Irish victims of Comboni abuse: ‘What we want is to be believed, to be understood’

A religious order has bowed to pressure from Pope Francis to meet face-to-face with three Irishmen who were sexually abused at a training college for priests in the UK during the 1960s.

The Comboni Missionaries, headquartered in Rome, has refused for decades to acknowledge the horrific ordeal suffered by the men and others who were enticed as children into St Peter Claver College in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, which was run by the order.

Last week Frank Barnes, from Finglas, Dublin, Gerry McLaughlin of Moville, Co Donegal and Jim Kirby, from Glasheen, Cork City, were among eight survivors who held an emotionally charged meeting with Francis at The Vatican.

The pontiff personally pleaded for their forgiveness and vowed to contact Fr Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie, superior general of the Comboni Order, to ask why he had not made any effort to speak with them.

Bruce Springsteen concert in Cork: Tell us your verdict

---

‘I do God’: London mayor Sadiq Khan on religious faith, meeting the Pope and the fight to save the planet

---

Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft review – Her third album is not quite a genre bender, but this star is growing in sophistication

---

Rebel Spanish nuns split with Vatican amid property spat

---

Catholic Bishop of Leeds Marcus Stock, in whose diocese the seminary was run, previously apologised to the men and accompanied them, along with Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, on the papal visit.

Bishop Stock has written to the men about “significant progress” since the meeting.

“The superior general [of the Combonis] has agreed to meet with you and has been in contact with Cardinal Nichols to confirm this fact,” he said.

It was only years afterwards I could bring myself to talk about it, even though it was in my head all the time. You feel guilty for it happening

The men understand Pope Francis was “very angry”, and Fr Tesfaye Tadesse Gebresilasie agreed to travel to the UK to meet with them, along with his successor-in-waiting, “as soon as possible”.

Frank Barnes, 70, a company director who was born in Crumlin, Dublin, told The Irish Times: “This is what we have always been fighting for. To be listened to, and to be directly heard by the Comboni Missionaries. Any other approach we have made to them over the years, they have come out with the usual claptrap, saying that they didn’t do it, they did nothing wrong, they knew nothing about it.

“I’m absolutely delighted. Hopefully this is the beginning of us receiving closure of all that went on.”

Like others, Barnes, whose family moved to Manchester when he was aged 10, said he was lured into the seminary by a visiting missionary at his primary school, promising a “wonderful life, seeing Africa, all the lions, giraffes and chimpanzees”.

“I fell for it, same as all the other guys,” he said. “Now I realise what a mess they made of our lives.”

Marriage break-ups, alcoholism, guilt, shame and anger is a common theme among the survivors. For years, each of them did not realise the others had suffered as they did.

“It was exactly the same for me,” said Barnes.

“It was only years afterwards I could bring myself to talk about it, even though it was in my head all the time. You feel guilty for it happening.

“I was 12 years old and I used to watch one of the priests on the altar raising the host, saying Mass, and I used to think how can he possibly do that, when he was touching me last night. The tears would be running down my face.”

As he did with Pope Francis during a 1½-hour meeting in his Apostolic Palace, Barnes wants to look the head of the Combonis in the eye and detail the impact of the abuse on him and what, he says, was decades of a cover-up.

“They have always said we have been after them for money, which we haven’t. What we want is to be believed, to be understood,” he said.

“The only way for any closure is a face-to-face meeting. We want them to admit it happened, which they have always denied. We want them to believe us, which they have never done. All we ever wanted was some kind of admission from them and for them to say sorry.”

Barnes’s first marriage broke down. His abuse was to blame for his struggling to maintain relationships, he says.

During his five years at the college he was able to tell one of his abusers after some time to “pack it in, this has to stop”, but suffered further — three times a week — at the hands of another, who ran the college infirmary. Several of the victims said they were sexually abused in the infirmary.

The Comboni order, previously known as the Verona Fathers, paid compensation to 11 of the abuse survivors in 2014 without formally acknowledging it happened. It amounted to as little as £8,000 (€9,370) each.

An investigation by West Yorkshire Police into historical sex abuse at the seminary was hampered as two suspects — Fr John Pinkman and Fr Domenico Valmaggia — were dead, and a third, who is still alive in Italy, could not be extradited because of ill health.

Barnes returned to Dublin in the mid-1990s and remarried. It was only with the help of his “sweetheart, darling wife” Pauline that he felt able to confront a past that was “gnawing away” at him.

“They know what they are hiding,” he said. “They know what they are covering up. Hopefully now, it will come to pass — they will admit that this happened.”