Mr Colm O'Gorman, who earlier this month received €300,000 and an apology from the Diocese of Ferns following his abuse by Father Seán Fortune, has appealed for compassion for the dead priest's family.
Speaking yesterday, he said he was sure the impact of events this past eight years had not been easy for the Fortune family. He remembered thinking: 'Good God, what must this be like for them?' when he saw photographs of the priest which accompanied media reports of his settlement.
He said where he was concerned the concept of justice involved reconciliation for all involved, "and that includes the family (of the abuser)".
It would even have included reconciliation with the abuser too were that possible. He would have liked to be able to approach Father Fortune at this time and ask: "What was all that about?"
Justice was not just about what had happened to him, but also what had happened to the offender that he could have done such things.
"We have to recognise that this is a problem of our society, of our making. Simply demonising an individual doesn't resolve anything. It is not real. It is never as simple as 'one person'," he said.
He was aware Father Fortune, who committed suicide in 1999 just days before he was due in court on child-abuse charges, had had a difficult childhood.
"As a child he was failed by an awful lot of people, and as an adult he was failed by the Church. If they had stood up to him he would not have become the psychopathic personality he did. And when he killed himself he became another victim, . . . for that to be his only way out."
It was not as simple as him being "a demon pervert".
Meanwhile, the apostolic administrator to Ferns diocese, Bishop Eamonn Walsh, has apologised in recent weeks to parishioners at Masses in the parishes of Ballinaggin, Caim, and Kiltealy in Co Wexford for the sexual abuse of local girls carried out by the late Canon Martin Clancy. The abuse is believed to have occurred in the late 1980s.
Canon Clancy, who died in 1993, never faced charges in connection with the offences.
