Christian Brothers ‘mistreating’ elderly members by failing to appoint nominee for legal actions

The leadership of the Christian Brothers is mistreating its own members, many of whom are frail and in nursing homes, according to a man who successfully sued the congregation in a historical sex abuse case.

Damian O’Farrell, an independent councillor on Dublin City Council, was commenting on the legal strategy adopted by the congregation’s leadership in sex abuse proceedings which means that elderly brothers are having to deal with the stress of receiving court papers in relation to multiple sex abuse cases.

Because it will not provide a nominee to act on behalf of the congregation, legal papers in historic abuse cases must be sent to all brothers from the time who are still alive. In some cases this means papers are separately served on more than 100 elderly brothers all of whom have no direct involvement in the case. Other religious congregations provide a nominee to act for them for the purposes of such claims.

“Most [of these] brothers have done a lot of great work around the country in terms of education,” Mr O’Farrell said. “They gave up their lives and now their leaders are bringing their reputation into the gutter. Is this the way to treat victims? Is this the way to treat their own members?”

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In the High Court on Friday Mr Justice Tony O’Connor said one of his reasons for ordering the new provincial leader of the Christian Brothers, David Gibson, to appear before him, was to offer him an opportunity to address the fact that summonses would have to be served on more than 100 elderly brothers because of the position being adopted the congregation.

Bro Gibson was not in court but his counsel, Karl Finnegan, said his client did not wish to act as nominee for the order and was adopting the same position as his predecessor, Bro Edmund Garvey. The court ruled that legal papers should be served individually on the more than 100 brothers who were joined as defendants to the case.

Mr O’Farrell, who received his settlement before the congregation’s new strategy came into being, discussed the consequences of the legal strategy with Bro Gibson in August 2022 and subsequently sent an email to him referring to their meeting.

“I know that you expressed a view that this ‘ludicrous’ circumstance was not brought about or instigated by any action of the Congregation of Christian Brothers Order and that your preference would always be to settle, but that you had to be mindful of the financial expectation of the victim and the responsibilities of the order going forward for its ageing membership, other victims, and [the congregation not having] unlimited resources, etc, etc”, Mr O’Farrell said in his email, to which he got no reply.

He referred to a case where, because Bro Garvey had refused to voluntarily provide a list of all surviving brothers who had to be separately sued, the plaintiff had to get an order instructing the congregation to provide it. After the list was provided, 162 elderly brothers were added to the case as defendants.

“A consequence of this is that the other members, many of advanced age and failing health, residents of nursing homes, have received formal legal communications inviting them to compensate the litigant/victim by reason of the sexual acts of the first named defendant in the case.”

The first named defendant, who is not being named for legal reasons, has been convicted in the criminal courts of the offence for which compensation is being sought.

“I don’t need to set out again the very unjust and unchristian way victims are being treated by your order,” Mr O’Farrell said in the email. “The above speaks for itself ... it’s absolutely scandalous Bro Gibson and I believe any fair-minded person will share that view ... and I believe you share that view also.”

A request for a comment from the Christian Brothers met with no response. Mr O’Farrell told The Irish Times that most Christian Brothers had joined the congregation when they were teenagers and had given their lives to it, only to discover late in their lives that some colleagues had been sexually abusing children.

He believes the membership, including the leadership, is “traumatised” by what has happened and doesn’t have the skills to deal with the situation it is facing. The strategy being adopted by the leadership is re-traumatising victims, he said, but is also unfair to the congregation’s elderly membership who find themselves being served with court papers about sex abuse cases they have no direct connection with.