Becoming a Child Abuse victim at the Age of 55

Posted on by gerambo

Becoming a Child Sexual Abuse Victim at the Age of 55

I have changed the name of the ‘Boy’ involved.

John Smith wasn’t aware that he was a child abuse victim till he passed his 55th birthday. It’s really strange but I was never able to put the different pieces of the jigsaw together for myself until I was much older. Once we left the college we did other things and although we looked back it tended to be on the good side of it. We certainly didn’t do much analysis of what happened to us.

It was only when we went back for reunions that we talked and thought of old times. Previously we had only put the data of what happened to us through the minds of 11-14 year olds. It was amazing the difference it made to us when we fed the same data through the minds of adults.

Lived Locally

On the second of our two day reunion weekend it was discovered that John Smith, who was in the year above me, lived locally. I don’t know how it was discovered, but discovered it was. On the final night he came along with his wife.

It’s very strange but we didn’t really talk about things when there were outsiders there (i.e. wives and kids). It was only when John’s wife went for a smoke that we started talking again about the priests.

I asked John if anything like that had happened to him. He said it hadn’t. ‘Nothing at all?’ I asked him.

You could see him looking far back into the past. “There was only one incident, perhaps”, he said.

Astonishing Revelation

We were all so amazed by what he said next that we all burst out into near hysterical laughter. I couldn’t help myself. The tears were streaming out of my eyes. John’s such a great guy that he didn’t take it badly. However, I hope this illustrates what I mean about re-inputting the same data through the ‘processor’ of an adult mind rather than an 11-14 year-old’s mind.

John told us that the only incident that would possibly qualify was when he had just finished playing football on a muddy day. In that part of the world it can get very muddy and you can often come off the football pitch absolutely caked in mud.

In the ‘only slightly suspicious’ incident, Pinkie told John to come round the back of the stage which was at the far end of the Junior Common room where the players got changed. It was out of sight of all the boys who would have been in the recreation room getting changed.

There Pinkie had set up two buckets of hot water. I said to Joe, slightly incredulously and not really believing that it could possibly be true “he didn’t make you take off your football strip and put one leg each in the two buckets of hot water and then clean the mud from you, did he?

Washday Blues

It was the first thing that came to mind when he said it but I couldn’t possibly think it was true as John had said nothing of that kind of thing had ever happened to him and that there was just one possible slightly suspicious incident.

“Yeah” said John.

That was exactly what had happened. We laughed our asses off. We weren’t laughing at John or what had happened to him. We were laughing at the incongruity of Joe not realising what had actually happened. Of course we all instinctively knew the explanation.

John had only ever examined what had happened through the eyes of a trusting 13-year-old. Although he hadn’t forgotten about it he hadn’t given it any great thought since it had happened. Although probably embarrassing at the time, he would have concluded that the priest would have been doing it for his own good.

Through a New Lens

It’s strange but, although it was a 55-year-old talking, both the memory of the incident and the analysis of the incident (which he had stored in his memory) were the memory and analysis of a 13-year-old.

Part of what was so funny was that you could see, as he talked and we laughed, that he could suddenly see how obvious it was that he had had been abused in some kind of way.

His wife came back in then and asked what we were all laughing at. The ‘club’ closed up again and made some kind of explanation which she accepted. Whilst she was busy talking to someone else I asked John if he had ever told his wife of the incident.

He shook his head in a kind of ‘you’re joking’ way. I asked him if he ever would and he gave the same response. That part of his life will forever remain unknown to his wife and his grown up children.

I understand. I have never told anybody of these things – not my parents, not my brothers and sisters, not my friends, not my children and not my wife.

As this is the early stage of writing this I’m not sure if it will ever be known to anyone outside those that were there and experienced it.

Comboni Missionaries Snub Pope Francis

Posted on by gerambo

No Place for Those Who Abuse Minors

Pope Francis sent out a letter on February 5th which stated that, in the Catholic Church, there is “no place for those who abuse minors”.

This letter appeared on the Comboni Missionaries own website http://www.Combonianum.org.

Yet the Comboni MIssionaries have always had plenty of places for those of their Order who abuse minors.

For Mirfield Infirmarian, Father Domenico Valmaggia, who abused many, many boys at the seminary in Mirfield, there was his home parish in the diocese of Como in Italy. That was one place that the Comboni missionaries found for those who abuse minors.

He was sent there after several boys told Father Robert Hicks that they had been abused by him. Needless to say the UK and Italian police were not told of his crimes and the Comboni Missionaries’ and Catholic Church’s procedures were not followed.

Father Pinkman

Then there was Father Pinkman, who was sent away after being reported by several of the boys at Mirfield. He abused, and ruined, the lives of many of the boys at Mirfield.

Once again the police were not told about his crimes and he was found places at other Comboni Missionary places such as in South Africa and also in the Westminster Diocese. It seems he worked for the Jumbulance.

According to Mark Murray “He was based at 39 Eccleston Square. I remember being told by a Comboni that he worked for the Catholic Bishop’s Conference”.

According to Brian Hennessy “After Westminster he went to Palestine. This was a deal between the Superior General and the then Archbishop of Boston which was arranged at a personal meeting between the two when the Superior General did a tour of the North American Province. From there he went to South Africa. There’s no indication that his Paedophilia was ever discussed with the Boston Archbishop of course”.

When he died, a Mass of Celebration was said, in, of all places, the chapel at the Seminary at Mirfield, just yards from the bedroom where he had perpetrated so many acts of sexual abuse aganst boys as young as 11 years of age. We are told that the homily for this monster was given by Father Robert Hicks.

Catholic Reformation

So, have the Comboni Missionaries reformed? Is this abuse and its cover-up a legacy of the past?

No, it is not!

Despite Pope Francis saying that there was ‘no place for those who abuse minors” as recently as February, the Comboni Missionaries still have at least one place for them as recently as May 2015.

That is in the Comboni Missionaries mother house in Verona in Italy where multi-abuser Father Romano Nardo is hidden out by the Comboni Missionaries.

Romano Nardo

Above is Father Romano Nardo concelebrating Mass with other priests in 2008 – long after he had been diagnosed as mentally unfit to answer police questions.

Sexual Abuse at Mirfield

For many years at Mirfield he sexually abused many boys, including Mark Murray.

When, many years later, in 1997, Mark reported this to the Comboni Missionaries, they immediately brought Father Nardo home from Uganda and told Mark that he would never have access to children again. It seems that he admitted his abuse.

However, once again, the Comboni Missionaries did not report this crime to the police – even though they appeared to act, on it themselves, as though they believed it and Father Nardo appears to have admitted it.

Father Romano Nardo saying Mass in 2008

Father Romano Nardo saying Mass in 2008 in his home town of Pordenone

West Yorkshire Police

Mark reported all this to West Yorkshire Police who have said that they believe that a ‘crime had been committed’. They put in place extradition procedures so that they could bring Father Nardo back to the UK for questioning.

They were refused permission, with the Comboni Missionaries saying his time in Uganda had made him incapable, mentally, of being interviewed.

This is despite the Comboni Missionaries leaving Father Nardo in a position of authority in Uganda for 20 years till 1977 until Mark Murray’s complaint. Surely if he had been affected badly by what had happened in Uganda many years before, they had failed in their duty of care to him by not bringing him home before Mark’s complaint.

Mother House in Verona

Indeed they brought him back to work at the hospital that the mother house in Verona has now become, where he has been till Mark’s recent trip to Verona.. That’s surely not a job for someone who is mentally incapable of answering questions.

Despite Mark’s recent visit to Verona to meet up with Father Nardo, the Comboni Missionaries still snub Pope Francis by providing a place for an abuser of young boys.

Said Pope Francis, in a letter this year which the Comboni Missionaries published, there is “no place for those who abuse minors”.

It appears that the Comboni Missionaries don’t ascribe to that view and continue to snub the Pope’s stated wishes.

Supreme Head of the Catholic Church Snubbed

Are they a schism?

Do the Comboni Missionaries not follow the Supreme Head of the Catholic Church?

If not, then whom do they follow – or are they a law unto themselves, both as regards the laws of the lands where they operate, and, as regards the laws and procedures of the Catholic Church and the stated wishes of its Supreme Head?

To see the letter from the Pope on the Comboni Missionaries own website click on http://combonianum.org/2015/02/05/no-place-for-those-who-abuse-minors/

Father Pinkman Makes Me a Big Offer

Posted on by gerambo

Do you want to be a Good Boy?

I had heard that Pinkie had his favourite boys. They used to go regularly to his room. I thought nothing of it at the time. I just thought that there was an ‘in crowd’ and they were in it. They were the Good Boys.

I had left home at the age of eleven to become a priest. I wanted to be one of the good boys. I also wanted to be one of the ‘chosen ones’ as well and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t included.

I was also far from my family and parents and Pinkie was as close to a parent as I had here – but we had to share him between us all. It would have been nice to have been appreciated and thought well of.

Not In WIth the In Crowd

People had started to speak about this ‘in crowd’ though. They didn’t say anything about what might happen up in Pinkie’s room. Even if they had I wouldn’t have understood anyway.

Very often when you are not accepted as one of the ‘in crowd’ you go the other way, becoming one of the ‘out crowd’ and become rebellious and anti-authority.

Pinkie always knew what was going on amongst The Boys of the Junior School. I presume now that his informers, the ‘in crowd’ who went to his room regularly were his eyes and ears.

He used to give a weekly speech to The Boys in the form room in which he would both tell us what was upcoming and inveigh against the bad things that had been happening in the past week. He seemed to know everything although he was seldom there when it happened.

Providing Information

I remember, being up in his room once, and he asked me what people thought of his selections for the football team of which I was a member at the time. I told him they more or less agreed with his selections.

“There’s no area of the team that they think could be improved, no one they would rather have in the team?”, he asked.

“I suppose the only thing some people say is that Spike Brown should be in the team”.

The very next week when he was giving his speech he got stuck into those people who questioned his picking of the team, even mentioning the fact that some people were criticising him for leaving Spike Brown out of the team.

No Critcism of the Regime Wanted

It’s one thing that I’ve noticed about people who have almost absolute power. They don’t like criticism and they certainly don’t take it as constructive criticism. All criticism is the same whether it is constructive or otherwise. They suffer from paranoia.

Pinkie had thanked me for the information before letting me go from the room.

I wasn’t a rebel by nature. I really did want to be a Good Boy. I did want to go back to being one of the admired ones rather than being considered an outcast. I wanted it desperately. I wanted to become a priest. I wanted to be worthy of his approval.

Making The Offer

One night I was walking along the top corridor at bedtime. I was coming out of the upstairs toilets where I had been getting washed and heading towards the dormitory to go to bed.

The corridor was usually busy at that time of night with all The Boys going backwards and forwards between washing themselves in the toilet and the dormitory.

But just at that moment there was only myself and Pinkie.

I was heading towards the dormitory and he was heading in the other direction towards me reading his breviary, as was his wont.

He looked behind him quickly to see if there was anyone there and then he turned to me and said with great intent “Do you want to become a good boy?”

I did. I did. I did indeed.

Here at last was the opportunity to join the ‘in crowd’ of the good. At last I had been asked. I wondered and wondered why I hadn’t been asked before.

Giving My Answer

I would not be thought of as a bad boy any longer. Pinkie could teach me to be a good boy and I could go to his room and get his approval the way I used to get it early in second year when I was on his Suggestions Committee and when I caught the first year boy who had been trying to escape. I would be back on track for the Holy Grail of the Priesthood. I would become one of the Chosen Ones again.

The obvious answer was “Yes. Yes, please.”

But I didn’t say it.

I said “No” and walked on by. As I walked by I saw that he was more than a little taken aback. I don’t think he expected it. Perhaps he hadn’t been turned down before. Why would anyone not want to be a good boy? It was a great lure. The only obvious answer was “Yes”.

After that, all that is needed is the explanation of how he can help you become good. I never ever learned what that would be as some of the others must have done.

Seminal Moments

In everyone’s life there are the seminal moments – and this was one of mine.

I knew immediately that it was a huge thing to say and to do. Even at the age of twelve I knew that I had burned down a huge, huge bridge.

Why did I say ‘No’ instead of the ‘Yes’ that I had really wanted to say?

I thought a lot about it in the days after that and again at junctures in my adult life.

I think there were several reasons. The first was that I was a bit of a contrarian sometimes doing or saying the opposite of what people expected. Secondly there was something funny or strange about the way he asked the question. It was the same as when he wanted to wash me in the cold shower when I was in first year.

Alarm Bells

An alarm bell went off somewhere in my head. My subconscious radar had detected something.

He wasn’t smiling and friendly and relaxed as you would expect someone to be who was offering to help someone to become a ‘good boy’.

Also, he was now asking me to join a group that people were starting to talk about and to make jokes about. Those on the outside always mock those on the inside. Many of them would like to be in the inside but make up for their rejection by mocking those who actually are on the inside.

All of those things added up together didn’t cancel out or come close to canceling out the ‘Yes’ option. I was here to be a priest, I wanted to be a Good Boy, and I wanted to be liked by, and get the approval of, our substitute ‘father’. I wanted to be one of the Good Boys.

‘Yes’ was the first answer which came to mind. However, I just could not say it.

“No” I said and walked on past taking the first steps along the path which would lead to the end of my priesthood vocation.

Looking back, now, I would guess the terrible Conduct marks were part of a softening up exercise, to make me feel bad about myself before being ‘shown the way’ and accepted back into the fold as one of the ‘Good Boys’. It must have seemed certain that I would have accepted the invitation to ‘come into the light’ again.

It must have been a shock to Pinkie when I said “No!”

Comboni Missionaries – How I Became a ‘Bad Boy’

Posted on by gerambo

Conduct Marks

Twice a year we were all assembled into the Junior Form room to be given our Conduct Marks out of ten. I remember two of the marks which were for Diligence and Obedience. The other one might have been for Good Manners.

I think an organisation can be judged on how they mark and judge others. They give rewards or marks for what they think is important. So, these were the three things that they considered most important in a boy going on to the priesthood.

I’ll let readers judge themselves whether they think these are the three attributes most needed in a successful missionary priest.

Marks in First Year

Everyone wants to do well. Everyone wants high marks. My first ever marks were 6, 5, and 6, which was not too bad but were a little on the low side. I remember the ‘good boys’ got a lot more. They tended to get 8’s and 9’s and David Glenday, who went on to become the first ever British leader of the Verona Fathers got 10, 9 and 10.

I don’t remember my second set of marks in first year but I do remember that I did get at least one 7. It might have been 7, 6 and 7.

The first set of marks in 2nd year had been similar. I now waited for my second and final set of marks for the year.

No one was ever given a failure.

The marks were read out by Father Rector but had been prepared by Pinkie.

Second Year Marks

I settled to down to hear then when my turn came. Most of the marks were in the 6-8 range with the Good Boys getting in the 8s and 9s.

My turn now.

“Five” said Fr. Rector. There was an audible communal gasp in the room as the mark was announced. This was low.

“Four” said Fr. Rector for the next mark. All eyes in the room were on me now.

“Five” said Fr. Rector for the last mark.

What Happened?

I couldn’t understand why. What had I done? Wasn’t I 2nd top of the class? Wasn’t I Fr Cerea’s favourite pupil with some calling me his pet?

When the marks ended, people came over to commiserate with me. They were as surprised as I was. “What did you do?” was the favourite question. “Nothing” I said bemusedly. They thought I must have done something as they couldn’t see anything that could cause those low marks.

One of the older boys then told me that this was probably the lowest set of conduct marks ever in the history of the school. He had been talking to some of the other older boys and none could remember anyone ever getting such a low set of Conduct Marks before.

If I didn’t feel bad enough already I really felt as low as the Dead Sea after that.

Worst Boy Ever

Was I really the worst boy who had ever walked up the driveway at St. Peter Claver’s College, wanting to do his bit for Africa and to become a priest?

I couldn’t believe it? How could I have got this bad? How could they think I was this bad? Was I this bad?

I couldn’t work it out at all. After all, I was processing the data through a twelve-year-old’s brain.

Looking at it again through the eyes of a 53-year-old I think I can now.

I got the worst conduct marks ever in the school’s history.

I was devastated at the time. I wear it as a badge of honour now.

Soon, however, Pinie was going to reveal a plan for my redemption.

Playing Football for the Verona Fathers

Posted on by gerambo

Playing for the Football Team

The alternative dream that I had to become a priest was to be a footballer, like, I’m sure, lots of little boys. I wanted to play for Celtic and Scotland. I was a decent enough footballer but I would never have made the grade. However, you don’t think like that when you are that age.

So, it was a great to find out that the college had a football team. It was the first year ever for them in the local football league. I think Pinkie may have had some involvement in setting it up. The league was a church league and all the teams were from the local churches. We were the only Catholics in the league.

I can’t remember whether they asked or told the boys that there was to be a trial for the team. They never really asked very much. They almost always told.

Trial for Football Team

Anyway, I played in the trials but didn’t play particularly well. I thought I might well just miss out and that turned out to be the case. They read out the names of the people that they expected to be in the team and called them the Probables. I had never heard of the term before and didn’t realise that where there are Probables there are also Possibles.

Pinkie read out the names of the Probables slowly and with intent and drama. He would have made a good compere of Big Brother or Survivor or the X Factor four decades later. As the ninth and tenth names were read out and none of them were mine I began to fear that I would lose out. When the eleventh name was read out and I was missing from the list I felt awful.

Then Pinkie said that before the first match the Probables would play a match against the Possibles. I played a blinder in that match. I scored both goals, both of them solo efforts, as the Possibles went 2-0 up. We held that till late in the match when the Probables pulled one goal back and then a second.

They claimed that they scored a third but it was disputed. We reckoned it was offside and they didn’t. There was no referee and no one to solve the dispute. They said they won 3-2 and we said it was 2-2. Still it was a magnificent performance by the 2nd eleven against the 1st.

Pinkie’s Team Selection

People were telling me for days afterwards that I’d definitely be in the team. I didn’t believe it. Pinkie wasn’t even there, I told them, like he had been at the original trial. This was just a practice match for the A team for the first game.

Before the first game Pinkie read out the names, one by one, of the team.

I was picked. I was in the side. I was going to play. Magic!

We actually played in the Inter Milan strip. One of the Fathers was an Inter Milan fan and that is why we played in the strips. I can’t remember which one of the Fathers it was. It wasn’t Fr. Cerea who supported Fiorentina.

It was nothing like the other strips that the other teams played in. Inter Milan were probably the top club in Europe at the time. We felt a bit special pulling on the strip.

And we were good – very good.

We won the league at our first attempt. Boy did that feel so good. I still remember quite a few of the individual matches though they were more than four decades ago.

It was heaven to be on the football team. The other boys came to all our matches home and away and cheered us on. Even though it was compulsory the vast majority would have come anyway.

There were two things to be in, the football team and the choir, and I was in both.

Oh happy days!

Greatest Joy

The football team was the source of my greatest joy when I was at the college and also my greatest sadness – but more of that later.

I am sure that people will read this book and look at all the sexual abuse, the psychological torture, the military regime and the strict and regimented rules and conclude that this was a terrible thing to do to young boys and a terrible place to be.

However, I loved it there and didn’t want to leave. Even at the time I thought it was the best and happiest period of my life. I still believe it today. It was definitely the best and key years of my life. I wouldn’t swap that experience for anything.

All Glad We Came

It was interesting that at the last college reunion I went to that when I asked everyone “do you wish that episode of your life had never happened, that you had simply went to your local secondary school and avoided all the stuff that went on at the college?” the answer was a unanimous No.

The bad things that happened, to me anyway, however bad they were, were irregular intrusions in a happy time of my life. I remember I worked with a guy who had been to sea before he worked in computers. He told us the things that he had done and the things he had seen at sea.

It seemed a great life. “Where could we sign on?”, those listening thought. We were wasting our lives working in computers. However, he hated the life at sea. All those things happened over a ten year period. The in-between bits (most of the time) were awful for him. He hated it almost immediately after he had signed up for ten years.

He said that he thought that he couldn’t get out and that he had to go through with all of it. It basically screwed him up for life. He told us that he didn’t realize, then, that he could have got himself out. However, he didn’t know, so he spent ten horrible years in a job he hated from the very start.

It was the same but in an opposite way at the college. When I tell here of all the bad things that happened it sounds like an awful life. However, the bad things happened over a period of a few years. The bulk of the time was good.

Comboni Missionaries Slammed in The Tablet Catholic Newspaper

Posted on by gerambo

Comboni Missionaries

The Tablet newspaper, which has been on the go since 1840, is the 2nd oldest newspaper in Britain after The Spectator, It is the main Catholic Newspaper in the UK.

Today it publishes an article which slams the Comboni Missionaries for their attitude to those who were abused by Comboni MIssionary priests at their seminary in Mirfield, Yorkshire.

It said that 12 ex-seminarians are calling on the Comboni Missionaries to acknowledge and apologise for the abuse that took place at Mirfield in the Sixties and Seventies.

Archbishops

One of the ex-seminarians, Brian Hannessy, has documented more than 1,000 instances of the abuse, and the Comboni Missionaries reaction to it, and has sent the 157-page document to all the Archbishops in the UK as well as the heads of religious communities.

Hennessy said that the Comboni Missionaries had not followed their own procedures when abuse was reported.

The Comboni Missionaries paid out £120,000 to the group of 12 but said that this was not an admission of guilt.

Hennessy told The Tablet that the cover up of abuse “has run so deep in the veins of the hierarchy of that religious order that it has resulted in the hierarchical re-victimisation and discrimination of the victims of child sexual abuse that was committed by depraved members of their order”.

Comboni Fathers

Jim Kirby told the Tablet that all the abused wanted was an apology from the Comboni Missionaries and for them to admit that they had failed in their duty of care to the boys at their seminary in Mirfield.

He told The Tablet “We want them to meet us and to treat us properly and with respect. So far we have been fobbed off and we have been insulted. Some of us have been told by priests that we are ‘only in it for the money’.”

He continued, “It would help if the Comboni fathers would stop saying this was all a long time ago, and the priests are dead: they’re not all dead, and the ones who are still alive should be brought to court, but in the meantime it would mean so much if they just invited us to meet them and said, guys, we’re sorry; not only for what happened all those years ago, but for failing to face up to it in the years since. What’s happened has added insult to injury, and now is the moment when it has to stop.”

To read the whole article click on The Tablet Article on the Comboni Missionaries Abuse

It seems that the Comboni MIssionaries were not available for comment.

Dropped from the Verona Fathers Football Team

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Dropped from the Football Team

As I said, at the end of the interrogation Pinkie added insult to injury – or rather he added injury to injury. He told me that I would no longer be selected for the football team. I had been a member of the Championship winning team the previous year. I had played my part in the triumph.

However, that didn’t count for anything. There were other considerations.

That was a severe blow. I mean it was a really severe blow. I loved playing for the team – but the conditions of playing were no longer acceptable.

I must say that, at the time, I didn’t really piece it all together. I couldn’t work out why Pinkie had turned against me. It was about half way through the season that I got suddenly dropped – maybe a little before half way.

Announcing the Team

I remember that Pinkie would come to the junior recreation hall to read out the team. I was the only one who didn’t crowd round to hear it. I got on with whatever I was doing before. I did keep my ears opened. I hoped against hope that one week I might hear my name called out. After all, the second season wasn’t going so well and we were falling behind in the Championship.

Perhaps Pinkie might have a change of heart and pick me. Although I didn’t come over to hear the team news I used to keep my ear open and listen to Pinkie as he dramatically read out the team one by one.

Each week as the team was read out and with each name that was read out it was a like a dagger through my heart. Even when nine and ten names had been read out and they weren’t mine I still retained a hope.

But each week was the same. I wouldn’t say I was the best, age for age, in the team but there were people in the team in my position who would not have said that they were as good as me. People wondered why I was no longer picked.

“You’ll probably get picked this week” they would say.

No Chance

One week, as everybody went over to hear the team news, a guy that I was playing draughts with got up to go over and said to me “are you not going over? You might be in the team”.

Pinkie had actually picked me the week before for our one and only second team game. Not only that, he had picked me as captain. Whilst the first team had lost we hammered the second team and I scored a load of goals. From memory I think we won 8-1 and I got five of them. Perhaps my period of exclusion was over. Perhaps my performance might get me back in the team.

I didn’t go over. I didn’t dare think I would be in the team. But I listened very intently as the team was read out one by one. Maybe Pinkie had a heart after all. It would be great to come back into the team. It would be great, to be frank, not to be generally an ‘excludee’ with Pinkie.

However, my name was not read out that day. In fact it was never read out again. My punishment was final. My exclusion was sine die.

Even when I was in the seniors and was still eligible to play I wasn’t picked. It was even more painful that the guy from third year that they picked was nowhere near as good as I was, to my mind. He even said that himself and he was even a bit guilty about it.

Father Pinkman and My Interrogation

Posted on by gerambo

This is the follow-up to Father Pinkman Accused Me of Leading the Great Escape

It was published recently.

Third Degree

This was not the end of it though.

Soon afterwards, I got called up to Pinkie’s room. He started the grilling over again. I had to tell him who was going to be in the Great Escape.

Again and again I told him I knew nothing about it. I started to cry again and I kept on crying and crying and the tears were running down my face in streams.

On and on went the interrogation. He said he would only stop and let me go when I had told him everything.

I had nothing to tell, though.

“I know that someone is organising it” he said. There was no way out for me as I had nothing to tell him.

Capitulating Under Interrogation

Eventually, after what seemed like ages he said “If it’s not you who is leading it who is it then?”.

“I don’t know” I said crying relentlessly.

“Is it Locke and McGinnis” he asked.

They were my two best friends.

Here was a way out. I could say it was them and the pain would stop. The interrogation would be over and I could go free. I could escape with just one word.

But I couldn’t do that I also thought. It wasn’t them (It only ever existed in Pinkie’s fevered brain).

“No” I said.

“It is them isn’t it” he said. “You’re not telling me because they are your friends”.

Oh my God, the interrogation fever was being turned up again. “Oh no!” I thought.

“It is them isn’t it, Locke and McGinnis”.

Surrender

“Yes” I said and in one fell swoop I was free – except that my two best friends never spoke to me in a friendly way ever again after they had been brought up and grilled like me.

Pinkie even told them that it was I that had accused them. I denied it but they never believed me.

When I’ve read of supposed miscarriages of justice where the accused has made a full confession and then retracted it saying that he was under duress to confess I am as cynical as the next man.

But when I think back that is exactly what I did. I was under such duress that when given the opportunity to finger my two best friends I did just that, so that the grilling could stop and I could leave the room.

Biggest Regret

Perhaps that is my greatest regret of all the time that I was there. I cracked and got my best friends into trouble. They never knew the circumstances of it. After all, I had denied it and so could not go back and tell them what had actually happened.

Locke got expelled at the end of the term and never came back. I was never friendly with Frank McGinnis again who had been my best friend for the best part of two years. He never spoke to me again. We were never friends again and I had to make a new set of friends in third year. I later found that he had been expelled in summer 1967 – at the end of the term after I got suspended for a year.

Even though I was under intense pressure I still should not have cracked. I was a boy of 12, though, being psychologically tortured by a cruel psycho who sexually preyed on boys as young as eleven and who was scorned by me as he saw it. I state this in my own defence.

But in my heart of hearts I should still not have cracked and ‘handed over’ two innocent friends.

Difficult Year

The rest of second year was quite difficult as I had to hang around with people that I hadn’t been all that friendly with before. If truthful, I had to hang around with people who nobody had been all that friendly with before.

And I got constant reminders from my two ex-best friends whenever I bumped into them – which was frequently. Locke took it particularly badly. I think that Frank McGinnis might have eventually forgiven me but I think he wanted to show solidarity with Francis Locke who was slightly more dominant of the two.

Meeting Francis Locke Again

Several years late I was invited to Allanton in Dumfries where the Verona Fathers had a seminary for boys who joined at a later age. This invitation was both for new boys and for boys who had left the college previously but who might be interested in coming back. There was only two boys there that I knew – and one of them was Francis Locke.

He hadn’t forgotten. He didn’t say anything but he was not over friendly and spent most of the time with the other guy who neither of us had been particularly friendly with when at The College. He spoke to me when I spoke to him but there was no warmth. Indeed there was no warmth when he first saw me for the first time in several years. Not even a smile.

What treachery it must have seemed in his eyes and for no reason that he could see. What a wicked boy I must have been to him.

I never got the opportunity to explain to them – and even if I had done I’m not sure it was a good enough explanation.

Fingered

I never thought of it then but there must have been someone else who fingered me in the first place. Pinkie wouldn’t have made it up. He really did believe this ridiculous story. Someone must have given it to him.

Was it some other poor boy in the same circumstance as I was that he was interrogating? That’s possible but that boy would not have been the person who put it into his mind.

One of the ‘in crowd’ must have told him this lie.

Why?

Perhaps it was to please him. We know already from my days as one of his ‘spies’ that this was an area that he gave some thought to. Could one of the boys have come up with this cock and bull story just to curry favour with him?

I’ll never know who was the one who decided to put me in the frame as the guy masterminding the Great Escape, or why they did it.

The Final Straw

As I got up to leave the room Pinkie looked towards me and I could see he was about to say something else. I could see the venom in his eyes.

“Just one more thing” he said. “You won’t ever be getting picked again for the school football team” he said with more than a little satisfaction.

He couldn’t have picked anything that could have hurt me more. And what’s more he must have known it.

I went into the room as an innocent twelve year old and I left it robbed of my favourite hour and a half of the week – and without any friends.

The Catholic Church: Aim is survival, just like any other corporation

Posted on by markmurray1

This morning I read   the article that I have copied  below.

It seems to sum up, and explain the reasoning behind, at least for me, all the brick walls that I, and,  I am sure, many others, have been up against for  years.

As a group we wanted, and still want,  an open and honest dialogue with the Comboni Missionaries about the abuse that happened to us and to many others at  Mirfield.

The CM’s  have never been willing, or able, to engage in any open and truthful dialogue with the “Mirfield 12 Group.”

The article below highlites what I never really wanted to believe.

Surely those Combonis, that have – as the article states – “a moral compass,” that relates to their lives; the positive work that they do,  and the seemingly corrupt attitudes that their superiors apparently posses can do something to initiate fundamental change within their  Comboni Order.

 

Mark Murray

 

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“The Catholic Church is a corporation that runs exactly like any other. It has a chief executive – the Pope – regional managers – the cardinals – its own finance department, its own insurance company, a huge international property portfolio and pays minimal tax. It functions as a powerful political pressure group, it has representatives in national parliaments, a massive art collection throughout the world, and diminished social responsibility. Finally, it possesses an enviably large group of customers. Like all corporations it goes into immediate denial when found to have engaged in wrongdoing. When further pressure is placed on it, it begins to offer some reparation while admitting no liability. When subjected to substantial external investigation it still continues to deny anything other than partial culpability and offers a little more financial and other succour to appease the wounded. Like all corporations its aim is survival and riches for its top management. Fortunately, some of its employees at the lower level have a strong moral compass, but this is never enough to alter the basic imperative of survival motivating the corporation as a whole. This is why it has been so difficult for the victims of sustained abuse to gain justice.”

Greg Bailey, St Andrews

Father Wade – Our Question on Sex Threw Him Completely

Posted on by gerambo

Father Anthony Wade

By Martin Millar

Cherished MOBsters,

I want to begin by paying a special tribute to all the Mirfield Old Boys who have taken such pains in dedicating themselves to the cause of achieving justice and closure in regard to the abuse suffered.

As I listened to Mark Murray speaking on Radio 5 yesterday, I learned more of the man in 25 minutes than in the intervening years since the 2009 reunion.

With the support of people like Brian Hennessy, Gerry McLaughlin and all of the other men involved in the ‘settlement’ and subsequent battles for justice, Mark has soared in spirit and mind.

I look forward to further news coverage with keen interest.

La lutta continua!

Scripture Studies

On another note, and sharing a funny memory, I’d like to recount the tale of my attempt to introduce some risque humour into Fr Wade’s boring Scripture Studies classes.

We were always pressing him to allow us to discuss things like the Church’s attitude towards pre- and extra-marital sex, abortion, recreational drug use and all manner of things that had nothing to do with the Maccabees, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and Our Sweet Lord.

Birds and the Bees

He always prevaricated and would digress into topics that interested him, primarily whether or not the going was good at Haydock Park, Aintree or Royal Ascot.

Ambrose Mulroy always perked up at these points as he was really into the gees.

Finally, after relentless pressure, Wade agreed to have a Q&A session about the birds and the bees, and instructed us to organise a box of anonymous questions, any and all of which he solemnly promised to answer.

Tommy O’Donnell, Ambrose, Dave Harrigan, and possibly Angus Murray got together to write some questions.

Questions for Father Wade

I hit on a corker, and my mates were duly impressed:

‘Do girls masturbate and if so, how?’

Come the session, Wade proceeded to put his hand in the box and pulled out the screwed up pieces of paper. The first and second ones he picked were completely innocuous and he gave his usual anodyne responses.

Then we knew we had hit gold as he took the next one out. His pallor, unhealthily pale on one of his good days, went white, his jaw locked open, his hands trembling as he scanned the words.

He fumbled about not knowing what to do or say.

Great Victory

‘Read it to us father’.
‘I can’t’.
‘Why not?’

Long silence.

He got up and walked out of the class. We had won a great victory! We had taken the piss out of our pompous and ignorant teacher! Hah hah.

Science Teacher

The thing is, it was a genuine question, as well as a prank.

The only person who we could get a straight answer from to our questions about sex was a brilliant science teacher from one of the local Catholic secondary schools.

I’ve forgotten his name, but I do remember his lessons being hands-on and very stimulating.

PLEASE KEEP THIS BLOG ALIVE

Martin Millar (1968-72)