STATEMENT:AN APOLOGY by the Spiritan Congregation for the "appalling legacy" of decades of child abuse by 47 priests is "hollow" unless the order properly cares for the known victims and seeks out the unknown, an abuse survivor said.
Mark Vincent Healy said he was in contact with about 30 victims but there must be many more. A total of 47 priests had abused children but the Spiritans hadn’t asked who they were, he said. “Have they even looked for them? Go find the lost sheep.”
Mr Healy was abused between 1968-73 by the late Fr Henry Maloney at St Mary’s College, Rathmines. Maloney was convicted in 2009 of abusing Mr Healy and Paul Daly, who died last May. The priest had previously been convicted of child abuse in 2000. After St Mary’s, he was transferred to Sierra Leone.
Mr Healy noted a Catholic Church watchdog’s review of the Spiritans’ handling of 142 abuse allegations had identified leadership failures that caused many children “a lifetime of distress” and was “not glowing” about the congregation’s current child protection measures. A matter as serious as child protection “cannot be fudged” and the current measures showed a “surprising laxity”, he believed.
“The apology means nothing until I see action. It’s hollow, pie in the sky.” There must be a properly resourced “rescue service” for victims within a defined timescale.
The Spiritans apologised deeply and unreservedly for the “inexcusable” abuse of children by congregation members in schools. They fully accepted the review’s findings and said they would implement its recommendations in full.
The review, conducted by the church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children at the request of the congregation, covered the period 1975 to date. Outgoing provincial Fr Brian Starken said what had happened was “inexcusable. As a religious congregation we are filled with shame but our shame cannot compare with the immense suffering and hurt experienced by victims and their loved ones.”
