COMBONI MISSIONARY ORDER OF VERONA IN COURT ON CHARGES RELATING TO CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE.
@MarkStephenMur2
Queen’s Bench Division daily cause list Cause list Tuesday, 12 June 2018 Updated: 11 June 2018 16.33 (refresh your browser for the latest version) (link: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/court-lists/list-queens-bench) justice.gov.uk/courts/court-l…
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On Monday, 7 April 2014, 10:54, “ah.@…
wrote:
Dear Mark
I have been away and just received your e mails.
The position we discussed in our telephone conversation in March
related to my conversation with Fr John Clark is:
1. I
was assured that the Order had taken steps to prevent Fr Nardo from
being in a situation where he could abuse children. This is because
he has been removed from active ministry and has been given pastoral
work looking after the sick and dying members of the Community based
at the mother house in Verona.
2. Fr Clark and I did discuss whether a letter might be sent to that
effect but any text would need to be approved by the Provincial before
it was sent. I have never received a copy of a letter from the Order
to yourself, but might not necessarily have expected to receive one.
3. I had and have no objection for that information to be shared with
your legal representative if you so decided. The request from AO
earlier in March was to provide a witness statement. I am not able to
do this as I have no direct first hand knowledge of the people or the
circumstances you were in and it would therefore be inappropriate for
the Diocese to become involved in the legal process.
4. As we discussed in March, the action I took in meeting the
Safeguarding Co-Ordinator for the Verona Fathers was to clarify the
concerns which you had raised with me when we met Fr. ………and I
think I have done what I promised and fed back to you the outcome of
that meeting as I understood it.
I hope this answers the points you raise in your e-mail.
Best wishes
Keith
To assist those entwined in this story, I recount the following passages, made by Comboni Missionary spokespersons, from the United Kingdom press for their reflection: –
> “We are concerned and very dismayed to hear of the alleged incidents of sexual and physical abuse”. (Dewsbury Reporter Sep 2013).
> “We have great sadness and regret at the allegations. Given the passage of time of almost half a century, we will never know the truth of what happened”. (Huddersfield Daily Examiner Oct 2014, BBC Leeds and West Yorkshire Oct 2014)
> “There was no evidence of a culture of abuse at the Mirfield seminary”. (Observer Oct 2014)
> “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)
> “The abuse had not been proven”. (BBC Leeds and West Yorkshire Oct 2014)
> “As the allegations related to matters alleged to have occurred around fifty years ago – and the Verona Fathers are unable to identify their insurers from that period – having received legal advice, they decided to explore whether an early negotiated settlement of the claims may be possible in order to keep legal costs to a minimum”. (Greenock Telegraph Nov 2014).
> “We are dismayed by allegations of abuse and have co-operated with Police enquiries – but will not acknowledge that any of the men had been abused despite damages having been awarded”. (Mail On-Line Feb 2015).
> “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)
> “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. – There are three other pending cases of alleged sexual abuse of Mirfield pupils by priests”. (The Telegraph, 14th May 2015)
> “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)
BOOK REVIEW
Note by Brian Mark Hennessy
(As the United Kingdom Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse begins to Consider the Issue of the Mandatory Reporting of Child Sexual Abuse by Church Authorities to Civil Justice Services, Readers might like to better inform themselves of the History of Confession – which will be central to the understanding of the many issues involved. John Cornwells book, ‘The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession’ is a relaxing start – as is Michael D’Antonio’s book ‘Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal’. The following article was written by Michael D’Antonio – May 14, 2014).
Michael D’Antonio’s Review of ‘History of Confession is a Tale of Sexual Obsession, & Exploitation’ By John Cornwell
John Cornwell may be our most gifted and persistent chronicler of Catholicism in the context of the modern world. In Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, he raised essential questions about the Vatican’s response to the greatest evil of the 20th century. In Newman’s Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint, he presents the great English cardinal as a flesh-and-blood person. Now, in The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession, Cornwell uses his formidable talents to reveal the sacrament in a complete, compelling and original way.
Beginning with childhood recollections that are at once particular and universal, Cornwell recalls the ritual he was required to perform before first Communion, and the rote practice that followed through the rest of his childhood. He describes with real poignancy the boy who felt true sorrow over the idea that a 7-year-old could offend God and the distrust that arose when a priest propositioned him during a confession.
Despite the guilt heaped upon him in childhood, and the predation he was subject to as an adolescent, young Cornwell wanted to be a priest. He devoted seven full years to training for the priesthood. Sex and science, two forces that have undone many vocations, ended his pursuit of ordination. However, after a long time spent hovering “between agnosticism and atheism,” his marriage to a devout Catholic woman who raised their children in the faith brought him back to the fold.
His writing is thus informed by faith and unfaith as well as intellect and passion. The combination proves highly effective, as Cornwell explores spiritual and psychological truths even as he reveals the history of a sacrament that has varied greatly over the centuries. Confession may be good for the soul — at least sometimes — but it has also been used to evil effect by those who would use the secrecy of the sacrament and the power of the priesthood to exploit the vulnerable.
The vulnerable come to mind at many turns in Cornwell’s narrative. They appear first as 6-year-olds who, Cornwell reminds the reader, were required throughout much of the 20th century to learn all the different “categories of sins” as well as all “the punishments due for sins in Purgatory and Hell.” Many readers will be surprised to learn that prior to 1910, young children were not subjected to this rather terrifying information, because they were deemed incapable of sinning in any meaningful way. For this reason, Catholics didn’t begin making confessions until the age of 12. Depending on local custom, some waited past their 18th birthday.
It was Pope Pius X who commanded that youngsters be instructed in the realities of sin and damnation prior to first Communion. He instituted this change as part of his larger campaign against the effects of modernism. As only the second pope to reign after the church lost its territories on the Italian peninsula, Pius had lived through the last years of the Papal States and witnessed the decline of church power. He believed that confession for the very young, as well as more frequent confession by all Catholics, would give them spiritual nourishment and serve as a bulwark against the secular world.
As Cornwell reveals, the piety imposed on early 20th-century Catholics, as hierarchs urged them toward frequent confession, was itself a modern phenomenon. Originating in monasteries during the first millennium, confession was not required of all Catholics until the 13th century. Even then, it was typically practiced just once per year. Cornwell notes that this requirement was imposed, at least in part, by church leaders who expected priests to interrogate penitents and learn if they might be heretics.
Confession and the authority to grant absolution also greatly enhanced the power of the priest. With sins absolved, the believer would gain heaven. Without absolution, death could bring the spiritual pain of purgatory or the eternal damnation of hell.
From the very beginning of confession, practices varied widely among both priests and laypeople. Some clergy emphasized compassion and forgiveness and faithfully kept secret what they heard. Others exploited their power and the information captured during the sacrament. The 11th-century monk Peter Damian famously excoriated clerics for the sexual abuse of minors, which often began with the penitent-confessor relationship. In the later Middle Ages, as Cornwell tells us, “criminality among confessors was widespread and entrenched.” Much of the criminality involved sexual assaults and priestly transgressions against the church’s sexual mores, which had become enshrined in law.
In its best passages, The Dark Box connects the sexual obsessions of the earliest priestly celibates with the abuse of confession and the suffering of untold millions of everyday Catholics. For centuries, priests functioned as “forensic” interrogators, coercing or merely persuading men, women and children to reveal the secrets for which they should feel most ashamed. The institutional obsession with sexual sin tells us that clergy were themselves tortured by guilt.
However, this understanding doesn’t change the fact that the shame heaped upon the laity caused incalculable and unnecessary suffering. Cornwell entered the seminary at a time when Catholic shame was under attack from modern psychology and its far healthier regard for sexuality. He came to realize that his classmates suffered greatly under the teachings of the church, and that their responses ranged from the suicidal to the cruel. “For some,” he writes, “priggishness was a full-time job.”
Fortunately for us, Conwell adds kindness and compassion to the candor that resides at the heart of his book. He also writes from the perspective of a man who has found the love and maturity at the center of Christianity. In his view, the soul is renewed by God’s forgiveness, and not the legalisms and rituals of the church. This is also the view of many who responded to a survey Cornwell conducted for the British Catholic journal The Tablet, and it represents the gentle triumph of the same modernism that Pius X sought to defeat by requiring regular visits to the dark box of the confessional.
About that box: It was designed by 16th-century Cardinal Charles Borromeo, who was outraged by the many complaints of sexual abuse lodged against priests. Borromeo’s box put a physical barrier between penitent and confessor, but priests continued to abuse their power by sexually exploiting men, women and children. Real solutions to this problem would arrive only in the late 20th century, as the laity began to challenge church teachings on sin and began to confess, to each other and to legal authorities, the truth of their experiences.
Combonis care only about their image, wealth and institution – truth is not important if it damages that. They lied in Feb 2018 to Verona Court about my meeting with my abuser Nardo and Superiors of the Verona Mother House, April 2015. They continue to lie about Mirfield abuse.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MarkStephenMur2
To Comboni seminarians that are taking their Professions of Faith this year: what are your feelings about the behaviour towards the abused by your Order? You take a Vow of obedience. How do you square that Vow up with your Order’s behaviour towards the Mirfield abused children?
All abuse is about power and control. The Comboni Order of Verona revictimise those that were abused by their priests because they are fearful of loosing their power, wealth and image. I am speaking as one who has been revictimised. In my case not only the power of the abuser over the child, but the power of the abuser over the child’s family. Comboni, Father Romano Nardo did this to perfection on my family. And, yet, the Combonis still do not acknowledge or apologise for what happened.
Comboni Missionaries 