Abuse survivor confronted with lawyers for Spiritans in 2015 despite 2012 apology to abused

A man who claims he was sexually abused in Kenya by Spiritan priest Fr Patrick Hannan was told by lawyers for the congregation in 2015 that it was the first complaint they had received about the priest.

The lawyers also told the man the legal action he had initiated would be fought “in full” should he go ahead with it in Ireland. They invited him instead to consider whether remedies were available to him in Kenya.

In 2012, a spokesman for the congregation told The Irish Times there had been “one confirmed case” against Fr Hannan and that it had emerged “after his death” in 1993.

That year, then Spiritan principal Fr Brian Starken “apologised unreservedly to those abused, hurt or damaged by any Spiritan”. Fr Starken’s apology was quoted in the first paragraph of a public apology issued on Wednesday by current Spiritan provincial Fr Martin Kelly.

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Alex de Figueiredo (78), a retired teacher now based in Vancouver, was a pupil at St Teresa’s secondary school in Nairobi from 1955 to 1961. He told The Irish Times that he was sexually abused by Fr Hannan “from the age of 11 till 16 in Nairobi, Kenya. As you can well imagine, this had a profound effect on me growing up, and even today.”

Mr de Figueiredo’s family were from the Indian state of Goa and staunchly Catholic. He recalled how he once went to Fr Hannan in confession. The priest said: “I can’t hear your confession. We would have to stop what we do and I cannot do that.” Alex went to another priest to hear his confession, who was also his Latin teacher, and was given “a severe penance”.

The Irish Times first reported Mr de Figueiredo’s alleged abuse by Fr Hannan in 2012 when a spokesman for the Spiritans then confirmed that the priest had been “in a school/and in parish work in Kenya (1950-1969).” Subsequently he was in the “USA (1971-1989), returning to Ireland in poor health. He died in 1993.

The spokesman also said then that there had been “one confirmed case” against the priest and that it had emerged “after his death”.

In 2012 also Mr de Figueiredo “got an email from a classmate informing me that he, too, had been abused. He stated he wished he had the courage to speak out but does not have the courage.” He received an email that year too from a friend who said “he knows three boys who were abused [by Fr Patrick Hannan] and Hannan’s brother, Gerry, also abused boys in Mombasa.”

This is a reference to Fr Gerry Hannan, who was named last week as an abuser at Blackrock College/Willow Park in Dublin.

In 2013, feeling frustrated at the response of the Spiritans to his allegations, Mr de Figueiredo initiated legal action in Ireland. It concluded in 2015 when solicitors for the Spiritans wrote, saying it was the first complaint they had received about Fr Hannan and that the priest “was not under the control of the Irish province while holding those appointments [in Kenya]. Because of this they have no legal obligation to Mr Figueiredo.”

The solicitors said that the congregation had instructed them “to deny legal liability in respect to the behaviour of Fr. Hannan complained of by Alex Figueiredo.” They continued: “Should proceedings be initiated in this jurisdiction against our client by Mr. Figueiredo, same will be defended in full. Our client has instructed us to place your client on notice of his intention in this regard in order that Mr. Figueiredo may consider whether remedies are available to him in the jurisdiction where the acts complained of are alleged to have occurred.”

In explaining this invitation by the Spiritans to Mr de Figueiredo, that he take legal action against church authorities in Kenya, Spiritan safeguarding officer Liam Lally told The Irish Times that “when a Spiritan goes to another country they usually join the Spiritan province in that country and anything that they do in that country is to be dealt with in that country”.

Asked whether that amounted to the Spiritans washing their hands of responsibility for transferring often known abusers to other countries, he said: “If there has been a record of abuse before they left Ireland then Ireland takes responsibility.”

Mr de Figueiredo has documented his dealings with the Spiritans, as seen by The Irish Times. “At the age of 75 I do not know how much longer I have on this planet and I may not get justice in my lifetime but it will be documented so that this is not lost and future generations should know how the church deals with sexual abuse in third-world countries,” he said.

He has also done so “to show that the Catholic Church is racist and has been since my time in Africa. The front two padded pews in the Holy Family Church in Nairobi were reserved for whites even though over 90 per cent of the congregation was Asian. The white teachers at St Teresa’s girls’ school had a separate washroom. The victims of sexual abuse in Ireland have each received €250,000 from the Spiritan order, yet victims in Africa receive nothing.”