How the Vatican handles sex abuse allegations — by Brian Mark Hennessy

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How the Vatican handles sex abuse allegations — by Brian Mark Hennessy

My view of the Vatican has always been that it is somewhat similar to a Cosmic Black Hole which swallows up information with a constant gravitational force to the extent that it can only increase in size because its intrinsic physical nature prevents anything ever being released. The straitghtforward explanation of this is that the bureaucracy of the Vatican is run by clerics who believe that they, exclusively have inherited the Wisdom of the Spirit – and that the everyday run-of-the-mill baptised Catholic layperson is just mindless flotsam that inhabits the dark nether regions of Creation. Nothing has ever given me the slightest cause to believe that the Vatican will ever change despite any overtures made by Pope Francis about collegiality, consultation and inclusion. For the international corporate conglomerate that they are – the standards of their attention to their customers – those that provide them with their funds so that they can invest it and live in princely isolation from the rest of the world – is nil.

For example, our very own Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, obliged me recently and personally took by hand a copy of a document that I had written to Rome and handed it to an official of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The document was entitled, (sorry it’s a bit of a mouthful):

A TEXT BOOK FOR INSTITUTIONS ON HOW NOT TO MANAGE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE – AND WHY THE COMBONI MISSIONARY RELIGIOUS ORDER OF VERONA, ITALY, WILL DENY ALLEGATIONS OF 1,000 SEXUAL CRIMES COMMITTED AGAINST BOY SEMINARIANS IN THEIR CARE AT MIRFIELD, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND – AND HOW THIS ITALIAN CATHOLIC ORDER HAS IMPLICATED ITSELF, BY DEFAULT, IN THE DISCRIMINATORY RE-VICTIMISATION OF THOSE SAME VICTIMS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE FROM THE BRITISH NATIONS OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND WALES AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

The document is some 177 pages from start to finish. It took me more than a year to research and write. So – it went right to the very heart of the Vatican. Not a peep from them. No acknowledgement. No name of the Recipient. No indication as to whether or not anyone has even turned one of its pages. It is there – of perhaps not – it may have been shredded by now. I know it was there – and it would have had to undergo the “procedures”. Then the result would have been “secret” and could not be divulged – and so I will never know whether or not any of my efforts produced the slightest reaction, led to any discussions, recommendations or changes – or was a total waste of time. Why the silence – because I am flotsam – and I do not need to be consulted, informed, enlightened, considered!

(I remember feeling a bit deflated like that before. For after I was sexually abused by a priest at the Comboni Missionaries’ Mirfield seminary – and then after that – as an already confused and disorientated 21 year old novice at Sunningdale I was forced to witness the romantic clandestine meetings of a priest and a nun who were in love with each other – I left the Order – unsurprisingly. I then received a letter asking me to sell raffle tickets to raise money for the Order. I refused and sent them back. Then I got another letter saying that I owed them money and should repay it. That was news to me – but apparently my father, who was a good Irish Catholic and had eight children and could not pay the full cost of my boarding at the seminary, had an arrangement to pay less than the normal rate. They now wanted me to pay back the deficit. To them – I was flotsam you see – to be used and discarded. It wasn’t their money anyway – other poor Catholics who were beguiled into putting pennies in their collection plates paid for my seminary education – not them! Sad!)

Back to the point. In April of this year the Vatican, somewhat surprisingly, posted to its site a guide as to how the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith handles allegations of sexual abuse made against Catholic clergy. The guide was posted, according to a report from Catholic News Service, “to illustrate the Church’s commitment to protecting children and punishing offenders.” The online “introductory guide” lists the investigative steps, trial options and possible penalties for clerical sex abuse of minors, including dismissal from the priesthood. It even underlines the local bishop’s responsibility to follow civil law in reporting such crimes to the appropriate authorities.

Wow! I thought – cautiously. Is the Vatican “opening up”? The Catholic News Service continued, “This is to help the public understand how we facilitate, how we proceed. This is transparency – transparency of the Vatican. We have nothing to hide,”. These were the words of the Passionist Father Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman – so it must be true! But hold on a minute! Yes, the Vatican guide does explain the practices adopted in the wake of a 2001 papal document that established strict universal norms for handling cases of sexual abuse by priests against minors and placed these cases under the authority of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But (I was always told that you cannot start a sentence with a “but” – but it seems very appropriate for a bit of emphasis) did not another Vatican spokesperson say quite recently that it is not necessary to report incidents of clerical child sexual abuse to the civil authorities? Have we not heard oh so very recently that one Cardinal congratulated a bishop for getting a prison sentence for refusing to assist the civil authorities by handing over information to the civil authorities about a paedophile priest? Did not the Vatican itself refuse to give – again oh so very recently – magistrates of the Italian State information in their possession about the offences of another paedophile priest because all information in the Vatican is of a “canonical” nature – and cannot be divulged even to the magistrates of the Italian State – because – well – they are flotsom aren’t they?

And – (yes I know you cannot start a sentence with an “and” either), what about secrecy and cover-up – and denial – and refusal to have dialogue – and what about “truth” – to where has that disappeared – and what about the nasty objectionable habits of calling abuse survivors “money grabbers”? Where does all that fit in to this scenario. Well – you have to go back to the overall picture to understand it – back to the Cosmic Black Hole theory again – because Black Holes are not very transparent. The Vatican Spokesman got that one wrong. Black holes are actually very dense – full of dark matter – stuff goes in. They grab everything they can get, but nothing ever comes out again – and, yes, they do have procedures, and you can read them. I have read them. They are not actually the real procedures themselves, but they are an introductory guide for lay-persons and non-canonists – the mindless flotsam of this world who would not have a clue how to interpret Canon Law. You cannot even understand it, to be honest, if you stand on your head and squint. There is a reason for that. Somewhat unsurprisingly most of Canon Law does not actually mean what it says – and so it can be interpreted in any which way a Vatican Canonist decides – and the Vatican actually states that the Vatican is the only body with a right to interpret it. Not a chance that flotsam would understand it. Indeed most Bishops and the Heads of religious Orders do not understand it. I know that because they do whatever they want and I know a big bunch of them, called the Comboni Missionary Order of Verona, Italy who totally ignore it. You see – that Order is another Black Hole. They have been swallowed up by the Vatican Black Hole. Black Holes can do that. They get denser and denser as time goes on. Lucky we are just flotsam really!

A Case of Sexual Double Standards and Clerical Impotence? —- by Brian Mark Hennessy

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A Case of Sexual Double Standards and Clerical Impotence?
Abridged and paraphrased by Brian Mark Hennessy from an article in the National Catholic Reporter

Readers will probably recall the incident earlier this year when a priest, named Anatrella, stoked a furore when it was revealed that he had announced to a Vatican Conference for new bishops that they were not obligated to report a suspected sexual abuser to authorities even in countries where the law requires such reporting. The Vatican quickly responded saying that Msgr Anatrella’s remarks did not change Church policy on reporting. That was too vague for Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of Pope Francis’ new Commission for the Protection of Minors, who immediately issued a statement to the effect that “civil law agencies are charged with protecting our society and, therefore, all members of the Church have a moral and ethical responsibility to report all suspected abuse to the civil authorities”.

For years, seminaries and monasteries around France sent students and novices, if their superiors decided that they were struggling with homosexuality, to this very same Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a prominent French priest and therapist who has written disparagingly of gays – alleging that they are narcicistic, incapable of sexual chastity and cannot be ordained as priests. Now it transpires that Anatrella himself is facing mounting allegations that he himself had sex with male clients under his therapeutic care. So far, European media have relayed accusations from as many as four different men who say that Anatrella engaged in various sex acts with them during counseling sessions in his Paris office. “You’re not gay, you just think that you are,” Anatrella reportedly told Daniel Lamarca, who was a 23-year-old seminarian when he first went to Anatrella in 1987. Recently, another ex-seminarian, has told French News outlets that he was counseled by Anatrella for 14 years, from 1997 to 2011, and that after the first few years Anatrella began “special sessions” that included episodes of mutual masturbation. Anatrella has so far not responded to the allegations.

The reports about Anatrella have emerged, inconveniently, as the Church in France has been embroiled in a crisis over charges that Bishops have shielded priests even after they received reports that the clerics had molested children. Lamarca said that in 2001 he reported these episodes to the late Cardinal Archbishop Jean-Marie Lustiger. Yet, he said, nothing was done. Lamarca’s allegation was one of three accusations to surface again in 2006, but because they involved adults, despite taking place during professional therapy consultations, the accusations were not pursued by civil authorities. The newly appointed Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois has since sent an email to all his priests expressing his support for Anatrella. Accusations from additional ex-patients have not changed the cardinal’s opinion and he spoke of a “gay lobby” working against Anatrella – who remains as a consultant to the pontifical councils for the family and for health care ministry and as recently as February 2016, Msgr Anatrella was the main organizer of a major conference on priestly celibacy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Despite all the mounting allegations, Anatrella, has not been the subject of any investigations at all – despite that being a specific mandatory requirement of Canon Law. It really does seem even now in 2016 that from top to bottom a shambolic Catholic Church continues to ride the stormy seas of sexual abuse without a compass, sail, rudder, manual, log-book or captain.

The Overwhelming Cost of Denial — by Brian Mark Hennessey

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The Overwhelming Cost of Denial

The Comboni Survivors know well enough just how much money the Comboni Missionary Order of Verona, Italy, (formerly known as the Verona Fathers), are willing to spend on defending themselves against allegations of child sexual abuse perpetrated at their Mirfield seminary – for it shows up in their annual accounts presented to the Charities Commission. Clearly, they are happy to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal processes to continue the lies of their denial. It begs the question: “Why not take the simple, moral Christian way of admitting the truth that they know fully well, having dialogue with the Survivors of that abuse and apologising as an Order for the destructive impacts with which the Survivors have had to cope for half a century to date – and continue to endure today?” The answer is abundantly clear. They live a life of pretence and self-deceit. They are, simply, not moral Christians. They have no regard for “Truth” – and they do not care one jot for the Survivors.
They are not alone. George Joseph writing for the Guardian says that the US Catholic church has poured millions of dollars over the past decade into opposing accountability measures for the child victims of clerical sexual abuse. The lobbying funds have gone toward opposing bills in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland that would extend statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases – or grant temporary civil windows for victims whose opportunities for civil action have already passed. Under existing law, child victims sexually abused in New York, for example, have until the age of 23 to press civil charges, but those abused across the border in Connecticut have until the age of 48. In Maryland and Pennsylvania, victims cannot enter into civil suits after turning 25 or 30 respectively, but across the border in Delaware they can do so at any age.
The amounts expended by individual diocesan Bishops on the lobbying exercise are not small. George Joseph says that since 2007, the New York bishops’ lobbying arms have poured more than $1.1m into “issues associated with timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses”. It amounts to nearly half of their total compensation for lobbyists in that period on a variety of other issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage etc etc.. During this same time period, other bishops’ conferences spent millions on lobbyists in states where the church is also actively opposing similar legislative proposals regarding statute of limitations for sex offences. Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey spent more than $5.2m, $1.5m and $435,000 respectively on top lobbyists in the state capitols. That’s nearly $8 million for starters in just a few States!
David Clohessy, a director with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests commented, “Many child sex abuse cases are done gradually, under the guise of love or sex education, and so what happens is most victims don’t even realize until literally decades later. The overwhelming majority of us rationalize it. That’s how we as survivors cope with this stunning betrayal. We cope with it by denying and minimizing it.” Despite the momentum stemming from the scandal, local observers expect the Catholic Church will continue to lobby vehemently. “If the bishops continue to win,” says Clohessy, “many victims will “behave in destructive ways because they were violated as kids … And we, as society, tell them ‘tough shit’.”
What appears to be overlooked in these desparate attempts by the princes of the Church to defend themselves from the facts of the depths of depravity that have existed for so long within their sacristies and cloisters is the simple question: “Where does all this money being expended in legal processes to protect themselves from having to admit the truth come from?” The answer is simple. Disproportionately wealthy Corporate Catholicism has derived every panny, cent and peso from its hard-working and obedient Christian followers for centuries. Many of those followers are desparately poor. The Corporation has been able to invest these funds with a stock-broker’s zeal. The success of the clerics of Catholicism in this field has been so great – that with the spirit of agrandisement of a worldwide conglomerate – they have the funds in their bank vaults to throw at this deceitful charade.
Yet, have these corporate clerics ever asked the humble donors of the pennies, cents and pesos if it was OK with them to expend such disproportionate funds in order to avert the possibility of criminal paedophiles being brought to justice? Moreover, is it right to take such measures of gross expenditure, ultimately, to avoid compensating the Survivors of depraved child sexual abuse for their endless wretched years of harmful impacts? In my book, the Bishops and the Superiors of the Religious Orders are entitled to expend those pennies, cents and pesos only on matters relating to Christian values. To spend millions in order to deflect the possibility of having to admit the truth and scandal of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is not a Christian value. Ultimately, it is not just downright arrogance and gross hypocracy to embark on such an exercise simply in order to perpetuate their own eletist, clerical self-esteem – but it is also, unequivacally, shameful theft from the pockets of the willing, but beguiled poor.

HELL HOPE AND HEALING

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Hell, Hope and Healing

Note: Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea is the author of “Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church” and a psychologist who has been working with sexual abuse survivors for 30 years. In the American Catholic Journal entitled the “National Catholic Reporter”, (which can be accessed on-line at NCRonline.org.), Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea has published the first of four parts of an article entitled “Hell, Hope and Healing”. This parapharse of Mary’s article has been posted on the Mirfield Memories site by Brian Mark Hennessy.

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Foreward: Comboni Survivors of sexual abuse who access this site may be helped by accessing Mary’s vast experience that is clearly established within those articles, the first of which has just been published. With appropriate acknowledgement to Mary and the National Catholic Reporter I have paraphrased extracts from that first part below. I have no doubt that, in varying degrees according to their experiences, Comboni Survivors will recognise in themselves some of the long term impacts that will have been caused by their adverse childhood experiences when they were child seminarians at Mirfield Yorkshire. Those adverse experiences at the hands of one – and in some cases more than one – corrupt Comboni Missionary cleric may have been sexual – but they may have had other causes also – and thus their experiences may have resulted in a complicated and diverse range of impacts. I do not suggest that each individual survivor will have experienced all or even some of the possible, specific impacts listed below. Every distinct individual survivor will have had unique experiences and will have been impacted differently.

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Much of what Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea relates derives from her own experience and research, but that experience has been enhanced by a study of more than 17,000 Americans in the period 1995-7. The research was conducted to determine how many had been subjected to adverse childhood experiences and what symptoms and disorders they suffered that differentiated them from those patients who did not have such histories. The data indicates that only a little over one-third of subjects had no adverse childhood experiences at all. For the remainder there was a clear correlation between the symptoms and with the frequency and/or intensity of each particular stressor. To put these statistics in perspective, the percentages as extrapolated for the population of the United States at the time of the research suggest that over 50 million of the population were sexually abused before the age of 18.

Mary states that it is now known that adverse childhood experiences can have major effects on every aspect of human functioning. Symptoms and disorders increase commensurately with the greater number of types of adverse childhood experiences to which a survivor has been subjected – and to the frequency at which those experiences have occurred. Notably, Survivors have more medical problems, are on more medications, and use the health system more than others in the population. Scientists now believe that much of this stems from a surfeit of stress hormones coursing through the bloodstream and compromising the immune system. Stress hormones are great in an emergency, but they are supposed to go back to normal levels when the crisis is over. Kids who are being abused or neglected are in emergency mode so much of the time that their stress hormones are always high, stay high into adulthood, and do physical damage over time.

This results in the person’s inability to successfully modulate emotion so she or he may swing from states of intense affect to those marked by numbed passivity. Our ability to judge the true danger of a present-day situation is damaged; we may confuse people around us by overreacting or underreacting to current situations. Often the adult survivor’s history is littered with unsuccessful friendships, work relationships, and romances that confuse and hurt both them and those around them.

For those who have experienced sexual abuse specifically, normal sexual functioning is elusive. Even sex with a beloved partner can trigger flashbacks or terrifying emotional states that interrupt sexual encounters or lead us to avoid sex. Sexual abuse survivors may blame their bodies and sexual responses for the abuse and can be too ashamed to be comfortably sexual.

Heterosexual boys abused by men may be tormented with doubts about their sexual orientation. On the other hand, homosexual boys who are sexually abused are robbed of the opportunity to grow gradually into their sexuality; instead, the perpetrator imposes it on them.

Survivors often have a fractured sense of self. One part of the traumatized child may be formed as a precocious individual who can learn, make friends, get a job later in life, and obtain an education. Another aspect of the person, however, remains a frightened, grief-stricken child who emerges when conditions are reminiscent of the original trauma. For victims of priest abuse, for example, a Roman collar, someone clicking rosary beads, or certain hymns can evoke childhood memories. The survivor, no longer firmly rooted in the present, may experience the memories, fears and bodily states he or she felt at the time of the abuse.

Most survivors think that they were somehow responsible for what happened to them. They believe that they should have stopped it! Depending on the nature of the adverse childhood experience, survivors feel dirty, ashamed, worthless and self-loathing. Often they take their guilt, rage and self-hatred out on themselves through self-destructive behaviors like substance abuse (which also deadens psychic pain); promiscuous and unprotected sex; walking alone in dangerous areas at night; cutting legs, thighs, arms and pubic areas; tearing out eyebrows and hair; hustling or prostituting; or making suicidal gestures. Sometimes they die. In fact survivors are almost three times as likely as other individuals to make at least one serious suicidal gesture in their lives.

Research indicates that many survivors turn away from religion and even from God. People develop their image of God through the way they are parented early on and through religious experiences they may have. Their capacity for awe, for experiencing wordless times of wonder and transcendence, depend in large measure on the nature of their early relationships. When these are betrayed through abuse, neglect, witnessing domestic violence, or serious dysfunction, their capacity to surrender to the ineffable that is God may be destroyed. The especially heinous aspect of sexual abuse by priests and the depravity of the cover-up and unapologetic stance of bishops and provincial superiors often renders asunder the young person’s ability to look to God for comfort and mercy. Instead, the priest as God to the child or adolescent has become a criminal transmitter of evil. One patient who was sexually abused by a priest remarked : “It taught me that there is a lie in the world. As I grew up and gave up on my piety, I grew to hate the smells, sounds, feelings of church. … My spirituality and ability to believe in a higher power were destroyed.”

(In Part 2 of this series, Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea will focuss on hope and healing for survivors of sexual abuse. If any Comboni Survivor recognises the impacts of adverse childhood experiences and feels that he needs professional assistance, then they may contact Mark Murray on this site who will strive to assist by suggesting appropriate counselling services. Alternatively, Survivors of childhood abuse can seek the assistance of their local General Practitioner Doctor who will be able to refer them to an appropriate specialist).

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) — by Brian Mark Hennessey

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The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) — by Brian Mark Hennessey

The Mirfield 12 Group of child aspirants to the priesthood, (referred to as “Comboni Survivors” henceforward in this article), who have made historical allegations of sexual abuse that was perpetrated by clerics of the Comboni Missionary Order against them at their seminary boarding school at Mirfield in Yorkshire in the 1960s and 70s, have committed themselves to seek “core participation” at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). The Inquiry has also become commonly known as the “Goddard Inquiry” after the appointment of Justice Lowell Goddard of the New Zealand Judiciary as the Chair-person. The format of the investigation will be broken down into a number of groupings, one of which will examine abuse in institutions of the Roman Catholic Church.

The formulation of the Inquiry process had a rocky start within the Home Office. This is not particularly surprising given the very broad range of institutions which had failed in one way or another in managing historic cases of child abuse. Mark Murray, a leading member of the Comboni Survivors, participated in Home Office Meetings during this difficult process. He was not alone – as many groups of Survivors were dissatisfied at the initial, concentrated objectives of the Inquiry which favoured extensive participation of the major public institutions at the expense of Survivors – and the Government was forced by public opinion to have a re-think. The resultant balance of the re-adjustments made is still regarded as unsatisfactory by many Survivor Groups – but slowly the views of Survivors, who want a greater level of participation even now, are still being pressed. The Comboni Survivors are confident that the Inquiry will make further adjustments in favour of Survivors – who are the ones who have suffered severly at the hands of institutions’ neglect – rather than focusing the Inquiry specifically and almost exclusively upon those very same institutions. The Survivors must be heard extensively and loudly.

Besides the difficulties that have and are being experienced in achieveing the right balance of the Inquiry so that all participants can be satisfied at the end of the day, there are many detractors who are both vocal and negative. Some claim, rather extraordinarily in a cart before the horse attitude, that we should have the recommendations from the Government now, before the investigation. They pour scorn on the claims of Survivor Groups over the extent of the abuse and they suggest campaigners to be obsessive panic-mongerers who are “corroding” child/adult relationships”. They pour scorn also on the Inquiry itself which, they suggest, is not about justice, but about therapy. The Comboni Survivors do not agree with these views, but they counsel the Goddard Inquiry that the final format agreed between the Inquiry, Institutions and Survivors must demonstrate beyond doubt that the balance of the Inqury is finely set so as to silence, unremittingly, their detractors.

As a group, the Comboni Survivors welcome the Inquiry and wish it well. They are committed to the Truth Project, the participation in which they regard to be a moral duty for the future understanding and the benefit of Government and Institutions which have the need of formulating both policies and practices for the protection of the Nation’s children.

They believe also that core-participation for Survivors must be extended, because institutions that have failed in the past will continue to fail in the future. That has been the experience of the members of the Comboni Survivors to this day. The Comboni Missionary Order, after half a century of failings, are as resolute today as they were in the past to refute the initial historical reports made to them, cast doubt on the veracity of Survivors’ allegations, deny dialogue and refuse apologies. They have adopted a policy of total silence in the belief that their silence will give them the security of perrenial unaccountability. This is both un-Christian and deplorably un-just to Survivors. The Comboni Survivors look to the Goddard Inquiry for the total accountability of the Comboni Missionary Order Institution that has unjustly maligned them in a manner that amounts to both re-victimisation and hierarchical discrimination.

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?

Pope Francis – The Tragedy of Child Abuse Requires Severe Punishments —— By Brian Mark Hennessey

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Pope Francis – The Tragedy of Child Abuse Requires Severe Punishments

By Brian Mark Hennessey

The apparent despair of Pope Francis as he remonstrated about the sexual abuse of children in a public address in St. Peter’s Square last Sunday is not the first time that he has been very outspoken on the issue. His cry, “God weeps” during his tour of the United States in the fall of last year had resonances that dated back to his first forthright statement on the matter in 2014 – when he exclaimed that “there was no place in the Catholic Church for clerics who abused children”. On this most recent occasion he is reported as having stated – as he raised his arm in emphasis – “This is a tragedy, we must not tolerate the abuse of minors. We must defend minors and we must severely punish the abusers.” But – does Pope Francis really mean what he says – or is he window-dressing?
On this latest occasion, in which he addressed the crimes of child sexual abuse, the Pope made no mention of the Catholic Church specifically. Yet the worldwide context of his words is that the Church has had to face scandal after scandal in regard to its handling of the sexual abuse of minors by clerics and the ineffective action of diocesan clergy and the heads of Religious Orders. These failures have, of course, been to the detriment of victims of abuse who have been brushed aside by Diocesan and Religious leaders as untruthful money grabbers or bribed and subjected to oaths of silence. The range of allegations against and criticism of the Church have been legion – but include a cover up by clergy of all ranks. It has to be noted that the Cardinals of the Vatican – notably the Australian Cardinal Pell who is Prefect of the Vatican Bank and the German Cardinal Muller the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are included in that list – and they are currently at the very top of the Vatican pile – and have influence that can retard even the progress of a Pope.
Despite the words of Pope Francis on the subject of child abuse, there appears to have been little practical gain in addressing the problem. Take for example the Pontifical Commission instituted by Pope Francis himself and dedicated specifically to the protection of minors in the Church. The profoundly sincere Boston Cardinal O’Malley, who heads up that worthy task, which is to make clergy, specifically Bishops and the Heads of Religious Orders, accountable for their failure to manage the crimes of the sexual abuse of minors and ensure that those prelates adopt due process to rid the Church of paedophile clerics, appears to have lost the ear of Pope Francis. Evidence of this is that members of the Commission have complained that the Commission is not being adequately resourced financially and that the Prefects of the Vactican Congregations are unsympathetic to a large degree – and blatantly un-cooperative or even decidedly contrary. Pope Francis has been either ineffective in, or prevented by what conspiracy theorists would call ‘powerful dark forces” from, remedying these issues.
When it comes to dealing with offending prelates of the Church found guilty of sexual abuse, or inaction rather than proactivity when faced with such crimes, there has been little strong action, which in my book, relates to being “severely punished”! Admittedly, the events that led to Catherine Devenney revealing Cardinal Keith O’Brien,’s sexual impropriety, were during the Pontificate of Benedict XVI. The revelations resulted in a series of events that included O’Brien’s suspension from and then loss of the Archpishopric of Scotland and his exclusion by Pope Benedict from the 2013 Vatican Papal Conclave in the Sistine Chapel that elected Pope Francis – and in 2014 his exceptional, enforced resignation from the College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. Yes – all that was humiliating, but Pope Francis, on taking over the reins of the Vatican, merely banned him to live a private life of prayer and penance in a comfortable, secluded Church establishment – and probably with his stipend intact. Penance and prayer is what I thought was the daily job of all clerics anyway! Not much more than a cleric’s normal daily routine has been heaped by Pope Francis on the offendending ex-Cardinal.
Moreover, (and this is right up the street of the Mirfield 12 Group of abused child seminarians) we hear in the last week or so that a Polish Archbishop, who resigned many years ago after sexually molesting Catholic seminarians, has recently been warned by the Vatican to stay away from commemorations of Poland’s Christian conversion and an upcoming visit by the Pope. Reports state that the Vatican’s Warsaw-based nuncio Archbishop Celestino Migliore has told the offending Archbishop Juliusz Paetz, formerly of Poznan, that “The Holy Father (Pope Francis) reiterates his invitation for you to live a life of privacy in repentance and prayer. Media news about your participation in official celebrations of the anniversary of Poland’s baptism has created a new situation of unnecessary and harmful commotion for the church in Poland and the Holy See. It blatantly contradicts the instructions given you.” No hint of severe punishment for a crime of abusing child seminarians there! In fact the Archbishop continued to live peacefully in his existing surroundings after the abuse was both admitted by him and he resigned. This ex-Archbishop subsequently also visited the Vatican frequently, stayed at the Vatican Curia and, indeed, met with Pope Benedict, who congratulated him for his significant contributions to the Church in Poland! (Well – I have heard child abuse described somewhat differently than that!)
Currently, the French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyon is under state judicial investigation over his mishandling (total inaction more precisely) of sexual abuse accusations against his own clergy. A group of 45 abuse survivors, La Parole Liberee, is sueing the archbishop for failing to report abuse, a crime (alas it is a crime in France but not in the United Kingdom) that risks a three-year jail term. The Group has also filed a civil lawsuit against Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith. There appears to be no Church process in play to investigate the Cardinal – and no Vatican censure from Cardinal Muller (well how could he – being accused of the same offence!).
In summation, either Pope Francis is incincere in his continual remonstrations about clerics who commit abuse and clerics who cover it up – or is not up to the job – or employs a bunch of clerics at the Vatican who are so tainted themselves with the failures against which Francis continually expostulates that his own good intentions are systematically confounded. I suspect, indeed believe, it is the last. The Curia needs a good shake up – and Francis must get into hiring and firing mode – or he will lose both his battle – and his supportive and hopeful followers. Victims of crimes very very rarely want “revenge” – but they do need an admission of the crimes committed against them – and they are entitled to “justice. When Pope Francis talks of “severe punishment” he must be more precise and such punishment must be equitable with those punishments that the Civil States of this world – with the concensus of the populations of this world – hold to to be commensurate with the crime. I doubt if the Pope, in his sublime role, has ever heard of Gilbert and Sullivan – but he could do no better than start singing along with the Mikado and adopting as his anthem: “My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time, To let the punishment fit the crime, The punishment fit the crime”!

Brian Mark Hennessy

Goddard Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse – also known as IICSA

Posted on by markmurray1

A new category has been added to the veronafathersmirfield.com Blog.

The category comes under the heading the ‘Goddard inquiry.’

This Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA( will investigate whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales.

The Inquiry, more commonly known as the Goddard Inquiry will:

– identify institutional failings where they are found to exist;

– demand accountability for past institutional failings;

– support victims and survivors to share their experience of sexual abuse, and make practical recommendations to ensure that children are given the care and protection they need.

The Inquiry is independent of government.

The Inquiry is led by Hon. Dame Lowell Goddard, who is supported by a Panel, a Victims and Survivors Consultative Panel, and other expert advisers.

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If there are people who were abused as children by the Comboni Missionaries, and want the Comboni Missionaries – also known as the Verona Fathers – to be questioned and held accountable for the childhood abuse they suffered, they can contact the Goddard Inquiry direct by using the link:

https://www.iicsa.org.uk/share-your-experience

…or you can make contact through the Blog.

Mark.

PEOPLE ARE STILL COMING FORWARD

Posted on by markmurray1

Comboni Missionaries Sexual Abuse at Mirfield

Ex seminarians of the Mirfield Comboni Missionary Junior Seminary are still discovering  – even after four years of the blog’s existence – this  site for the first time.

Some cannot comprehend that abuse happened at Mirfield,  and others that were sexually abused believed that they were the only ones that suffered abuse there.

Some of the men, for various reasons, are not ready to talk or write about such experiences.

Some are waiting till their parents or parent dies as they believe disclosing the abuse would cause untold pain and suffering to them – something I can personally understand through my experience.

All have said that finding  the blog has helped them.

Many have said that they hope to be able to write and talk someday about the sexual abuse they suffered whilst they were at Mirfield.

Mark Murray