Category Archives: Cover Up

THE DEAFNESS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS – THE SHOCKING TALE OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH – By Brian Mark Hennessy

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THE DEAFNESS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

THE SHOCKING TALE OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF RELIGIOUS ORDERS

IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

BY BRIAN MARK HENNESSY

Arthur David Molesworth is a highly qualified professional with years of experience in all matters related to the protection of children from sexual abuse. It fell to him to take on issues of child protection at the Benedictine Monastic School at Ampleforth Abbey. When he took over that task there was an immediate issue requiring action that was already 16 months old. Ampleforth had arranged for a survivor of clerical abuse at their Abbey school to be visited by Father Dominic, who was a previous head teacher – and Moulesworth stated clearly that he shouldn’t interfere because it could be seen as tampering with a witness. He told the Abbey, in no uncertain terms, “If you were a safe organisation, you would not allow him to do this”. His advice was ignored and it would not be the first time.

 

In his evidence to the United Kingdom’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Arthur Molesworth’s testimony revealed that he was told by the Abbey, “An abbot’s first task, before all else, is the care of his monks.” Moulsworth stated that he did not have a problem with him caring for his monks, but not if it is in front of protecting children. In a sense, he stated “what we were trying to deal with was the power of the abbot, the duty of obedience to the abbot, the abbot’s will”. He continued, “Stepping further back, I find myself questioning whether the community has either the mechanisms, the understanding or even a basic willingness  to properly deal with child protection matters. I felt at that stage, you know, we have got to start shifting this”.

 

“This wasn’t as if it was an isolated experience with Ampleforth”, he said, “it was what had happened the year before. We are obviously talking about major concerns being expressed about the Catholic Church nationally, and we then had this extraordinary reaction. You know, it led me to write: ‘Child abuse is able to thrive in organisations where there is secrecy.’ I was being blocked, we were being blocked, I use rather pompous words: ‘Obfuscation, denial or downright obstruction’. If you are going to work with us, you work with us; anything less than that, it means you are blocking. I have to say, I think their lawyer was a part of this, talking about ‘Monks have rights, we need to protect them’. “That’s fine, but let’s protect the children first”, responded Moulsworth.

 

Prior to giving his evidence, Arthur Molesworth was confronted with correspondence written in 2006 by Abbot Cuthbert Madden. Moulsworth said, “I have to say, early this week, I read documents in the Ampleforth dossier written at the same time as a ‘getting to know you’ meeting which shocked me, because what was being said about social services was toxic. It was in stark contrast to their statement, ‘We are wanting to work with you’. Behind the scenes, it was something very different. My role was to provide external challenge on safeguarding matters, and I think they wanted people like me to go away, not keep on coming back and asking the hard questions”.

 

At one point in his testimony, Arthur Molesworth, detailed how the Abbey was in a rush to get their ‘own version’ of events at Ampleforth out to the press, whilst Moulsworth was trying to manage a number of issues that a press statement might inhibit and he asked them to hold fire. Moulsworth wanted a joint statement which involved co-ordination with the Police and Social Services. Nevertheless, the Abbey went ahead and in a telephone conversation with Arthur Moulsworth, a representative of the Abbey stated “Actually, I’m not concerned about you. You need to understand you’re dealing with a machine. The Catholic Church is well-organised, well-oiled, it is them who are doing this”. I was quite struck by the way he was telling me not to cross with him, just saying, “You need to understand what you are dealing with”.

 

Arthur Molesworth also discovered that whilst the social services and the police were talking with Ampleforth about significant safeguarding matters and risks to children, the Abbey had some other risk assessments that they had not divulged to the local authorities. Instead they had formed their own views on the risks and had, effectively, tampered, in one case, with a witness. This activity had excluded the police and delayed investigations – and eventually the complainant had stopped the case going any further – despite the strength and anger he had expressed previously to Moulsworth, who subsequently became convinced that the Abbey had talked him out of proceeding any further. In his view, Arthur Moulsworth also stated that in one case there were four abbots who had known about the behavior of one priest but those Abbots just “didn’t get safeguarding; they didn’t get child protection”.

 

As I write about this testimony of Arthur Moulsworth to the United Kingdom’s Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse – and having been born a Catholic and my dear parents having been devoted to Catholicism – I am dismayed and ashamed beyond belief. I visited Benedictine Abbeys with my parents when I was a teenager and I was in awe of the monks. I became a member of a Religious Order myself and took my first vows whilst at the Novitiate of the Comboni Missionary Religious Institute at Sunningdale in Berkshire, England. By then, however, I had already been abused for a period of two weeks at their seminary by one of their priests who had locked the infirmary door behind him twice a day whilst he proceeded to carry out “essential medical inspections to see if everything was working properly”. I did not then even know the word for what he did to me, but now I know it is called “masturbation”. It had taken place following my recent visit to hospital where I had undergone intrusive investgations.

 

I eventually left the Order after my further confusion, as a novice, of having to witness secret meetings between a Comboni Missionary priest and a nun of the adjacent Convent. I had to sit in a room with them whilst they held hands, played “footsie” under the table and expressed their love for each other. At the time that I left, I was unaware that long before there had been allegations throughout the period between 1958 to1967against the priest who had abused me at Mirfield when I was a seminarian. Some 10 reports to superiors of the seminary had been made between1966 to 1968 that I now know of, but they were not acted upon until 1969 – when he was moved, ultimately, to a parish in Italy. There he would have had access to more children. They told me many years later that this priest was dead – when they knew very well that he was not.

 

Another priest abused multiple seminarians at the same seminary that I had attended and was reported to priests of that Order on eight known occasions between 1965 and 1968. Again he was not moved until 1969. He was posted to Uganda where he was put in charge of the Boy Scouts.

A third priest was abusing boys at that seminary for a relatively short period in 1970. After he was discovered and reported, he was also sent to Uganda to work in a Parish – where, obviously, he had access to more children. He remained there for 27 years until, in 1997, he was recalled to Italy to answer allegations – which he then admitted. One of his Victims eventually, in adulthood, visited this priest in the Comboni Missionary Order’s Mother House at Verona in Italy to seek an understanding from this priest as to why the priest had abused him as a very young teenager. The Victim also hoped that by such understanding and by forgiving this priest, he would find peace to his lifelong torments. He did meet the priest who did apologise for the harm done – and the Victim forgave the priest.

 

It was at that point that the Vice Superior of the Mother House appeared. He called a solicitor, threatened the Victim with calling the Police – and as the Victim left – the Vice Superior shouted after him that all the Victims of the priests of the Comboni Missionary Religious Institute were “money-grabbers”. The Comboni Religious Institute, soon after, laid charges against this Victim of trespassing, stalking and interfering in the life of the Priest who had abused him when that Victim was a child. The Judge of the Criminal Court of Verona threw the charges out as unsubstantiated. The Order, in an act of callous vindictiveness, appealed to the Court. The Judge of the Appeal Court threw out the Appeal as false on the basis that the original charges had already been determined to have had no justification. The Comboni Missionary Religious Institute made no offer to the Victim to pay the very high costs of his defence at the Verona Criminal Court. Such an addition of insult to injury is what other Victims of clerics of that Order have come to expect – but the list is too long to repeat here.

 

The Comboni Missionary Religious Institute in the 21st Century pays lip service, but has complied with the spirit of none of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child. They have not complied with the Catholic Church’s own Canon Law which requires that all acts against the 6th Commandment are reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They have not complied with any recommendations of the Nolan and Cumberlege Reports in dealing with the numerous historical allegations of child sexual abuse reported to them. They refused to listen to the former Chair of the Catholic Safeguarding Commission when he tried to counsel them on a number of occasions to adopt the measures of the Catholic Hierarchies document, “Safeguarding with Confidence”. They did not, at the time of the original abuse and, nor have they subsequently, made any reports to the Civil Authorities of the United Kingdom. They have not even followed the measures concerning clerical child abuse that are written in their own Code of Conduct.  That is unsurprising to me having read that Code, for the emphasis of the Code was to avoid “Scandal” – a word which appears in that Code on 19 occasions. When dealing with the matters relating to crimes of child sexual abuse within that Code of Conduct – the words “sin” is used. Stealing sweets is a “sin” – stealing the innocence of a child is a heinous, inhumane and depraved “crime”.

 

What the Comboni Missionary Order have done subsequently is refused to meet the Victims abused by their clerics, they have issued press reports suggesting that the events took place so long ago that the truth cannot now been determined. In doing so they seek to suggest that the many victims of sexual abuse committed by their clerics are false. For my part, and I know that others who were abused would say the same, I can say to them that the abuse inflicted upon me is not a figment of my imagination – and I know that because it happened to me – and I have not forgotten the details of that abuse – and nor will I forget.

 

The perennial wall of unconscionable silence constructed by both the Benedictine Order and the Comboni Missionary Religious Institute to defend their sense of clerical superiority and to protect their establishments from critical oversight will eventually crumble. Indeed, those walls of Catholicism are crumbling around them already. The Orders of the Catholic Church will have a natural, embedded and instinctive reluctance to believe me, of course, but perhaps, instead, they will at least wish to pause for a moment. In doing so, they should look at their contribution to the enormous confusion in the Catholic Church today and the role that they have played in the alienisation of historic Catholic lay communities. Those diminishing communities’ natural distrust of clerics today has been caused by what the Catholic Church itself has done in the name of Catholicism. For their meditation I suggest that they dwell upon those few prophetic words uttered by Pope Benedict XVI, many years before he ascended the Throne of St Peter, as he envisioned the Catholic Church of the future:

 

“It will be a restructured Church – with far fewer members – that is forced to let go of many places of worship it worked so hard to build over the centuries. It will be a minority Catholic Church with little influence over political decisions, that is socially irrelevant, left humiliated and forced to “start over.” But a Church that will find itself again and be reborn a “simpler and more spiritual” entity – thanks to this “enormous confusion.””

 

The Catholic Church Is ‘Shocked’ At The Hundreds Of Children Buried At Tuam. Really?

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The Catholic Church Is ‘Shocked’ At The Hundreds Of Children Buried At Tuam. Really?

By: Emer O’Toole

Reporting in The International Guardian – Tuesday 7 March 2017

 

It has been confirmed that significant numbers of children’s remains lie in a mass grave adjacent to a former home for unmarried mothers run by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, County Galway. This is exactly where local historian Catherine Corless, who was instrumental in bringing the mass grave to light, said they would be. A state-established commission of inquiry into mother and baby homes recently located the site in a structure that “appears to be related to the treatment/containment of sewage and/or waste water”, but which we are not supposed to call a septic tank.

The archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, says he is “deeply shocked and horrified”. Deeply. Because what could the church have known about the abuse of children in its instutions? When Irish taoiseach Enda Kenny was asked if he was similarly shocked, he answered: “Absolutely. To think you pass by the location on so many occasions over the years.” To think. Because what would Kenny, in Irish politics since the 70s, know about state-funded, church-perpetrated abuse of women and children? Even the commission of inquiry – already under critique by the UN – said in its official statement that it was “shocked by this discovery”.

If I am shocked, it is by the pretence of so much shock. When Corless discovered death certificates for 796 children at the home between 1925 and 1961 but burial records for only two, it was clear that hundreds of bodies existed somewhere. They did not, after all, ascend into heaven like the virgin mother. Corless then uncovered oral histories from reliable local witnesses, offering evidence of where those children’s remains could be found. So what did the church and state think had happened? That the nuns had buried the babies in a lovely wee graveyard somewhere, but just couldn’t remember where?

Or maybe the church and state are expressing shock that nuns in mid-20th century Ireland could have so little regard for the lives and deaths of children in their care. The Ryan report in 2009 documented the systematic sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children in church-run, state-funded institutions. It revealed that when confronted with evidence of child abuse, the church would transfer abusers to other institutions, where they could abuse other children. The Christian Brothers legally blocked the report from naming and shaming its members. Meanwhile, Cardinal Seán Brady – now known to have participated in the cover-up of abuse by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth – muttered about how ashamed he was.

It may be time to stop acting as though the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the Catholic church are news to us!

The same year, the Murphy report on the sexual abuse of children in the archdiocese of Dublin revealed that the Catholic church’s priorities in dealing with paedophilia were not child welfare, but rather secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of its reputation and the preservation of church assets. In 2013, the McAleese report documented the imprisonment of more than 10,000 women in church-run, state-funded laundries, where they worked in punitive industrial conditions without pay for the crime of being unmarried mothers.

So, you will forgive me if I am sceptical of the professed shock of Ireland’s clergy, politicians and official inquiring bodies. We know too much about the Catholic church’s abuse of women and children to be shocked by Tuam. A mass grave full of the children of unmarried mothers is an embarrassing landmark when the state is still paying the church to run its schools and hospitals. Hundreds of dead babies are not an asset to those invested in the myth of an abortion-free Ireland; they inconveniently suggest that Catholic Ireland always had abortions, just very late-term ones, administered slowly by nuns after the children were already born.

As Ireland gears up for a probable referendum on abortion rights as well as a strategically planned visit from the pope, it may be time to stop acting as though the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the Catholic church are news to us. You can say you don’t care, but – after the Ryan report, the Murphy report, the McAleese report, the Cloyne report, the Ferns report, the Raphoe report and now Tuam – you don’t get to pretend that you don’t know. I wrestle with the reality that – in our schools and hospitals – we’re still handing power over women and children’s lives to the Catholic church. Perhaps, after Tuam, after everything, that’s what’s really shocking.

Sexual Abuse Investigations Stymied by the Vatican at the Expense of Truth —- by Brian Mark Hennessy

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Sexual Abuse Investigations Stymied by the Vatican at the Expense of Truth

By Brian Mark Hennessey

Canonists are currently tying themselves in knots to find justification (excuses) for Bishops and Heads of Religious Orders for not reporting child sexual abuse to civil authorities. Most of the arguments centre on the the 1974, “Secreta Continere” of Pope Paul VI. Previous to that Pope Pius XI’s 1922 “Crimen Solicitationes” was in force. In 1962 Pope John XXIII had added “Crimen Pessimum. Neither of the 1922 or 1962 documents prevented reports of paedophile behaviour being made to the Civil Authorities. Yet, Paul VI, found justification – somewhere in Scripture I must assume – to prevent heinous crimes of child sexual abuse committed in civil jurisdictions by paedophile clerics from being reported to the law enforcement authorities of those very same civil jurisdictions.

Unsurprisingly, I have not yet discovered the Biblical reference upon which it hinged. Presumably, there must be a reference somewhere for going back a few years, those Australian bishops who wanted to be very open about child sexual abuse in the Australian Catholic Church were famously summoned to Rome and were obliged to sign a “Statement of Conclusions” that referred to a crisis of faith in the Australian Church. The document insisted that the “Church does not create her own ordering and structure, but receives them from Christ Himself”. So – there must be a biblical reference somewhere. I just cannot find it. I’ll start at page 1 again and read it more carefully.

The case of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, France, who is being investigated by the French State for another failure to report abuse to the French civil authorities is a further case in point – and is in the headlines at the moment. According to one canonist Barbarin’s failure to follow the civil laws of France was justified as he was acting in accordance with the overwhelming weight of opinion of the church’s most senior cardinals and canon lawyers about his moral, ethical and canonical obligations at the time. His holy, Christ inspired, duty was go to jail rather than report the crime. Bit odd to me! Sounds immoral! Yet, historically there have been other cases which have cast doubts about the morality of the Vatican’s resort to secrecy to protect its own image.

One such case was that of Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux, France, who was given a three-month suspended jail sentence in 2001 for failing to inform authorities about a serial paedophile priest. In September 2001, Cardinal Dario Castrillón Hoyos, at the time the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy, wrote to Pican congratulating him for the “cover up” and his letter reads: “I rejoice to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and all the others bishops of the world, preferred prison rather than denouncing one of his sons, a (paedophile, criminal) priest.” The brackets are mine! Hoyos said that he was sending a copy of his letter to all the bishops of the world, holding up Pican as a model to follow. He also said his congratulatory letter was approved by Pope St John Paul II. Similar statements condemning the reporting of paedophile priests to the police by bishops were made in 2002 by high ranking prelates in the Roman Curia and Church leaders in France, Germany, Belgium and Honduras.

More recently, in 2015, the Holy See would not assist the civil authorities in the case of Fr. Mauro Inzoli, accused of abusing dozens of children over a ten year period. The priest was dismissed by Pope Benedict in 2012, but Pope Francis reinstated him (would you believe it) with restrictions on his ministry. When Italian investigating magistrates wanted to see the documentation of his canonical trial, the Holy See refused, saying: “The procedures of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are of a canonical nature and, as such, are not an object for the exchange of information with civil magistrates.”
Quite where the Vatican finds evidence for the concealment of crimes of child abuse and the protection of criminal paedophile clerics in the Gospels and Epistles puzzles me. I thought I knew them pretty well – having received a copy of both the Old and New Testaments from my father as a Christmas present (I was deflated at the time) as far back as 1956! I still have the same Bible today and have pretty much read all of it. I was taught and have subsequently always deduced that to tell the Truth was always a matter of an outstanding, higher, moral obligation to do so. I always believed that priests, priors, abbots, bishops, Cardinals and Popes thought the same as me! Indeed, as the pre-eminent regard of the very Canon Laws all the canonists at the Vatican keep quoting is the protection of the integrity of the Doctrines of the Disciples and Apostles in the Gospels and the Acts, then there is no better Biblical proof of the moral obligations of the Church’s ministers than in James the Just (James 4:17): “Whosoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is a sin”. Moreover, any over-riding duty to conceal the truth in order to avoid “scandal” does not feature in my copy of the Bible either! At least, it was not condoned by St Paul famously when he stated “Quench not the Spirit” in Thessalonians 5:19 – which is widely accepted as meaning that the Truth must “always” be told despite any of the adverse consequences of doing so. My Bible is the Knox Version – a translation from the Latin Vulgate and from Hebrew and Greek Originals. It’s a Catholic version in one volume. Is it the wrong one?

Abused by Father Valmaggia, I Got Father Pinkman Removed Instantly

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Comboni Missionaries

Francis Barnes has told us his story and it is in the Boys’ Stories Section.

He reveals how he was abused by Father Domenico Valmaggia and managed to resist Father John Pinkman’s advances.

He also says that other priests must have known what had happened and reveals how Father Fulvi helped him to put his case together before handing it over to a weeping Father John Fraser.

Read it here by clicking on Francis Barnes’s Story

Why Do Comboni MIssionaries Collaborators Collaborate?

Posted on by gerambo

Stockholm Syndrome

I remember, a number of years ago, when an aeroplane was hijacked that those who were victims of the hijackers became sympathetic to them and started to help and advise them.

It seems that this is not unusual.

A new syndrome was founded called the Stockholm Syndrome called, presumably after the place where the plane was hijacked from, or taken to.

I’ve noticed two curious syndromes at work as regards the sexual abuse of children as young as 11 by the Comboni Missionaries and those who have covered it up.

I don’t know if these syndromes have names.

Needing an Apology

Firstly, there is the syndrome where the victims need to meet those who abused them and to receive an apology from them for their abuse – and, indeed, to be able to forgive their abuser.

Not all of those who were abused want this. Some of them would like to hang them from the nearest lamp post. However, a significant number of abuse victims do feel this need.

Indeed, they are massively frustrated when they find out that their abuser is dead and that they will never have the opportunity to be apologised too and to forgive the abuser.

If it doesn’t have a name, let’s call it Mirfield Syndrome.

Need to Collaborate

The second syndrome I have noted is the desire of some of the St. Peter Claver Seminary Old Boys to collaborate with the Comboni Missionaries to hush up, or suppress, the accusations of child sexual abuse.

When an abuser in a family is first found out the immediate instinct of family members is often to protect the abuser rather than the abused.

This syndrome that we have is probably similar to this. It’s probably close to the Stockholm Syndrome as well. They bond with their ‘captors’.

Refuse to Testify

There are boys, even those who were abused, who refuse to testify against their abuser and those who help to cover up the abuse of others whom they know to have been abused.

I’m not talking, here, about those who were absued but just want to leave it in the past and don’t want to take any action. They want to leave it in the past.

I’m talking here of those who can talk about their abuse but who take an active part in helping to cover up the abuse pepretrated on others.

Swimming Without Trunks

There are others, still, who weren’t abused, but who knew of the abuse, who are prepared to say that they didn’t – to help out those accused of the cover-up.

There does seem a need to ‘protect’ the abusers and those who covered it up at the time and new.

I suppose that this would be the equivalent of kids in a family siding with their father who abused their sister and who were prepared to tell the authorities that nothing happened or they knew nothing of it, when they did.

If it doesn’t have a name let’s call this one Vichy Syndrome.

Of course, it will all come out ‘in the wash’ when the Home Office Panel sits and when the high court cases come up.

As Warren Buffet once said, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you see who was bathing without trunks”.

The tide is going out for the Comboni Missionaries and their collaborators.

They have no trunks!

Five Years in Jail for those who Don’t Report Abuse

Posted on by gerambo

Comboni Missionaries

The net is closing on those who were told about the sexual abuse of young boys as young as 11 at Comboni Missionaries Seminaries and didn’t report it to the authorities. Indeed, it will apply, also, to those who just suspected abuse but didn’t report it.

Indeed, it has become an election issue.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, said that there would be “Jail for those who turn a blind eye to child abuse”.

He announced that professionals who fail to act upon suspcions of child abuse could be facing up to five years in jail.

Changed Times

My goodness!

How things have changed.

First the Home Secretary, and now the Prime Minister, have come down heavily on the side of those who suffered sexual abuse as a child and heavily against not only the abusers but those who covered it up.

It is becoming more and more obvious who is on the right side of history and who is on the wrong side of history – those who were abused or those who covered it up and their apologists.

Front Page News

The story appeared in both the Telegraph and Guardian. Indeed, it is front page on both with the Guardian headline saying “PM: jail those who ignore child abuse”.

It’s just a shame that it could not be retrospective.

However, that doesn’t mean that existing laws could not be used to pursue those who covered up sexual child abuse at Comboni Missionary Seminaries and those who continue to do so at the very highest level of the Order.

Home Office Panel on Institutional Sexual Abuse

All will be exposed when the Home Office Panel sits. Comboni Missionaries who took part in the cover up will be legally obligated to attend and be questioned in front of the Parliamentary Committee and the nation. It will be televised.

Indeed, they could also make requests, backed up by EU Law, for those residing outside of the UK, to attend too.

End Game for Comboni Missionaries

It has taken a long time but justice is close at hand.

In chess terms, this is the end game now for the Comboni Missionary abusers, those who covered it up and their apologists amongs the Boys.

In poker terms, we’ll soon see what hands both sides have.

In David Cameron and Theresa May, those abused have two powerful cards in their hands – perhaps the King and Queen.

The Comboni Missionaries will soon find out that, no matter how many Jokers they have available, none of them will count in this game.

Boy X – It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault

Posted on by gerambo

Comboni Missionaries Abuse

In his last post, Boy X, who had been terribly sexually abused by FatherJohn Pinkman and who was psychologically terrorised by Father Ceresoli (now Bishop Ceresoli) said the reason he remains anonymous is:-

“I sometimes wonder what my friends thought of me. I never told any of them what was going on. I was too ashamed to do that. I still feel shame and that’s the main reason I’ve always writen anonymously. I think I may have eventually said who I am but I wrote about what I was doing in London.

“How do I tell my friends I did that? I can’t. I wish I had never writen it.”

Evil Missionari Comboniani

Boy X, let me tell you what they would say. They would be sympathetic. Their blame (and horror) would all go onto the Comboni Missionaries, to Father John Pinkman and all those up to the highest level of the order who covered it up and are covering it up now.

I know!

At the time, we all thought that it was just happening to us. I only discovered a few months ago that it was also happening to me best freind there at the time. Neither of us told each other.

Comboni Missionaries Reunion Old Boys

At a reunion, organised by ourselves in 2006, we started talking about the abuse and it was clear that more than haf of those who were present had been abused by Fr Pinkman and / or Father Domenico Valmaggia.

I’ll bet that the same thing was happening to one, or more, of your friends. Few stayed out of the clutches of both of these evil men.

To help expose the Comboni Missionaries, and to help others, I decided to waive the anonymity that I am legally entitled to and allow my name to be used in The Observer, the Liverpool Echo and my local paper in Scotland, the Greenock  Telegraph.

Clerical Sexual Abuse

With the last one, especially, I was very nervous about the reaction of people – even my family, who didn’t know.

The response was overwhelmingly postive to me and there was complete revulsion towards the Comboni Missionaries.

No one blames the 11-14 year old boy. All blame the adult priests and those who have continued to cover up their crimes.

Not Your Fault

Legally, it’s not yor fault Boy X. I ‘ve checked with my barrister sister on this.

Also, morally, it is not yoru fault either.

You are blaming yourself, Boy X when you shouldn’t.

You say that you are ashamed of what you have done.

You shouldn’t!

Goodwill Hunting

I don’t know if you, or other readers, have seen the film Goodwill Hunting. In it, the character Matt Damon had an abusive foster father and was screwed up and angry (as well as bing very bright).

The character played by Robin Williams was charged with getting inside him to help rid him of his demons. It was proving difficult till this short scene. I strongly recommend you watch it ,Boy X, and other readers.

Goodwill Hunting – It’s Not Your Fault

Boy X, it’s true!

It’s not your fault!

It’s not your fault!

You’re one o fus now. You’re one of a community. We didn’t avoid it either.

What happened later was becasue of it. Two evil men destroyed your self esteem.

Freedom Time

It’s time to free yourself, to free yourself from the prison you built yourself inside your mind becasue of the abuse you suffered from evile men.

It’s time to open the prison door on those parts of your character that you locked away 50 years ago. The only person keeping them inside is yourself.

Come on, Boy X. Open those doors and let them out.

There’s no shame attached to you.

It’s not your fault!

It’s not your fault!

Read By X’s story by Clicking on Boy X’s Story

Boy X, it’s THEIR fault!

It’s ALL their fault!

Inquiry Finds Senior Cleric Protected Paedophile Priest

Posted on by gerambo

Paedophile Priest

The Australians appear to be ahead of the UK in terms of Rheir royal Commission into Clerical Child Abuse. However, we have an example here of the type of verdict that the looming UK Home Office might reach.

It seems that the senior cleric had a conversation with a paedophile priest, which would have reulted in a jail sentence for the paedophile priest if it had been reported to the police. This was part of a report released by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Father John Nestor

It seems that Father John Nestor had assaulted youngsters in Wollongong during the Nineties. A senior cleric in that diocese ensured that no writtem record was ever kept of the conversation which were an admission of criminal conduct. The senior cleric did this because he wanted to protect not only the paedophile priest but the church.

 Even though it was known that Nestor was a paedophile from the early Nineties, it took over 5 years for the Vatican to remove him from the priesthood in 2008.

Clerical Sexual Abuse

There were runours in the Nineties about camps Nestor ran where the boys swam naked in the open. Nestor talked to boys about the size of their genitalia.

Father Lucas, the General Secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops was found guilty of “not recording or reporting Father Nestor’s inappropriate conduct”. He knew about what occurred after a major talk with Nestor in 1993.

“An outcome of Father Lucas’ practice was to ensure that there was no written record of any admissions of criminal conduct in order to protect the priest and the Church,” according to the report.

He even told Nestor that the conversation they had of his confession of his crimes would remain confidential and no record would be kept of it. Nestor reckoned it would impinge on Nestor’s right to silence to record the conversation.

Child Sex Abuse Accusations

The first accusation of child sex abuse was levelled at Nestor in 1996. He was convicted of ‘aggravted indecent assault as well as an aggravated act of indecency on an individual under 16 years of age’. However, he got acquitted the following year on appeal.

Complaints continued to be made against Nestor. This led to the church reconsidering and eventually removing Nestor as a priest. The report states that when he was removed the congregation were told that the reason was his involvement in several abuse cases against minors.

Food for Thought for Comboni Missionaries

This should give food for though for those who have been, or are in, positions of authority in the Comboni Missionaries and who were told about clrecial sexual abuse by boys at the seminary, them or later, or by the priests admitting it.

Although paedophile priests, Fathe john Pinkman and Father Domenico Valmaggia, are now dead, many of those, at senior level, who were told about it and covered it up are now in the cross sights of the Home Office Panel.

They won’t sleep so soundly in their beds.

The truth will out!

The Home Office Inquiry is in its early stages here but is taking shape.

Comboni Missionaries and Pope Francis on Clerical Abuse

Posted on by gerambo

 Comboni Missionaries

By Brian Hennessy

In early 2012, Danny Sullivan was appointed as the Chairman of NCSC following the resignation of Baroness Patricia Scotland. In June 2014, he attended the Mass in Santa Marta, presided over by Pope Francis, and he listened to the Homily in which the new Pope demonstrated, in abundantly clear language, his sorrow at the failings of the Catholic Church in the pressing matter of Child Sexual Abuse.

He heard the Pope seek forgiveness of the victims of abuse for their suffering, for the failure of Church leaders to understand their torment or to believe their complaints and reports of abuse.

He stated categorically that there was no place for any cleric in the Church who had committed such “diabolical” acts.

Pope Francis, a practical diocesan Shepherd all his life, untainted by the dogmatic and defensive rituals of the Roman Curia, took responsibility in a way that none of his predecessors had done – and he set a new tone by outlining his determination to act comprehensively and speedily to rectify the issues that had, quite literally, brought the once mighty Roman Catholic Church to its knees by a loss of credibility and respectability – and the loss of the demonstrable practice of its basic virtues of love and charity that had always been its declared mission.

Sins of the Fathers

It so happened that in mid October, just a short while after that homily of Pope Francis, that an article, “Sins of the Fathers”, written by Catherine Deveney, appeared in the UK’s mainstream Daily Newspaper, The Observer.

The text recorded details of the trauma and suffering that clerical sexual abuse, perpetrated by Priests of the Comboni Missionary Order against child seminarians, had been caused to the victims during the abuse and throughout their subsequent lifetimes.

Missionari Comboniani

The article also highlighted the “response” by the spokespersons of the Comboni Missionary Order.

That response was significant in that it was diametrically opposed to everything that Pope Francis had said.

The Comboni Missionary Order cast doubt on the veracity of the signed victim and witness’s statements of more than a dozen ex-seminarians who had been in their care.

They stated, in effect, that the small payments made to those who had lodged a legal case against the Order were not compensation, but merely a “business” arrangement.

They stated that, in contradiction of the claims by the victims that the fully documented reports, said to have been made to Priests and Superiors by the victims at the time of the abuse, were untrue.

Comboni Missionaries View of Mirfield12

One priest, to whom historic reports had been made, claimed, in a conversation face to face with one of the victims that the complaints that had been made were only about “money” – and he had emphasised that point by rubbing his thumb and forefinger together in a grubby and insulting denial.

Three other priests have refused to speak to a Victim who was trying to establish a dialogue with members of the Order.

That same Victim has been denied, by the Superior General of the Comboni Missionary Order, the request by the West Yorkshire Police for the extradition to the United Kingdom of a priest of the Order to face charges of child sexual abuse.

Danny Sullivan

A week later, in a letter to the same Observer Newspaper, Danny Sullivan, the Chair of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission, commented on the Observer article, “Sins of the Fathers” with a caution, which, in retrospect, appears both scathing and mocking. He said that the response by members of the Comboni Missionary Order to the Child Sexual Abuse Victims, predated upon by Priests of that Order, demonstrated just how far the Clerics of the Catholic Church had yet to travel to get their act in order (my paraphrase).

Danny Sullivan does not lead an organisation opposed to the Catholic Church, nor is he seeking to trample upon everything for which the Catholic Church stands.

He heads up an organisation that works on behalf of UK Catholicism – in an organisation set up by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales – to promote the safeguarding of children in line with the principles of the Cumberlege Commission Report “Safeguarding with Confidence” (July 2007).

That Commission was set up in response to Lord Nolan’s Report, “A Programme For Action” (2001) – and his later “Final Report” – which has been adopted worldwide as the “gold standard” for child safeguarding.

Child Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Adults

We know where Danny Sullivan stands on matters of Child Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Adults.

We, ‘The Mirfield 12’, stand beside Danny and his aims. Danny Sullivan also stands shoulder to shoulder with Pope Francis. Presumably, even Padre Enrique Sanchez would concede that Pope Francis is on the side of God!

Yet, we remain totally mystified as to where the Superior General of the Comboni Missionary Order, Padre Enrique Sanchez himself, stands!

There is an old maxim – “If you are not for us, then you are against us”! Presumably, by deduction, Padre Enrique Sanchez will be able to work out in his own mind with whom we think that he and his entourage stand!

Suffice it to say, that if Padre Enrique Sanchez and his confreres do not yet know right from wrong and good from bad – and are unable to discern truth from lies – then both he – and, individually, they – are in the wrong job!

Marks’ New Comboni Missionaries (Missionari Comboniani) Story

Posted on by gerambo

Comboni Missionaries – Mark’s New Story

These days I am certainly dealing with my life in a much more calm and settled way than  I had before.

I am not desperate to see Father Romano Nardo. Yes, Father Enrique Sanchez’s  reply annoyed me,  and upset me – it was half-expected wasn’t it?

And my world will not fall apart if I never have the opportunity to see Nardo. However, it will keep on being awkward for  the Comboni Missionaries when it is  highlighted  that they refused to let me meet with Nardo,  especially  when the possible outcome of such a meeting could have been me offering forgiveness to him.

My offer of forgiveness to Nardo is not my raison d’etre in what I am doing. It never has been.

Organisation Change

So why am I doing what I am doing. It is for change. Change within organisations, especially powerful institutions like the Catholic Church. We talk about apologies and acknowledgements but that really does not matter. It certainly does not to me now – it used to, but not now. Apologies and acknowledgements come about through dialogue, honest dialogue where truth and humility are ever present. I can not see that happening just yet.

I may have said and used certain words in the past. However, it was often said because I did not know what I really wanted to happen and consequently did not know what to say. Justice, apology, acknowledgment and listening  were often banded about. Easy words – especially if they come from the abusers or the abusers’ organisations like  the Comboni Missionaries. It can get  them off the hook. Now It is easier for me to  say what I want to say, and I will certainly say what I believe to be the truth when given  the  opportunity.

Father Nardo Romano

I have moved on considerably – for the better – especially in the last year.

I feel that there has been a line drawn under the abuse that Nardo perpetrated on me. Call it closure, call it moving on or call it  peace with myself; it does not matter –  but it is there and it is within me.

The moving on and drawing a line underneath the  Comboni Missionaries behaviour and how their actions has affected aspects of my life is harder. However, I can deal with most of those feelings as well.

I am undertaking activities and interest that i would have been unable to do two years ago. I am not preoccupied for most of the day with the Comboni Missionaries.

 

Abuse at Mirfield

The above are all activities i would be unable to undertake if i had not come to terms with the abuse at Mirfield.

There are many good days now – and a couple of bad days. I have a good psychotherapist that I can relate to. He has helped enormously. And yes, we have talked about forgiveness and meeting with Nardo.

The Mirfield 12 have had an enormous positive effect on me: not being alone when fighting for change; the strength that comes from being part of a group; the humour  at times between  us  and the concern we have for each other.

We  are a  unique group. There is no other like us in the world. I  believe  we can make things happen,  and make change a reality for many children who have suffered or are suffering abuse within institutions and organisations .

Click on Mark’s Story to read about his abuse at the  hands of the Comboni Missionaries.

Mark
seriously serious