Scottish Govt now saying schools like Fort Augustus will be included in inquiry.

Sex abuse survivors accuse Scottish inquiry of ‘abusing’ them all over again.
SURVIVORS are growing so despondent at the progress of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that many say they feel like they are being abused all over again.

Survivors say the Scottish government is failing them, and feel the slow progress and limited remit of the inquiry is adding insult to the already very grievous injuries they have suffered, and believe they will never see the justice they deserve.

Andi Lavery, of Catholic survivor group White Flowers Alba, has even declared that he no longer wants to testify at the inquiry. “They offer us only further trauma and intrusion upon our continued suffering,” he said. Alan Draper of survivor organisation In Care Abuse Survivors (INCAS) has also said that survivors have “lost all faith in the Scottish Government’s ability to help them to achieve justice, accountability and redress”.

That anger was palpable at a Glasgow meeting of fourteen survivors who are members of White Flowers Alba. These were people whose personal stories are unthinkably harrowing: tales of child rape, repeated beatings and grooming. One survivor read out a letter he had written to his now dead abuser. “Dear Paedophile, Remember me, I’m back. I’m writing this letter to let you know how disturbed a person you are. You sexually abused me many years ago on numerous occasions.”
Another described being gang raped. “I believe,” he said, “Father Brendan Smyth [a notorious and now dead abuser of children] was one of the men who raped me. He was one of the most notorious paedophiles in Northern Ireland and I was a victim of him in Scotland.”

The legacy of abuse is apparent in many of their lives. Some in the room have struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, alcoholism, panic attacks, a lifetime or intermittent work, suicide attempts, failed relationships. “I blamed myself all my life,” said one survivor. “I thought I was the only child in the world that happened to. You feel the shame factor. You want to commit suicide and you’re drinking, drinking, drinking to subdue the horrors of the past.”

For them the inquiry, with its focus on mainly residential care, is too small in scope. Their frustrations are aggravated in part by the sense that progress is happening elsewhere. These survivors look outside Scotland and they see the huge Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales, led by Justice Goddard, with its gargantuan remit, its investigations of councils, churches, residential schools, custodial institutions, MPs and grooming networks, its inclusion of “accountability and reparations”. They see an injustice in the lack of “parity” with England.

They also look at Australia and see their royal commission, an inquiry so powerful that last week it forced Cardinal George Pell, aide to the Pope, to be interviewed in Rome, over what he knew of Catholic Church abuse while bishop at Ballarat. Lavery declares: “Our good friends from Ballarat are holding Cardinal Pell and his church to full account, yet in Scotland is anyone even bothered?”

They see Spotlight, the movie about the Boston Globe investigation of Catholic Church abuse, win an Oscar, and they wonder why more is not being done here to dig into the way what happened in Scotland may mirror what happened in Boston.

For the people at that White Flowers Alba meeting, some of whom have been struggling for justice for years, the current pace is too slow – what is offered too little. Meetings with the government, like one conducted with cabinet secretary for education Angela Constance three weeks ago, they feel, are not offered readily enough; approaches, they feel, are made too late.

All but one of those fourteen at the survivors meeting believed their abuse was not going to be considered within the Scottish inquiry. However, according to a government spokesperson, allegations around Fort Augustus Abbey school, which some of them attended, will be included. But the survivors were not made aware of the fact – fuelling even more anger and disappointment.

Such is their frustration, that when Lavery learned that Fort Augustus was to be part of the Scottish inquiry, he declared he would not testify. Instead, he plans to testify before the English inquiry – as Fort Augustus was run by English Benedictines it is included in the English inquiry.

Referring to the English inquiry, Lavery says: “They’re offering us accountability and redress.”

Lavery also added that “a significant group of us who went to Fort Augustus Abbey school will never engage with the [Scottish] inquiry as its fundamentally flawed. Meanwhile in England they are offering an entirely different process for English Benedictine survivors to engage with. Where is equality under the law?”

But it’s not only survivors who are frustrated. Andrew McLellan, the former moderator of the Church of Scotland who headed the McLellan commission, an external review of safeguarding protocols in the Catholic Church, is also despondent about the lack of progress. “Throughout our inquiry we heard over and over again the pain and the humiliation of abused people telling us they had never been listened to. If government will not listen to all those survivors who have suffered while in the care of non-residential institutions, it will repeat the pain and humiliation. They will also be unable to understand the scale of the problem or to make adequate recommendations.”

But the problem is also bigger than just this inquiry. What upsets survivors is a lack of meaningful movement on many levels. They see what they believe is the Catholic Church dragging its heels in taking action on the recommendations of the McLellan Inquiry. Even Andrew McLellan himself notes, with disappointment: “By now members of the Catholic Church need to have been reassured that steps are being taken to involve survivors, and to be completely open and transparent about what is being done. If this opportunity is missed now it may never come again.”

The Scottish government has responded to these criticisms. A spokesperson pointed out that Scotland is the only country in the world to have introduced a “survivor fund” and highlighted, among other things, the fact that the Scottish inquiry, is “engaging with survivors”, that its scope had already been expanded, and that it is wider in one way than many other inquiries: it deals with physical as well as sexual abuse.

The Catholic Church in Scotland too has responded. “At present,” said a spokesperson, “the Church is doing its utmost to ensure that it is as safe as possible, we are implementing in full the recommendations of the McLellan inquiry and will be asking survivors to participate in this process.”

But the fact remains that at a time when in other parts of the world survivors are finally being heard, a great many here are feeling shut out. Labour MSP Iain Gray has long supported Scottish survivors in their fight. “The degree to which we get this inquiry right,” he says, “is the degree to which survivors have confidence in the inquiry. That seems fundamental. And what survivors are now saying makes very clear that they are at the point of losing confidence in the whole process.”

“With the English inquiry,” he added, “after a rocky start, they have now got to the position where survivors do seem to have confidence in the inquiry and the process. We need to get to there. And if that involves the cabinet secretary admitting she had got something wrong, then that’s what Theresa May had to do. And she’s got to a better place for having done it.”

http://www.cbcpnews.com/cbcpnews/?p=73281

In 2013 I made contact with Archbishop Scicluna about the abuse that took place at the Comboni’s Junior Seminary at Mirfiled.

Being the Chief Investigator during Pope Ratzinger’s pontificate, I believed that Bishop Scicluna would listen to me and then act.

Contact was initially made through a telephone call in which I spoke with him when he was in Malta. After which, I emailed him several times.
When Archbishop Scicluna was in Scotland in 2014 investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against Cardinal Keith O’Brien, it was arranged, through his secretary, that a meeting could take place between myself and the Bishop.

I was informed that Archbishop Scicluna would telephone me to arrange such a meeting. I am still waiting for that call, as I am still waiting for a response to my emails.
Kevin Deighnan is also waiting for a response to his letter to Bishop Scicluna.

“Omerta” The Code of Silence, in this case prevailed.

“All bishops and cardinals must see this film,” he said, “because they must understand that it is reporting that will save the church, not ‘omerta.’”

……………………………………………………………….

There is reference to some of the above correspondence on this blog, see:

Reposted —- Kevin’s Letter to Bishop Scicluna about Mirfield abuse

Posted on 26 August 2015

Is the pope serious about confronting child abuse? By Paul Vallely

Pope Francis promised zero tolerance of paedophile priests, but his actions don’t yet match his words

Are the Comboni Missionaries serious about confronting child abuse.

Even by Vatican standards the timing is spectacularly inept. The six Oscar nominations for the movie Spotlight have refocused the attention of the world on the issue of paedophile priests inside the Catholic church – almost certainly the biggest scandal to plague the institution in the past century. And yet, with disdain or disregard for world opinion, just two weeks before the Oscars the most outspoken member of the pope’s commission to combat sex abuse has been sacked.

Pope Francis is busy elsewhere. After Friday’s historic meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church – the first for almost 1,000 years – he has been about his usual business: visiting prisoners, migrants, indigenous people and the families of victims of the violence of drug traffickers, this time in Mexico.

But in his absence a hidden civil war inside the Vatican continues. On one side are reformers who want public accountability for abuser priests and the bishops who have overseen them. On the other is the recidivist Roman old guard whose instinct for cover-up continues.

Two years ago Francis set up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. It is made up of clerics, theologians, psychiatrists, therapists and – most significantly – two survivors of priestly sex abuse. The most vocal member was Peter Saunders, who founded the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, one of the world’s most forthright anti-abuse campaigners.

His sacking last weekend is a signal that, behind the scenes, the Catholic church is reverting to its old bad habits.

At its first meeting in May 2014, the commission’s president, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston – the man who cleaned up the mess exposed by Spotlight – startled its members by revealing that establishing the group had run into more opposition inside the Vatican than any other papal reforms, apart from the overhaul of Vatican finances.

Over the following two years the anti-abuse commission has seen attempt after attempt to undermine it. Key Vatican departments vied to take control of the body. Its decision to set up offices outside the Vatican was countermanded. Bureaucrats tried to subvert its attempt to write its own statutes. It was starved of finance.

Its press releases were doctored and diluted – as happened with the Vatican announcement on Saunders, which was presented as a fait accompli despite Saunders’ insistence he had merely been asked to consider whether his outspoken public pronouncements were compatible with his role as a papal adviser. “It was not a vote of no confidence,” another commission member, Marie Collins has since revealed.

As the story broke so did the news that the Catholic church had been running training courses for new bishops where they were told it was “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse to the police. The commission, it transpires, has been allowed no role in devising the training programme even though another member, the British psychiatrist Baroness Sheila Hollins, insisted on Friday that its brief was “to assist local churches in all parts of the world” to develop initiatives to safeguard children and vulnerable adults.

Church spin doctors rushed to the internet to suggest that removing Saunders, with his constant public lobbying on behalf of victims, would free the commission to get on with important policy work. That is the opposite of the truth.

Certainly Saunders has been an uncomfortable irritant for many in the Vatican. On the eve of this month’s meeting he told one newspaper that its previous session, in October, had been a “non-event”. He said publicly what a number of commissioners have told me privately, that the body – which meets only twice a year – is moving too slowly. “Glacial” is the word used by several members.

That is not all. Saunders has spoken out publicly on a range of issues. Most intemperate was his attack on the pope’s finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, after claims that Pell failed to take action to protect children when he was a bishop in Australia. Saunders called Pell callous and cruel and said he’d shown “an almost sociopathic” disregard for victims.

That said, Saunders is the grit in the oyster of the papal commission. Without him it is less likely to produce the pearls that will redeem the Catholic church in the eyes of the ordinary faithful and clean out what Pope Benedict XVI called the “filth” inside the church.

If that is to be achieved, justice does not just need to be done but must be seen to be done. The indignation, advocacy and campaigning of victims and survivors such as Saunders are essential to that. If the papal commission cannot accommodate that, its brief needs revising.

Sacking Saunders sends out the bad old message that the Catholic church is a haven of silence and complicity. It was revealing that after Saunders’ sacking, Marie Collins said she had confidence in the other commission members, but: “I do not have the same confidence in those whose task it is to work with us within the Vatican and implement our proposals when approved by the pope.”

She doubtless has in mind those in the Vatican who insist child abuse is a thing of the past. It is not. Only last weekend the commission was told of two priests who recently alerted their bishop to an abuser priest – and were then were told by the bishop to stay silent

The additional problem is that Francis appears ambivalent on the issue of clerical sex abuse. It took 10 months of private badgering by O’Malley before he agreed to set up the commission. Several of those close to Francis have told me that though he has a detestation of abuse, he is also wary of false accusations being made against priests.

That may explain why it took him over two years to accept the resignation of the US bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City after his 2012 criminal conviction for failing to report a paedophile priest to the police. Commission members called for Finn’s removal but it was almost three years after Finn’s criminal conviction before Francis authorised action.

Then, even more controversially, Francis promoted a bishop in Chile, Juan Barros, who was accused by abuse victims of covering up for a paedophile priest.

All of that sits uneasily with the policy of zero tolerance that Francis called for in 2014 – after his commissioners had repeatedly pressed him to endorse such an approach.

Rome may come to regret its judgment that Saunders is more of a nuisance inside the tent shouting out than he will be outside shouting in. Since his removal he has condemned the “Vatican system” as “essentially corrupt and unwilling to do the right thing”. The decision to close ranks to exclude Saunders will look to many like a return to the Church’s instincts to put the protection of the institution above the care of individuals.

The irony is that Pope Francis has sought to send out the opposite message in every other respect. The first pope from the southern hemisphere will doubtless continue his ministry to the marginalised in Mexico and elsewhere. But his failure to act effectively on sex abuse may seriously mar his otherwise radical papacy.

THE UNACCCOUNTABILITY OF SILENCE – By Brian Hennessey

The phrase “silence is golden” is obscured in the mists of time. There is a version of it that dates back to ancient Egypt and it has been commented upon by the great and the lowly throughout history. My parents used to remind me of it when they tired of my chatter. One wise man, William the Silent, gave it more attention than most. He said that silence “was the art of concealing thought” – to the extent that silence has the power to both stifle and suspend thought – and to such a degree that nothing in the recesses of the mind remains to be concealed. I have not tried it myself and so I am unable to vouch for its success. I do know individuals, however, indeed a whole group of individuals – that parade as the hierarchy of the Comboni Missionary Order – who have been experimenting with silence for some years. For them, it does seem to work. They have discovered that there is a significant degree of “unnacountability” in perpetual silence. With total silence, they have realised, no doubt with an opportune degree of shrewdness added to the mix, that even such essentially intrinsic values as “truth” can diminish, recede and ultimately vanish from their own minds – or at the very least be postponed for an indefinite – but very long time – hopefully.

More commonly, silence is an aggressive tactic to deny the “truth”. We have all heard the short expedient phrase, “No comment”! There is a finality to that phrase. It means, in effect, that however often you ask the question, you will receive no response – no acceptance of the truth of the matter about which you have enquired. Thus, “No comment” becomes a euphemism for the outright “total denial” of an accusation. Ultimately, the more that “truth” is demanded, the more it is denied. – and the more the denier will become entrenched in denial. The lie is, of course, the denial itself – and thus“Truth” becomes the very casualty of the silence that results from the unwillingness to respond to attempts to solicit it. For the Denier – in this case the Comboni Missionary Order of Verona, Italy – silence is truly a blessing – even if not quite “golden”.

There is another dimension that often embellishes denial so as to soften it, make it more acceptable – or to instill doubt. It is called “suggestion”. I give you an example.
In the 1960s and 70s, a group of seminarians (about twenty of them) at the Mirfield seminary of a Religious Order (known commonly then as the Verona Fathers, but now as the Comboni Missionaries) allege that they were sexually abused by clerics of the Order. These Victims knew the “truth” of the matter – because it happened to them. They have not forgotten about it as it has pretty much ruined the lives of most of them – and almost ended the lives of some. They reported the abuse on some twenty occasions at the time to nine priests of the Order. Twelve of the Victims have made statements to this effect in the current decade. Other cases are on-going or under consideration. There are some 42 witness accounts of the abuse – and three of those witnesses are priests themselves. Three Victims reported the incidents of the abuse to the West Yorkshire Police and that Force has said that the the cases are substantial to the degree that they consider that there are charges to be answered. Two living priests of the Order of Comboni Missionaries are cited (in statements dated as recently as September 2013) as having acknowledged that they had known of the abuse of two of the abusing clerics. It all sounds pretty clear cut on the face of it, but what was said about these allegations to the press by the Comboni Missionary Order was not clear cut at all. In fact, they feigned, shammed and dissembled:

• A Comboni Missionary Spokesperson stated publicly that there are priests alive today who were at Mirfield at the time of the alleged abuse, but they have no knowledge of the abuse. (Observer Oct 2014) (Note: they ommitted to state that there are priests alive today who were at Mirfield at the time of the alleged abuse, who do have knowledge of the abuse!)

• A Comboni Missionary Spokesperson stated that “we know that anyone subjected to abusive behaviour will experience suffering and we are dismayed to think that such suffering may have been caused to youngsters who attended our junior seminary. If that is the case, we are deeply sorry to anyone who has been hurt in this way. ( The Observer Oct 2014, Mail On-Line Feb 2015)

• A Comboni Missionary Spokesperson, Kathy Perrin, a lawyer with the Catholic Church Insurance Association, said “Everything happened an incredibly long time ago and two of the priests who were accused are now deceased. My clients simply don’t know what happened at Mirfield and don’t feel that it can be established now.” (The Telegraph, 14th May 2015)

• A Comboni Missionary Spokesperson, Father Martin Devenish, provincial superior of the London Province of the Verona Fathers, stated publicly: “It was with great sadness and regret that the Verona Fathers learned that a number of allegations of historical abuse had been made relating to our former junior seminary, St Peter’s, located in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. “We condemn unreservedly any action which causes harm or distress to others, particularly children. We know that anyone subjected to abusive behaviour will experience suffering and we are dismayed to think that such suffering may have been caused to youngsters who attended our junior seminary. “If that is the case, we are deeply sorry to anyone who was hurt whilst they were in our care at Mirfield and our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families.” (The Telegraph, 14th May 2015)

Silence has yet a further degenerative dimension. It is the fear of the truth – that “in extremis” is known as alethobia. That fear can arise from the possibility of disclosure of lies and deceit – and its possible consequences. Truth can offend the ego of a person or institution and can claw at their perception of self-righteousness – and destroy illusions of superiority and self esteem. For a Religious Order such as the Mendicant Comboni Missionary Order, it may also cause a serious loss of lay support towards an institution’s critical revenue. (Yes – silence really can be that golden – it keeps the money flowing into the coffers). Thus, fear of the consequences of the “truth” might even, in the minds of some, instigate a necessity to attack the reputation of the the very victims of the lie – in order to deflect the possibility of their own loss of reputation (and gold). What was it that I heard in such an instance recently? Ah, yes: “Money grabbing liars”! That was it – a member of the Comboni Missionary Religious Order – referred to Victims of depraved clerical child sexual abuse as “Money-grabbing liars”! How low can you go to deflect your own shame.

I ask myself frequently how it is that “men of religion”, supposedly steeped in the Christian spirit of Charity and the Gospels can deliberately obfuscate and prevaricate and deny the “Truth” presented to them by “Victims”. Did not Christ say, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light. No one commeth unto the Father but by me”. I propose, being kindly in nature and with vague memories of actually liking and respecting many members of their Order, that they would not readily lie – and thus they choose to remain silent instead – in that false perception of expedient unaccountability. The problem is that the “truth” of the child sexual abuse at the Mirfield Comboni Missionary Order’s seminary is the casualty of that silence. As much as denial can be a lie, so also silence can hide the lie . The Order has no intention of breaking that silence – no matter how much the Victims clamour for truth, reconciliation and apologies. “Truth Commissions” never take place during a conflict – only long after the dust has settled.

The Group known as the Mirfield 12 encourage Victims to come forward – not to destroy the Order of the Comboni Missionaries – but for the Victims own good – to shed the demons of the past and get their lives back – and live again without the sense of wretchedness that they confront daily. Thus whilst more and more Victims do come to the fore to experience that self-healing process of acknowledging the truth of the abuse that they themselves suffered, so the Comboni Missionary Order will consider themselves to be in legal conflict. So – unaccountable, expedient silence – the denial of truth – will continue to reign supreme in their cloisters – and a “truth Commission” – earnestly sought by some, will remain a distant hope. But – to quote one of the top ten misquoted bible sayings (that doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible at all) they do say that the “Lord works in mysterious ways”. Let us hope that He does – or as an exception – decides to!

Church-Abuse Survivors Accuse Vatican of Empty Promises — By Jennifer Swann

The Vatican on Monday announced a new series of policies and projects following a weeklong assembly of a commission aimed at preventing child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. But the ousting from the Pope Francis–appointed panel of one of its most outspoken members has cast doubt on its commitment to reform.

The Vatican’s press statement did not mention its decision on Saturday to suspend Peter Saunders, a survivor of clergy abuse who had been enlisted to join the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Critics say the controversy, which comes amid widespread scrutiny of the appointment of a Chilean bishop accused of concealing abuse, is only the latest example of the church’s continued need for increased accountability and external oversight.

“This notion that the church needs new policies and panels and procedures and protocols—it’s really just smart PR, but it’s also very, very, very disingenuous,” said David Clohessy, a survivor of clergy abuse and founder of the national support and advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. The commission’s efforts “on paper look great,” he said. “It’s just that they’re never enforced.”

The church’s initiatives include a proposal to “remind all authorities in the church of the importance of responding directly to victims and survivors who approach them” and the planning of a workshop later this year to establish more transparency around canonical trials. Pope Francis created the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in March 2014, a month after the United Nations accused the Catholic Church of failing to acknowledge the extent of its crimes. In a report issued by the U.N.’s Committee on the Rights of the Child, the international human rights organization urged the Vatican to report child abusers to law enforcement, expel them from their positions, and make its archives public to hold high-ranking abusers accountable for their crimes.

Saunders is known as a fierce critic of the church, and his appointment to the commission lent it a tremendous amount of credibility, said Anne Barrett Doyle, the codirector of the online archive BishopAccountability.org. “I was actually thinking, ‘They might be this independent watchdog group,’ ” said Barrett Doyle, whose organization conducts research and tracks news related to the church’s sex abuse scandal. “We never see members of the advisory commission of church panels speaking out against the church, so it was actually making them seem like the real deal.”

The Vatican’s decision to suspend Saunders may have shattered any illusion of progress in the eyes of its detractors. The Vatican announced Saturday that Saunders would “take a leave of absence from his membership to consider how he might best support the commission’s work.” The institution told reporters that the commission’s members should not comment directly on specific cases of abuse, deferring to investigators instead. Barrett Doyle sees that as an inherent contradiction.

“To have a mission that prohibits the group from speaking about individual cases is to really limit its effectiveness,” she said. “What is it supposed to do—create rules going forward in a vacuum without using real-life examples as the source for what must be avoided and what must be included in your rules?”

During a press conference Saunders organized on Saturday, he said he had no plans to leave his position on the commission. He suggested his ousting followed a dispute in which he advocated for the commission to become more transparent. “The response of the commission was that they want to remain in secret with discussions behind closed doors for reasons I am sure they are more than happy to share with you,” he said. “But as I said, the reason the vile crime of abuse and rape of children persists is because too many people and too many institutions, including our church, [are] willing to brush these matters under the carpet and to try and silence anybody who wishes to speak out of such matters.”

Saunders’ removal from the commission is not the only point of contention for survivors and advocates seeking changes in the Catholic Church. Just a day after the Vatican asked Saunders to take a leave of absence, he and fellow clergy-abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz delivered letters to Pope Francis urging him to remove Bishop Juan Barros, whom he appointed in Osorno, Chile, last year. Barros has been accused of covering up abuse by Father Fernando Karadima, whom the Vatican sentenced in 2011 to “a life of prayer and penitence” for his longtime abuse of children, including Cruz when he was a teenager.

For survivors like Clohessy, bringing criminal charges against officials found guilty of abuse is key to creating meaningful change within the Catholic Church. “It sounds cynical, but priests maneuver and scheme and work for decades in order to become a bishop,” he said, “and if they saw that position being yanked away from even a handful of their colleagues because they mishandled abuse, they would change their ways. But in fact, they see just the reverse”

Vatican panel kicks off meeting on sexual abuse by watching ‘Spotlight’ — By Tom Kington

Vatican commission on clerical sex abuse gathered Thursday for a private screening of “Spotlight,” the Oscar-nominated film about abuse by Boston priests, even as Pope Francis came under fire for failing to act on the crisis.

The extraordinary screening was held on the eve of a three-day meeting by the commission, and was shown in the same church residence in central Rome where Francis — then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — stayed before his election as pope in 2013.

“The film is extremely worrying about the cover-up of abuse in the Catholic Church, and I think it would be a good moment for the pope to see it,” said Peter Saunders, a British anti-abuse campaigner who is a member of the commission. He was abused by a Catholic priest as a child growing up in London.

Francis set up the abuse commission in 2014, appointing clergy and abuse survivors as members, and handing leadership to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who took over the Boston archdiocese after the Boston Globe exposed rampant abuse by priests — events portrayed in “Spotlight.” The commission was charged with finding ways to better protect children from abuse by priests.

Pope Francis, shown at the Vatican on Wednesday, is under fire from those who say he has not done enough on the clerical sexual-abuse crisis. A commission he set up met Thursday to view the film “Spotlight,” about a Boston Globe investigation into the abuse scandal.

The pope was not reported to have been at the screening, which was closed to reporters. The Vatican has not officially commented on “Spotlight,” but Vatican Radio praised it last fall as “honest” and “compelling.”

Last year, Francis also set up a new Vatican tribunal to prosecute bishops accused of covering up for abusive priests.

Saunders, however, said he believes Francis’ good intentions were undone by his appointment last year of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros to the diocese of Osorno in Chile, despite “very credible” accusations that Barros covered up for a predator priest, Father Fernando Karadima, who was punished by the Vatican.

Last May, Francis told a group of Chileans to ignore Barros’ critics, who include survivors of abuse by Karadima.

“Think with your heads and do not be led by the noses by the lefties who orchestrated this whole thing,” Francis said.

“Francis has said phenomenally damaging and painful things about survivors,” said Saunders. “People in Chile now see the commission as a laughingstock, and I cannot pretend the commission means anything unless he sacks Barros.”

Marie Collins, a Irish abuse survivor and fellow panel member, has also criticized the Barros appointment. After Francis’ disparaging remarks about “lefties,” she tweeted that she was “discouraged and saddened” by what he said.

In an interview last month with the National Catholic Reporter, Collins said it was “wonderful” the church had become more humble under Pope Francis, but added there was “still resistance” in the Vatican to fighting abuse.

Saunders said he had met the pope in October and asked him to attend the commission meeting, which will be held Friday through Sundayin Rome.

“It will be outrageous if he doesn’t attend, and I will say so — it will be the end of the honeymoon for Pope Francis,” he said.

Looking ahead to the three-day commission meeting, which follows two held last year, Saunders said he was not optimistic the experts would be able to change the way the church handles abuse.

“The last meeting in October was a non-event. I was told that Rome was not built in a day, but the problem is that it takes seconds to rape a child,” he said.

As shown in the following article, the Comboni Missionaries response to the abuse at Mirfield was similar to the Irish Christian Brothers response to abuse in Sunderland — “it is purely a commercial transaction.”

The Catholic church continues to quietly pay out compensation to victims of alleged sex abuse at Catholic schools in Britain while refusing to accept liability.

Leslie Turner, a retired primary headteacher, was paid £17,000 in compensation by the Irish Christian Brothers in 2014, after claiming two members of the Catholic order sexually abused him at school in Sunderland in the 1960s.

Turner, now 66, has waived his anonymity in a film for the Guardian to allege he was molested from the age of 12 by two teachers at St Aidan’s Roman Catholic grammar school in Sunderland between 1961 and 1967. Both are long dead, but he sued after being diagnosed with delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder in 2012 as a result of what he says he suffered as a child.

“After the abuse stopped was actually worse than when the abuse was taking place,” Turner told the Guardian. “I tried to become invisible. It never occurred to me to tell anybody. When the headteacher has been abusing you, who do you tell? I put it into a cupboard in my head and I shut the cupboard door.”

Turner is speaking out as the film Spotlight, is released in UK cinemas, which tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigation into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Boston in 2002. The Globe’s investigation helped unveil a pattern of abuse by Catholic priests on a global scale.

“The church in Boston tried to sweep it under the carpet,” Turner said. “You read about cases [of abuse] in this country and other parts of the world … I lost my faith.” Describing the alleged abuse of children at St Aidan’s, Turner says: “It was so frequent it was what we expected to happen. It was normal.” As a child, the abuse made him scared and upset, and that he was letting his mum down, Turner said.

In September 2014 the Congregation of Christian Brothers agreed to pay Turner £17,000 after he brought a compensation claim for psychiatric injury, cost of therapy and loss of earnings, arguing that the Irish Christian Brothers were vicariously liable for the alleged abuse, owing him as a child a direct duty of care.

Numbers of members of the Irish Christian Brothers dwindled after the order became embroiled in sex abuse scandals in the US, Canada, Australia and Ireland. Its assets are now administered by the trustees of the Congregation of Christian Brothers.

The Congregation settled just before the claim was due to be heard in the high court, when it would have been forced to disclose whether any other pupils at schools run by the Irish Christian Brothers, including St Aidan’s, had claimed to have been abused. It would also have had to publicly reveal whether the teachers Turner accuses of abuse had been the subject of any other complaints, and how such complaints were dealt with.

When settling the claim, the Congregation said it was unable to admit or deny the allegations and insisted the Christian Brothers could not admit liability for what Turner claims happened to him. It said it would be “quite impossible” to investigate the allegations more than 50 years on, with the two alleged perpetrators dead.

Turner claims that one, Brother Norman Williams, would habitually abuse him during English lessons when he was 12. He alleges that the teacher would call him to the front of the class to read aloud to other boys, standing behind a large wooden table. As he read, the brother would reach up through his shorts and touch his genitals, pinching between his legs when he made a mistake, Turner says.

He said that the school’s then headmaster, Brother Dennis O’Brien, abused him in his office when he was 13. He said the headmaster asked if he had impure thoughts or actions, and in order to “check”, then abused him. Turner claims the head teacher told him he should say Hail Marys, and felt “great shame and guilt” when he got an erection.

Turner says he is going public to encourage other victims to come forward. “It had a profound effect on me, subconsciously, because more than anything else I wanted to be a teacher. I find this hard to explain to anyone but … I wanted to be a teacher who treated their pupils with respect.”

One of Turner’s classmates had provided a witness statement corroborating his account of what happened at St Aidan’s. Ray Stewart, who also went on to become a headteacher, said Brother Williams sexually assaulted him behind his desk in 1961. He claims he saw the brother “feeling up other boys in my class in exactly the same way”. Stewart also alleges that O’Brien once called him into his office and asked inappropriate questions about his sexual habits.

Turner said he suppressed his experiences throughout his career as a primary school teacher, which culminated in him serving on the Lancashire Safeguarding Children’s Board. He said he only disclosed the alleged abuse in 2007, when watching The Magdalene Sisters, which told of abuse at Catholic schools in Ireland. He reported it to the police in 2010 and was eventually told that Williams had died in 1977 and O’Brien died in 1998. Turner claims a police officer told him they knew of one other sexual abuse complaint made against Williams and four against O’Brien.

In a statement, lawyers for the Congregation said: “It is the unequivocal position of the Congregation of Christian Brothers Trustees that no young person should ever suffer abuse.

“In 2012, when Mr Turner first notified the Congregation of his complaint of abuse from around 1961, we apologised. Mr Turner accepted that apology with good grace. We are pleased that we were subsequently able to reach a mutually acceptable resolution to his claim at the high court.”

The lawyers refused to answer a series of questions from the Guardian, including details of other complaints of sexual abuse made against Williams and O’Brien and other brothers at St Aidan’s.

A couple of days ago I spoke with an ex seminarian from Mirfield. He asked me to post a brief account of our talk on the Blog.
The emphasis during our conversation was on the difficult time he is having coming to terms with recently discovering the Verona Fathers Mirfield Blog and the effect that the many painful memories of his Mirfield abuse is having on him at present.
He does not feel ready to disclose his name. Like many abused, he feels guilt and shame, and in some way feels that he is also complicit in the abuse that happened to him
Apart from his wife – and now me – he has never spoken to another person about the sexual abuse that he had to endure at Mirfield.
One post of his was recently put on the Blog – “Sent home in DISGRACE” from the Comboni Missionaries Junior Seminary, Mirfield – by anonymous.

He went on to tell me that he went to Father Columbo to talk about the abuse that was happening to him. Soon after that meeting he was, “sent home in disgrace” – another three seminarians were also sent home at the same time.

He would like to thank us all for the work we are doing in bringing the truth about what happened at Mirfield into the public domain. He hopes soon that he will be able to disclose his name on the Blog.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Blog is still working.
Mark

More victims of sexual assault have found the courage to come forward after watching Oscar-nominated Spotlight, it has been claimed.

The film tells the true story how investigative reporters from the Boston Globe uncovered child molestation and its cover-up within their local Catholic church in 2001.

In an interview with the Independent, the Globe’s editor-at-large Walter Robinson said the film had made a huge impact on the public ‘in a way that the printed word never could have’.

‘More victims are coming forward because of this film,’ he claimed.

Father Pelucchi, a former Vicar General of the Order claimed a couple of years ago that there had never ever been a member of the Order who had committed an act of Child Abuse!

Surely, Father Pelucchi, as the Vicar General, you must have been aware of this.

The following article is by Dan Horn, The Cincinnati Enquirer

At least eight Catholic priests and brothers affiliated with religious orders have been accused of abusing children in Greater Cincinnati since 1950.

An Enquirer survey of the 11 religious orders with offices or missions in the area that encompasses the Archdiocese of Cincinnati found that five of the accused clerics are now dead. The remaining three have been removed from the ministry.

One of them, Franciscan Brother Michael Montgomery, worked for years as an athletic trainer at Roger Bacon High School despite two accusations of inappropriate contact with male students in the 1980s.

The survey – the first of its kind involving Cincinnati’s religious orders – shows that the total number of clerics accused in the archdiocese since 1950 is at least 57.

A national study released last month estimated that total at 49, but that study only included priests responsible to the archdiocese. The religious orders – which are independent of the archdiocese – include more than 240 priests and brothers from the Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits and other groups.

The survey’s findings have raised concern among victims’ advocates who say the religious orders have, for the most part, avoided the same kind of scrutiny that priests of the archdiocese have faced through two years of clergy abuse scandals.

They say the orders’ independence, as well as their tendency to frequently move their priests around the country, often makes it more difficult for law enforcement and lay Catholics to keep track of abusive clerics.

“Abuse by religious-order priests kind of goes undetected,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests. “It’s easier for abuse by religious-order priests to be covered up or to go unreported.”

The survey found that six of Cincinnati’s religious orders reported at least one accused priest, three said they had none, one did not respond and one – the Jesuits- refused to provide information. No order reported more than two cases.

Of the three accused clerics who are still alive, only Brother Montgomery has been identified. Hamilton County prosecutors confirmed the church recently provided them with complaints about Montgomery, but said the allegations are too old to pursue in court.

“Hurtful behavior”

The Franciscans, who have about 200 brothers nationwide, received at least two complaints of improper touching involving Montgomery in the 1980s. The first incident occurred on a camping trip; the second at a hotel during a ski trip.

Despite those allegations, authorities were not called, and he was allowed to continue working as an athletic trainer at Roger Bacon.

“(Montgomery) told me it was purely accidental,” said Father Jeremy Harrington, who was then the provincial minister of Cincinnati’s Franciscans. “In hindsight, looking back on what I know now about the whole sexual abuse situation, I probably would have acted differently.”

At the time, Harrington said, the boys’ parents did not want to contact police or have Montgomery removed from his job. Montgomery, who could not be reached for comment, took an athletic training position in 1997 at St. Bonaventure University in New York.

He remained there until 2002, when the Franciscans’ new provincial, Father Fred Link, removed him from ministry because of the previous allegations. The removal came as church leaders were under increasing pressure to crack down on accused clerics.

“The province is deeply committed to dealing with this heinous issue,” Link said.

Officials at St. Bonaventure said they didn’t know about Montgomery’s past but received no complaints about him while he was there.

A third former Roger Bacon student came forward to complain a few months ago, saying Montgomery provided him with alcohol and molested him at a hotel in 1980, when he was 15. He was upset when he learned there had been other accusations.

“Why the hell didn’t they remove him?” said the accuser, who is not being identified. “I don’t want this to ever happen to another person. Hopefully, this will help the church cleanse itself of these parasites.”

Link said he considers the allegation credible. When he recently told Montgomery there had been an allegation, Link said, his response “indicated he was responsible.”

“Brother Michael is deeply contrite for any inappropriate, hurtful behavior,” Link said.

He said Montgomery now is working with adults for a business in Indianapolis.

Tougher rules, new policies

Montgomery is one of 929 religious-order priests accused of abuse since 1950, according to the national study released last month.

That total represents 2.7 percent of all clerics affiliated with religious orders, which is about half the percentage for diocesan priests.

Clohessy said geography is the main reason the diocesan percentage is higher.

He said diocesan priests tend to spend entire careers in the same region, where it’s easier to keep an eye on them, while religious-order priests routinely move from state to state or country to country.

And when someone wants to complain about a religious-order priest, it’s sometimes difficult because the order’s leaders might be thousands of miles away.

“With diocesan priests, it’s harder to hide them and easier for victims to know who to contact if there’s a problem,” Clohessy said.

Leaders of the orders say their numbers are lower because they do a good job rooting out abusive clerics. They say they have adopted tougher rules to protect children and have agreed, like the dioceses, to immediately report abuse allegations to authorities.

“We’ve always been proactive with authorities,” said Howard Schwartz, spokesman for the Maryknoll Fathers, an order with offices in Cincinnati and more than 1,300 priests worldwide. “Maryknoll always has and always will treat any allegation, even one from overseas, according to American law.”

Maryknoll reported no abuse allegations in the Cincinnati area, as did the Dominicans and the Fathers of St. Charles.

The Franciscans, the Comboni Missionaries, the Glenmary Home Missioners and the Marianists each reported one accused cleric in Cincinnati. The Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis and the Society of the Precious Blood each reported two cases.

The leaders of the orders say they do their best to help victims who come forward. Most offer counseling and a few have agreed to out-of-court financial settlements.

But Konrad Kircher, a Mason lawyer who represents one of Montgomery’s alleged victims, said they aren’t doing enough. He said the orders and dioceses have followed a similar pattern of either concealing accusations or doing nothing about them.

Father Link said his order did not intentionally harm anyone, even though Montgomery was permitted to keep working after students complained about his conduct.

“The provincials before me never felt there ever was any danger to children,” Link said. “I can’t believe anyone would leave a person in ministry if they thought there was a danger.”

Religious-order accusations

Eleven Catholic religious orders have missions or offices in the area encompassing Archdiocese of Cincinnati, with a total of about 240 priests and brothers. The Enquirer asked the orders to provide the number clerics accused of abuse since 1950, regardless of whether they were able to substantiate the allegations:

Brothers of the Poor of St. Francis – Two accused (one is dead, the other has been removed from ministry)

Comboni Missionaries – One accused (now dead)

Congregation of the Holy Spirit – Did not respond

Dominicans – None accused

Franciscans – One accused (removed from ministry)

Glenmary Home Missioners – One accused (removed from ministry)

Jesuits – Refused to participate

Marianists – One accused (now dead)

Maryknoll Fathers – None accused

Society of the Precious Blood – Two accused (both dead)

Fathers of St. Charles – None accused
Comboni