A priest who says he was abused wants his bishop to acknowledge theinjustice involved, writes Patsy McGarry
He has been a priest for 19 years, and served in various parishes in his diocese until 1998. Then, sparked in part by an acrimonious parish row, he had his first breakdown.
He was hospitalised for a period, and treated for anxiety and depression. The abuse he had repressed all his adult life came to the surface, demanding attention. He began to visit a psychiatrist and to take counselling. He continues to do both. He had one further breakdown since 1998, and has just experienced a difficult winter.
In late 1998, when deemed recovered, his bishop appointed him to another parish, but he refused to go there. A priest resident in the new parish had served a sentence for a particularly brutal case of child sex abuse. The bishop, who was by then aware of the priest's own history of abuse, insisted he take up the appointment. Neither would budge. Neither has since 1998. Since then the priest has also been without an income from his diocese. He has survived on social welfare and with the support of his family.
He made a statement to gardaí about his abuse, and detailed how a Christian Brother at a well-known school consistently molested him and other boys throughout his Inter Cert year. The abuse usually took place at the top of the class when he was being caned on the backside. It happened "many times each week", he said in the statement. He failed his Inter Cert.
It didn't enter his head to report what was going on to the headmaster or his parents. They, he felt, "would be disinclined to believe me. It was a no-win situation."
It was 1960s Ireland. He became "shy, regressed, and unsure of my orientation". He persuaded his parents to send him to another school. They did. He got a good Leaving Cert and matriculation, and had enough marks to enter university. But he wanted to be a priest.
It was a rule in that diocese at the time that any man from there hoping to be a priest in the diocese had to spend at least one year at the local diocesan college. At 19 he enrolled there. It was "an experience never to be forgotten. The cold, the hunger, and the brutality of some priests was disgusting....," he told gardaí.
He left after three months. It followed a sadistic incident involving a young priest, then probably in his mid-20s.
It happened in a dormitory at the college at about 10 p.m. one night. As "the boys of 18 years to 19 years of age" were undressing for bed, the young priest began to beat them "about the buttocks and thighs" with "a strap that was part of a belly-band for a horse". The priest was sexually aroused and made some of the boys lie "over their beds faced down".
The junior seminarian was hit in the groin. He wanted to vomit. "I was crippled for weeks with the pain," he told gardaí. He was attended twice by the college doctor. After Christmas, he refused to return to the college.
The young priest who had beaten him and the other boys in the dormitory twice called to his house to persuade him to return "but I refused resolutely".
He put his vocation on hold for 17 years, during which time he did various jobs and studied for a degree in philosophy. He was accepted for the priesthood by a previous bishop in the diocese and his ordination followed four years in Maynooth. He returned to serve in his own diocese.
The priest who beat him at the diocesan college now works in the diocesan offices. He complained about him to gardaí. Two other men from that time at the college corroborated the complaints. But the DPP decided not to press charges. The case has been reopened by the Garda.
The priest claims he has had no satisfaction whatsoever from his bishop, even despite a discussion with the priest's psychiatrist.
The bishop was described as "defensive" at that meeting, and insisted he would begin paying the priest a salary again "when he does what I tell him".
All the priest wants from the bishop is "acknowledgement of what has happened to me and the injustice involved since". He is not looking for compensation. But he has got nowhere.