Please feel free to leave a comment or post your thoughts.Your input and views negative or positive would be much appreciate .

To all ‘Mirfield Old Boys’ and to anyone else who may be interested,

There are comments on the blog that indicate that people want the blog to continue. For my part it has served a big purpose and i thank many people for their contributions and their support.

Many lads who were at Mirfield in the 1960’s and the 1970’s have come forward and talked about their experiences. I believe the comments and the support from others have enabled many men to talk or write about their time at Mirfield for the first time. For some of these people it has been a liberating feeling: “finally i am not alone,” one person wrote to me. This has, i feel, been one of the overriding messages that have come from the blog. People do not have to be on their own anymore. There are others there for them. There are others who have been through similar experiences. There are others who will listen and help.

When Kevin, Tony and myself set up the blog we never thought that there would be so much interest from ex Mirfield lads. Many people have written – and many read what has been written. That has to be a good and positive result for all of us.

It would be good for Kevin, Tony and myself to know how much interest there is to keep the blog active.

Thanks,

Mark

Thanks to all the people that have contributed to the Verona Father’s blog over the last couple of years. I know that it has helped many people.

When Kevin, Tony and I started the Verona Father’s Blog, we had no idea in which direction it would go and who would be interested in it. More importantly, we questioned who would want to contribute to it.

Writing about sexual abuse and neglect cannot be easy, and writing about abuse that happened to the person who is writing, is more than hard. It can leave yourself open and exposed, and psychologically back in the vulnerable situation where the abuse happened.

Dealing with that situation can take a long time. It can take a life time; it can take more than a life time, and then self harm, for many, is a big escape option.

In that aspect, the Verona Father’s blog has helped. Knowing that others were abused; knowing that it was not just you; knowing that you could talk about your Mirfield life, and then being able to write about it to friends and companions is a massive positive experience.

Everyone that has written about their Mirfield experiences on the blog, has shown overwhelming support, encouragement and a deep sense of solidarity and love to the adults that, as children, were abused at Mirfield.

The subscription on the blog runs out next month. Therefore if you want to write your Mirfield thoughts, memories, future hopes and aspirations now is the time to do it.
Or maybe there is someone else wanting to taking the Verona Father’s blog on!!
Best wishes to all.

Mark

Neither Kevin Deignan nor Mark Murray are the author of this posting.

I do have some happy memories of Mirfield . I loved playing football.I probably wasn’t all that good at it but I loved it.I would run ’til I was exhausted and then run some more. I even loved the early morning PE and especially the games we played in the copse at the bottom end of the football pitch.
I remember the long walks we would go on through the snow and I remember the freshly baked bread.
I remember when,on occasion,some man would visit and bring a large bag of chocolate bars,and I remember laughing at the wrong moment when watching a play,’A man for all Seasons’. The executioner,with a pot belly, in profile, silhouetted against the backdrop,lifting his axe,was not the time to laugh,but some of us giggled at the scene, bringing displeasure to some .
I remember the candle-lit processions and crawling through a coal mine to a coal face and visiting Fountain’s Abbey.
I remember the smile on Fr.Grace’s face when I came top in Eng Lit. And I remember the orange juice.
And I remember one of my friends putting his arms around my shoulders and telling me not to cry.

I am married to an ex Mirfield student called Tom Wharton. He attended the seminary from 1962-1964 and is saddened and shocked at the revelations on your site as he had a largely good experience there. His memories are happy ones although some of the routines seemed a little harsh – morning runs in all weathers, PE in full uniform before breakfast, working on the farm in winter etc. I have tried to access some photos with no success, can you advise how to see them please?

Tom may be remembered by his nickname ‘Chunky’ or ‘Tiny’ !

IT CATCHES YOU UP

It happened to thousands.

Innocent lonely children looking and responding to warped affection and love by adults they respected or were forced to respect.

Later, it crawls or sneaks back into your life, and it catches you up.

No matter how good and clever you have become in pushing it back; getting on with your life; wearing many different masks; sooner or later, it is there in front and not behind.
Running away, keeping the thoughts and memories behind is too difficult. Run back? — No, you have already been there.

It is in front and you have to decide what next.

You either stop dead or meet it head on. It is more than difficult, it is destroying, it brings back the frightening and the despairing moments, and especially if you feel alone.

They become alive and part of you again – they are no longer historical, they are alive and in all parts of your life and your family’s life.

It is so sad.

Ben writes: I was chatting with a couple of the guys from Mirfield and we were discussing footballers who had come to visit Mirfield. The names we have come up with so far are:

· Willie Bell (Leeds United & Scottish International)

· Johnny Quigley (Huddersfield Town)

· Mike O’Grady (Leeds United & Huddersfield)

· Some player from Rotherham who was the cousin of somebody at the college. I thought his surname was Casey – could be wrong

Anybody know of any others?

Does anyone remember Peabod’s God Squad?

Mark

Francis apologises for sexual abuse of children by priests and vows tough sanctions for perpetrators

11 April 2014 15:19 by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service

“I feel called to take responsibility for all the evil some priests – large in number, but not in proportion to the total – have committed and to ask forgiveness for the damage they’ve done with the sexual abuse of children,” Pope Francis said.

“The Church is aware of this damage,” and is committed to strengthening child protection programmes and punishing offenders, he told members of the International Catholic Child Bureau during a meeting today at the Vatican.

The remarks appeared to be the Pope’s first apology for the sex abuse scandal, following earlier statements affirming the Vatican’s work investigating and punishing perpetrators, and encouraging bishops to support abuse victims. The Pope also has said the church deserves to be forced to make monetary settlements to victims.

In December, Pope Francis established a Vatican commission to promote improved child protections policies throughout the Church.

Meeting with leaders of the International Catholic Child Bureau, an organisation based in France and dedicated to defending children’s rights, Pope Francis said it was hard to believe “men of the Church” would commit such horrors.

“We don’t want to take a step backward in dealing with this problem and with the sanctions that must be imposed,” the Pope said. “On the contrary, I believe we must be very strong. You don’t play with children’s lives!”

Pope Francis also spoke about the importance of defending children’s right “to grow in a family with a mother and father able to create a healthy environment for their growth and affective maturity,” which includes “maturing in relationship to the masculinity and femininity of a father and a mother.”

Parents have a right to determine the appropriate “moral and religious education” of their children, he said, and should not be subject to school curriculums that are thinly veiled courses of indoctrination into whatever ideology is strongest at the moment.

The pope said he wonders sometimes whether parents are “sending a child to school or to a re-education camp” like those run by dictatorial governments.

Obviously, he said, children need help in responding to the problems and challenges contemporary culture and the media raise. Young people can’t be kept in “glass jars,” but must be given the values that will help them evaluate what cultural trends respect their dignity and freedom and the dignity and freedom of others.

Below is a translation of the Pope’s words, courtesy of Vatican Radio:

Dear friends,
I thank you for this meeting. I appreciate your efforts on behalf of children: it is a concrete and current expression of the predilection that the Lord Jesus has for them.

We can say that the BICE was born of the motherhood of the Church. In fact, it originates from Pope Pius XII’s intervention in defence of children in the aftermath of World War II. Since then, this organisation has always been committed to promoting the protection of children’s rights, and to contributing to the 1989 UN Convention. And in this his work it constantly collaborates with the Holy See offices of the in New York, in Strasbourg and especially Geneva .

[moving away from script speech]… I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children. The Church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children…

In our days, it is important to carry out the projects against slave – labour, against the recruitment of child soldiers and all forms of violence against children. On a positive note, we must reaffirm the right of children to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.

At the same time, this implies supporting the right of parents to decide the moral and religious education of their children. And in this regard I would like to express my rejection of any kind of educational experimentation with children. We cannot experiment with children and young people. The horrors of the manipulation of education that we experienced in the great genocidal dictatorships of the twentieth century have not disappeared; they have retained a current relevance under various guises and proposals and, with the pretence of modernity, push children and young people to walk on the dictatorial path of “only one form of thought”.

[moving away from script speech] A week ago a great teacher said to me … “with these education projects I don’t know if we’re sending the kids to school or a re-education camp” …

Working for human rights presupposes the aim of fostering anthropological formation, of being well prepared on the reality of the human person, and knowing how to respond to the problems and challenges posed by contemporary culture and widespread mentality propagated by the mass media.

[moving away from script speech] Obviously this does not mean we should cover them with forms of protection that are superseded today because they belong to a past culture … Not this, this is no good … we should propose the positive values of the human person the new culture…

For you, this means offering your managers and operators continuing formation on the anthropology of the child, because that is where the rights and obligations have their foundation . It is upon this that the formation of educational projects rest.

[moving away from script speech] These projects obviously must progress, mature and accommodate itself to the signs of the times always remember human identity and freedom of conscience …

Thank you again. I wish you a Buon lavoro.

Ever since the disclosures of abuse I have been waiting for some sort of defence or at least some explanation as to why these events happened, were allowed to happen and why there is a stone wall tactic over these events.
To that end I have come up with a few thoughts, in absence of anyone else offering a defence. Any quotes used will be from “The case of the Pope” by Geoffrey Robertson. First off a priest after ordination dose not attain supper human powers, he is a man with the same desires and needs of any normal man. What happens at ordination is that he vows to keep these needs and desires under control, supressed. Why? is it because this kind of mental control will elevate him above lay people or perhaps it is just that the church demands it.
” Certainly, the commitment to celibacy and the church’s condemnation of masturbation as a mortal sin sets up an unendurable tension for many priests, and senior churchmen have accepted that up to half are in some way “sexually active”. This does not explain why so many -on some estimates, from 6-9 per cent- are sexually active with children. The priesthood offers incomparable opportunity and spiritual power for paedophiles , and some have infiltrated it , but most offenders appear to be psycho- sexually immature, often in denial about their condition and hoping that the rigours of the priesthood will protect them from themselves. Instead they find a brotherhood, a sodality that closes ranks to protect them not from themselves but from the consequences of their actions, because the overriding philosophy of their superiors has been to avoid scandal to the church. This translates into a culture of ready forgiveness for sexual sins. Richard Snipe, a former priest turned psychiatrist, argues that the prevalence of masturbation in seminaries and the ready forgiveness in confession, “forms a cycle of guilt that binds clerics and confessors together wherein sexual transgressions become minimalized and trivialized -even sex with minors becomes just another sin to be forgiven.”
So here we have part of the problem .A man ,an ordinary man ,is asked the impossible, suppress all you natural desires, and when (not if) you fail you will be forgiven. With every breach comes forgiveness.
Secondly “facts that are now emerging show that sexual abuse of children by priests in the catholic church has been at a level considerably above that in any other organization, and that it has been covered up by many bishops with the support and at the direction of the Vatican. the cover up has included an almost visceral refusal to call in the police, the swearing of complainants and witnesses to utter secrecy, and proceedings under a clandestine Canon Law biased towards the accused priest and in any event threatening no real punishment for the guilty.”
CANON LAW the big stick to threaten any priest. The Vatican describes itself as an absolute monarchy in which the pope has full legislative, executive and judicial powers, in other words it is a law unto itself. The ambassadors of the Vatican are it’s clergy and in certain cases seem to be able, under canon law, to claim diplomatic immunity.
So in defence of the order they are bound by Canon Law and must believe that the church will do the right thing I suppose in the same way that a suicide bomber can justify his actions through his religious beliefs. I hope that this has brought some clarity .Individuals were only following the rules, blame the pope!!

I would be grateful for any comments
Degs