Post by Wasp on Dec 7, 2010 20:18:56 GMT
The Irish Times - Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Missing chapter of child abuse must be published
The latest priest child rapist from the Dublin archdiocese was named yesterday, thanks to the persistence of his victims, writes MARY RAFTERY
THE BAD, the ugly and, somewhat surprisingly, the good – or at least what passed for good in the morally bankrupt culture of the Archdiocese of Dublin at the time – are all to be found in the tale of Tony Walsh, one of the most notorious of the city’s paedophile priests, convicted yesterday for his repeated rape of one small boy and his sexual assaults on two others during the 1970s and 1980s. He is the subject of the missing chapter 19 of the Murphy report, redacted so as to not prejudice the trial which concluded yesterday.
To glean some insight into the enormous damage done by this priest, it is worth remembering again what the victim called “David” had to say on the RTÉ Prime Time programme Cardinal Secrets in 2002:
“When I have a dream, I am basically being raped again and again and again and I could not under any circumstances overstress the word ‘raped’. I am being raped in my sleep. It mightn’t happen every night of the week but it happens at least two or three times a week and I just don’t sleep because I just, the minute I close my eyes and get back into the sleep I’m getting raped again so I stay awake and I . . . What they do, they give me drugs to put me to sleep, or I take a bottle of whiskey if I don’t want to go near the doctor.”
David is from Ballyfermot and was raped by Walsh for over four years, starting when he was only seven. Walsh had the run of the local national schools, and that was where he first singled out David and many other young victims. With great pain and anguish to himself, David has spent years seeking justice for the enormous wrongs done to him. He has awaited the conclusion of yesterday’s case for over eight years – an unconscionable delay by any standards.
In what could be argued to be a gross abuse of process, the legal system permitted delay after delay in the various – entirely legitimate – ruses employed by Walsh to seek to quash the charges and postpone the trial.
David turned up to each of these hearings, hoping against hope for some sort of closure. Walsh persisted in his not-guilty plea, piling on the drip, drip effect of the torture of David’s spirit. Walsh has spent the past eight years out of jail by virtue of being allowed by a system to torment an immensely brave man who refused to give up.
The appalling reality throughout the years David was being raped as a little boy by Walsh was a veritable slew of senior and prominent clergy knew he was a paedophile. Any one of them could have saved David and all of Walsh’s subsequent child victims.
Ken Reilly was an altar boy at Walsh’s ordination Mass in 1978. They lived close to each other in Coolock on Dublin’s northside. Walsh started abusing Ken shortly after his appointment as curate in Ballyfermot. A few months later, Ken told his mother, Ena. She immediately informed her own parish priest in Coolock and also reported Walsh to Canon Val Rogers, the Ballyfermot parish priest.
Rogers then asked fellow Ballyfermot priest Fr Michael Cleary, the famous singer, entertainer and Late Late Show pundit, for help. Cleary turned up in the Reilly household at one stage and told Ken and his mother that Walsh had admitted the abuse, and that he (Walsh) was sorry. He then somewhat bizarrely took young Ken aside and proceeded to inform him of the facts of life.
But as the months passed, Ena Reilly could see that nothing was happening. Ken was becoming deeply disturbed, banging his head off walls until he bled. Walsh was going from strength to strength, appearing on television as a singing priest. One of his favourite acts was as an Elvis impersonator. There is something vilely obscene about the surviving footage of him grinding his hips, complete with his grinning, all-priest backing band.
What was even more disturbing, however, was Walsh was now in charge of the largest troupe of altar boys in the country, over 60, in what was at the time Dublin’s biggest parish. And chillingly, he was allowed preside over one of Ballyfermot’s most popular ecclesiastic events – the weekly children’s Mass.
Ena Reilly decided to take matters further. She approached one of the Dublin auxiliary bishops, James Kavanagh. He fobbed her off by telling her that these things happen, and she remembers he asked her to kiss his ring.
She then went to the chancellor of the archdiocese, Msgr Alex Stenson. She was told the then archbishop Dermot Ryan had been informed. But nothing changed. Meanwhile, Walsh continued his abuse. In 1986, the priest was eventually moved out of Ballyfermot. But it was only to another parish, Westland Row, where he gained access to a new population of young victims. He was convicted in 1997 for the abuse of two boys in this parish.
All through this time, Ena Reilly heroically continued her struggle to get someone in the Catholic Church to take her information seriously about the danger he posed to children. While he was eventually removed from parish work in 1988, it was to be four years and several complaints from further victims later before serious action was taken.
And here we come to the good bit, or at least what passed for it in the Archbishop’s Palace world of secrets and mental reservations – lies to you and me. The then incumbent, Desmond Connell, convened an internal tribunal which concluded Walsh be defrocked. Walsh did not deny sexually abusing the children. His defence was he was sick rather than guilty, and he appealed the decision of the tribunal to the Vatican. There it languished for a number of years, with Rome apparently considering that some years in a monastery might be more appropriate than a full removal from the clerical state.
It appears Connell argued strongly with the Vatican that Walsh be laicised. He deserves credit for this. The tragedy is for the four years he fought – Walsh was eventually laicised in 1996 – Connell kept the internal Dublin tribunal findings secret from the Garda, the health board and his own priests.
It is important to note that neither did any of the other bishops involved share their detailed knowledge of Walsh’s crimes with the civil authorities. These included two members of the tribunal which decided to defrock him – Bishop Willie Walsh, now retired, of Killaloe; and Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore – together with other Dublin auxiliary bishops.
To the eternal shame of each and every one of these bishops, this allowed Tony Walsh turn up in 1994 at the funeral of an elderly man in Palmerstown, posing as a priest. At the meal after the Mass, he attacked the 11-year-old grandson of the deceased in the toilets, sexually assaulting him.
The boy immediately told his parents and Walsh was arrested, pleaded not guilty, was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison. This was followed two years later by further convictions in respect of six victims, for which he received a six-year sentence and was released in 2001.
With all current charges against Walsh finally dealt with yesterday, the way is now clear for the publication of the missing chapter 19 of the Murphy report. This will provide a wealth of detail on the cover-up of abuse during the final decades of the 20th century, in Dublin and at the highest levels of the Vatican. Its publication, which requires formal court sanction, is a matter to which the Minister for Justice should apply himself with urgency.
It is the very least this society owes to David, to Ken and Ena Reilly, and to all of Walsh’s victims who have fought such a long, costly and painful battle for justice.
Mary Raftery, with reporter Mick Peelo, produced and directed RTÉ’s Prime Time programme Cardinal Secrets , which resulted in the establishment of the Murphy commission
Malleus Malleficarum
You couldn't make it up! Mind you, if you did make it up you would quickly discover that the copyright is owned by the Catholic Church. The plot lines are well known to everyone who has followed the machinations of the Men in Black.
The wilful ignorance, the refusal to accept any responsibility, the intentional blurring of lines between church law and criminal law, not to mention the delay and stalling - it all bears the hallmarks of a classic Catholic production.
One assumes that Fr Walsh (as was) had a confessor who felt himself bound by "confessional secrecy". Even allowing for this, there was no shortage of clerical placemen who chose to do nothing about a blatant crime and indeed an on-going crime spree. Shame on them all.
As an aside, I might mention that there is a rather nasty social exploitation aspect to this story, where the poor people of Dublin end up getting their very own rapist-priest. Doubtless, the calculation was made that preying on a poor altarboy in North Dublin would never be believed or even if he was, no action would be taken. What a shrewd and cynical calculation it turned out to be!
Myles Duffy
This long drawn out case is comparable in ugliness to that of Brendan Smyth whose vile, criminal behaviour the current Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, concealed from the civil authorites for 19 years. It also took a television documentary to bring this case into public view - not the candour and decency of the Church or the forthrighness of the current Primate.
The best the Church can offer in 2010 is that Ireland's Catholics tolerate the leadership, direction, example and inspiration of a 'wounded healer' - a scenario situation that has prevailed since last March.
The Catholic Church in Ireland has demonstrated that its is an institution with an elastic system of values when it comes to the survival and protection of its leadership. Would it not be more appropriate that boundaries of 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'evil' were more clearly defined by the example of those who propogate them rather than cast in 'mental reservations'? Their failure to do so is overpowering and leaves Catholics travelling spiritually on hard-packed ice through a dense fog.
Elpenor Dignam
These are dark days in the history of our nation. With each lie exposed, whatever vestige of trust remains in the institutions of church and state is eviscerated and, like an abandoned child, we face this bitter reality alone.
Eamonn
The litany continues ..for a time at least we thought we were getting it right on the financial front ..but the kind of double speak of the church in ireland is in fianna fail and has brought us to our knees on all fronts ..but these failings with repeat offenders are unforgiveable and beyond belief.
Tony walsh sounds like the real deal paedophile ..but did the celibacy of the church bring something out in people that may have otherwise been left undisturbed ?
what is the % of people at risk of committing these crimies ..do a lot of people hold back these tendencies ?
I still don't think society understands how to deal with paedophilia ..we now have a paranoia where everyone is under suspicion and people are afraid to have any contact with children ..i think there are certain crimes which should clamp down on your civil liberites permanently so the protection of general populace is ahead of that
individuals rights.
I hope we learn from this abject failure but i fear not.
Chris
What kind of a country are we? What kind of a country would allow something like this to go on for so long? What kind of a judical system can be so inept and so powerless as to allow this person to roam the streets for so long and then when he is finally before the courts, allow the laws to stymie justice and evade it for the length of time that he did, and by so doing continuously torture his victim. The video footage of Walsh grinding his hips should have been enough to alert everyone...this is obscene...and the obscenity is all the greater because the backing group all also priests. As for the bishops...how can they live with themselves? How can they live life with any semblance of peace knowing they allowed this person access vulnerable children in vulnerable working class areas...a veritable feeding ground for paedofiles. What a wonderful woman Ena was...never to give up. Her courage and the courage of her wonderfully brave son are the only shining light in all of this. I hope now that they all find some peace of mind knowing that this shameless and cruel person has finally been forced to face his crimes.
Alan O'Brien
The article hints at the way in which Walsh, and others like him, were facilitated by the legal system in delay after delay, enabling them to continue their predations year after year. Some enterprising and courageous journalist will one day explore the links that exist between the Archbishops palace and the upper reaches of our civil service, legal and medical worlds, via such organisations as the Knights of Columbanus. Ted Sheehy
Well said, Mary.
Before he was appointed auxiliary bishop James Kavanagh was Professor of Social Science at UCD from 1966 to 1973, responsible for the theoretical and practical education of many professional social workers. Any claims that the Dublin Diocese was unaware of the nature of the problem of rapist priests, or the effects of their abuse and violence on their victims, can not be believed.
qwerty51
This is quite stomach churning; it is clear that very real evil stalked the corridors of Ireland's religious institutions aided and abetted by the highest in the Church. And then these wretched people have the gall to offer the faithful the bones and relics of ' saints' which are hawked around the country in a macabre spectacle. And where are our politicians in all this ? Cowering in dark corners lest they actually be asked to account for the manner in which they abdicated their responsibilities for this nations' children.
Jim
I shudder to think of the state of ignorance aboiut clerical abuse this country would be in still were it not for the persistence and courage of journalists like Mary Raftery.
What strikes me about this case is the attitude of the bishops. This suggests that priestly formation in Ireland has been seriously deficient for many decades. The only solution is to bring in foreign clerics who have been trained to know the difference between right and wrong and let them run our dioceses.
Missing chapter of child abuse must be published
The latest priest child rapist from the Dublin archdiocese was named yesterday, thanks to the persistence of his victims, writes MARY RAFTERY
THE BAD, the ugly and, somewhat surprisingly, the good – or at least what passed for good in the morally bankrupt culture of the Archdiocese of Dublin at the time – are all to be found in the tale of Tony Walsh, one of the most notorious of the city’s paedophile priests, convicted yesterday for his repeated rape of one small boy and his sexual assaults on two others during the 1970s and 1980s. He is the subject of the missing chapter 19 of the Murphy report, redacted so as to not prejudice the trial which concluded yesterday.
To glean some insight into the enormous damage done by this priest, it is worth remembering again what the victim called “David” had to say on the RTÉ Prime Time programme Cardinal Secrets in 2002:
“When I have a dream, I am basically being raped again and again and again and I could not under any circumstances overstress the word ‘raped’. I am being raped in my sleep. It mightn’t happen every night of the week but it happens at least two or three times a week and I just don’t sleep because I just, the minute I close my eyes and get back into the sleep I’m getting raped again so I stay awake and I . . . What they do, they give me drugs to put me to sleep, or I take a bottle of whiskey if I don’t want to go near the doctor.”
David is from Ballyfermot and was raped by Walsh for over four years, starting when he was only seven. Walsh had the run of the local national schools, and that was where he first singled out David and many other young victims. With great pain and anguish to himself, David has spent years seeking justice for the enormous wrongs done to him. He has awaited the conclusion of yesterday’s case for over eight years – an unconscionable delay by any standards.
In what could be argued to be a gross abuse of process, the legal system permitted delay after delay in the various – entirely legitimate – ruses employed by Walsh to seek to quash the charges and postpone the trial.
David turned up to each of these hearings, hoping against hope for some sort of closure. Walsh persisted in his not-guilty plea, piling on the drip, drip effect of the torture of David’s spirit. Walsh has spent the past eight years out of jail by virtue of being allowed by a system to torment an immensely brave man who refused to give up.
The appalling reality throughout the years David was being raped as a little boy by Walsh was a veritable slew of senior and prominent clergy knew he was a paedophile. Any one of them could have saved David and all of Walsh’s subsequent child victims.
Ken Reilly was an altar boy at Walsh’s ordination Mass in 1978. They lived close to each other in Coolock on Dublin’s northside. Walsh started abusing Ken shortly after his appointment as curate in Ballyfermot. A few months later, Ken told his mother, Ena. She immediately informed her own parish priest in Coolock and also reported Walsh to Canon Val Rogers, the Ballyfermot parish priest.
Rogers then asked fellow Ballyfermot priest Fr Michael Cleary, the famous singer, entertainer and Late Late Show pundit, for help. Cleary turned up in the Reilly household at one stage and told Ken and his mother that Walsh had admitted the abuse, and that he (Walsh) was sorry. He then somewhat bizarrely took young Ken aside and proceeded to inform him of the facts of life.
But as the months passed, Ena Reilly could see that nothing was happening. Ken was becoming deeply disturbed, banging his head off walls until he bled. Walsh was going from strength to strength, appearing on television as a singing priest. One of his favourite acts was as an Elvis impersonator. There is something vilely obscene about the surviving footage of him grinding his hips, complete with his grinning, all-priest backing band.
What was even more disturbing, however, was Walsh was now in charge of the largest troupe of altar boys in the country, over 60, in what was at the time Dublin’s biggest parish. And chillingly, he was allowed preside over one of Ballyfermot’s most popular ecclesiastic events – the weekly children’s Mass.
Ena Reilly decided to take matters further. She approached one of the Dublin auxiliary bishops, James Kavanagh. He fobbed her off by telling her that these things happen, and she remembers he asked her to kiss his ring.
She then went to the chancellor of the archdiocese, Msgr Alex Stenson. She was told the then archbishop Dermot Ryan had been informed. But nothing changed. Meanwhile, Walsh continued his abuse. In 1986, the priest was eventually moved out of Ballyfermot. But it was only to another parish, Westland Row, where he gained access to a new population of young victims. He was convicted in 1997 for the abuse of two boys in this parish.
All through this time, Ena Reilly heroically continued her struggle to get someone in the Catholic Church to take her information seriously about the danger he posed to children. While he was eventually removed from parish work in 1988, it was to be four years and several complaints from further victims later before serious action was taken.
And here we come to the good bit, or at least what passed for it in the Archbishop’s Palace world of secrets and mental reservations – lies to you and me. The then incumbent, Desmond Connell, convened an internal tribunal which concluded Walsh be defrocked. Walsh did not deny sexually abusing the children. His defence was he was sick rather than guilty, and he appealed the decision of the tribunal to the Vatican. There it languished for a number of years, with Rome apparently considering that some years in a monastery might be more appropriate than a full removal from the clerical state.
It appears Connell argued strongly with the Vatican that Walsh be laicised. He deserves credit for this. The tragedy is for the four years he fought – Walsh was eventually laicised in 1996 – Connell kept the internal Dublin tribunal findings secret from the Garda, the health board and his own priests.
It is important to note that neither did any of the other bishops involved share their detailed knowledge of Walsh’s crimes with the civil authorities. These included two members of the tribunal which decided to defrock him – Bishop Willie Walsh, now retired, of Killaloe; and Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore – together with other Dublin auxiliary bishops.
To the eternal shame of each and every one of these bishops, this allowed Tony Walsh turn up in 1994 at the funeral of an elderly man in Palmerstown, posing as a priest. At the meal after the Mass, he attacked the 11-year-old grandson of the deceased in the toilets, sexually assaulting him.
The boy immediately told his parents and Walsh was arrested, pleaded not guilty, was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison. This was followed two years later by further convictions in respect of six victims, for which he received a six-year sentence and was released in 2001.
With all current charges against Walsh finally dealt with yesterday, the way is now clear for the publication of the missing chapter 19 of the Murphy report. This will provide a wealth of detail on the cover-up of abuse during the final decades of the 20th century, in Dublin and at the highest levels of the Vatican. Its publication, which requires formal court sanction, is a matter to which the Minister for Justice should apply himself with urgency.
It is the very least this society owes to David, to Ken and Ena Reilly, and to all of Walsh’s victims who have fought such a long, costly and painful battle for justice.
Mary Raftery, with reporter Mick Peelo, produced and directed RTÉ’s Prime Time programme Cardinal Secrets , which resulted in the establishment of the Murphy commission
Malleus Malleficarum
You couldn't make it up! Mind you, if you did make it up you would quickly discover that the copyright is owned by the Catholic Church. The plot lines are well known to everyone who has followed the machinations of the Men in Black.
The wilful ignorance, the refusal to accept any responsibility, the intentional blurring of lines between church law and criminal law, not to mention the delay and stalling - it all bears the hallmarks of a classic Catholic production.
One assumes that Fr Walsh (as was) had a confessor who felt himself bound by "confessional secrecy". Even allowing for this, there was no shortage of clerical placemen who chose to do nothing about a blatant crime and indeed an on-going crime spree. Shame on them all.
As an aside, I might mention that there is a rather nasty social exploitation aspect to this story, where the poor people of Dublin end up getting their very own rapist-priest. Doubtless, the calculation was made that preying on a poor altarboy in North Dublin would never be believed or even if he was, no action would be taken. What a shrewd and cynical calculation it turned out to be!
Myles Duffy
This long drawn out case is comparable in ugliness to that of Brendan Smyth whose vile, criminal behaviour the current Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, concealed from the civil authorites for 19 years. It also took a television documentary to bring this case into public view - not the candour and decency of the Church or the forthrighness of the current Primate.
The best the Church can offer in 2010 is that Ireland's Catholics tolerate the leadership, direction, example and inspiration of a 'wounded healer' - a scenario situation that has prevailed since last March.
The Catholic Church in Ireland has demonstrated that its is an institution with an elastic system of values when it comes to the survival and protection of its leadership. Would it not be more appropriate that boundaries of 'right' and 'wrong', 'good' and 'evil' were more clearly defined by the example of those who propogate them rather than cast in 'mental reservations'? Their failure to do so is overpowering and leaves Catholics travelling spiritually on hard-packed ice through a dense fog.
Elpenor Dignam
These are dark days in the history of our nation. With each lie exposed, whatever vestige of trust remains in the institutions of church and state is eviscerated and, like an abandoned child, we face this bitter reality alone.
Eamonn
The litany continues ..for a time at least we thought we were getting it right on the financial front ..but the kind of double speak of the church in ireland is in fianna fail and has brought us to our knees on all fronts ..but these failings with repeat offenders are unforgiveable and beyond belief.
Tony walsh sounds like the real deal paedophile ..but did the celibacy of the church bring something out in people that may have otherwise been left undisturbed ?
what is the % of people at risk of committing these crimies ..do a lot of people hold back these tendencies ?
I still don't think society understands how to deal with paedophilia ..we now have a paranoia where everyone is under suspicion and people are afraid to have any contact with children ..i think there are certain crimes which should clamp down on your civil liberites permanently so the protection of general populace is ahead of that
individuals rights.
I hope we learn from this abject failure but i fear not.
Chris
What kind of a country are we? What kind of a country would allow something like this to go on for so long? What kind of a judical system can be so inept and so powerless as to allow this person to roam the streets for so long and then when he is finally before the courts, allow the laws to stymie justice and evade it for the length of time that he did, and by so doing continuously torture his victim. The video footage of Walsh grinding his hips should have been enough to alert everyone...this is obscene...and the obscenity is all the greater because the backing group all also priests. As for the bishops...how can they live with themselves? How can they live life with any semblance of peace knowing they allowed this person access vulnerable children in vulnerable working class areas...a veritable feeding ground for paedofiles. What a wonderful woman Ena was...never to give up. Her courage and the courage of her wonderfully brave son are the only shining light in all of this. I hope now that they all find some peace of mind knowing that this shameless and cruel person has finally been forced to face his crimes.
Alan O'Brien
The article hints at the way in which Walsh, and others like him, were facilitated by the legal system in delay after delay, enabling them to continue their predations year after year. Some enterprising and courageous journalist will one day explore the links that exist between the Archbishops palace and the upper reaches of our civil service, legal and medical worlds, via such organisations as the Knights of Columbanus. Ted Sheehy
Well said, Mary.
Before he was appointed auxiliary bishop James Kavanagh was Professor of Social Science at UCD from 1966 to 1973, responsible for the theoretical and practical education of many professional social workers. Any claims that the Dublin Diocese was unaware of the nature of the problem of rapist priests, or the effects of their abuse and violence on their victims, can not be believed.
qwerty51
This is quite stomach churning; it is clear that very real evil stalked the corridors of Ireland's religious institutions aided and abetted by the highest in the Church. And then these wretched people have the gall to offer the faithful the bones and relics of ' saints' which are hawked around the country in a macabre spectacle. And where are our politicians in all this ? Cowering in dark corners lest they actually be asked to account for the manner in which they abdicated their responsibilities for this nations' children.
Jim
I shudder to think of the state of ignorance aboiut clerical abuse this country would be in still were it not for the persistence and courage of journalists like Mary Raftery.
What strikes me about this case is the attitude of the bishops. This suggests that priestly formation in Ireland has been seriously deficient for many decades. The only solution is to bring in foreign clerics who have been trained to know the difference between right and wrong and let them run our dioceses.