni Order towards the Comboni Survivor Group? Their response, as it always has been, is: “Discredit the survivors’ testimony, support the prelate in question, and bank on public attention moving on to something else.”

I ask the Combonis this question – the very question that I asked the Vice Superior of the Comboni Mother House in Verona in April 2015: “How do you sleep at night?”

I know the Vice Superior’s answer – it was: “I sleep very well,” – I do not know the answer of other Combonis. I suspect, though, that a lot of them will answer: “I sleep very well,”

Mark Murray – a Member of the Comboni Survivor Group.