VATICAN SAFEGUARDING – FOLLOWING THE MONEY

I recently wrote about Father Small visiting the beautiful palace he and his Safeguarding staff – the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors –  are taking over – and to which Survivors of Catholic sexual abuse will also have access to in some as yet unclear way. Vatican Safeguarding, it seems, is currently going through a difficult period with the resignation of two Survivors who were on its staff and now the resignation of its leading member Hans Zollner.

Zollner’s comments at a press conference included:

“One thing is certain, several members have left the Pontifical Commission before me and there has been no shortage of criticisms recently expressed publicly by past members, some quite strong”. 

“If there is a lack of transparency, complaints and accountability, the doors are open to cover-ups”

Certainly no progress has been made on the De La Salle child sexual abuse scandal which I understood Father Small was hoping to resolve, following the example of the Comboni Brothers. He was going to write to me and I intimated that I welcomed his letter.

Perhaps he’s too busy. Because it transpires that Father Small is not only the head of the Pontifical Commission, but also the Founder and CEO of Missio Invest ‘blending faith and finance’ : an ambitious developmental aid project in the Global South. ‘In Africa alone,’ Missio says, ‘ there are over 74,000 religious sisters, 46,421 priests, and 8,779  brothers.’ This link takes you to their site https://missioinvest.org/en/about-us/#our-team-anchor and tells you about the impressive work they are doing in Africa and elsewhere. This includes  agriculture, hospitals, old people’s homes and… schools.

Hence my interest.

Because my Catholic education was conditional on my becoming a seminarian. When, aware of the terrifying sexual abuse in seminaries, I declined, I was thrown out of my school at the tender age of 15. Altogether, my brother and I had 9 years of ‘free’ expensive education at St Joseph’s College, Ipswich. But, of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. There were other criminal strings attached, specifically being abused by the Catholic Knights of St Columba whose paedophile Knights included Canon Burrows of St Pancras Church, Ipswich.

This conditional Catholic education was commonplace in the past. Parents, like my Irish mother, even dedicated their children to the Church, with all it implied in that past era. A national journalist has expressed an interest in looking into this disturbing subject.

And there’s the example of John McDonnell MP who wrote to me:

‘I was at St Joseph’s in Ipswich from 12 to 16, funded by the church to then go on to a minor seminary to train to become a priest.’

A fairly recent article about St J’s had a spokesperson denying there was any such thing as St J’s ‘facilitating’ vocations as John described. Despite there being a De La Salle vocations teacher on the circuit of the DLS schools and despite my own clear recollections of being taught Latin one-to-one by Brother Kevin.

I would hate to think that Father Small’s educational work  in the Global South includes a similar covert, easily deniable, conditional requirement as I’ve described. So that children there are still at risk – through desperate poverty – of being pressurized into seminaries, religious orders or at the mercy of clerical abusers or Catholic laity abusers, just as I was. Given that the Church has never acknowledged and expressed regret for its past ‘strings attached’ policy, not to mention the sexual abuse that so often went with it, of course it’s still going on and, of course, children are still in danger, even though it’s now obscured with a modern PR gloss, an obfuscation that is the familiar hallmark of the Church. Plus ça change

But where does the Church’s money come from for its ‘free’ education for suitably spiritual, obedient or poor and desperate children its clerical predators can take advantage of?

In my case, was it from some investment fund the Knights ran for the Church? Or from a diocese fund?  My old school, St Joseph’s, when it began, was mysteriously funded by the Knights and its current finances are still equally mysterious so  that a lawyer and a reporter who looked into them both found the current financial set-up ‘very strange.’

John McDonnell, like myself and others, says his education was ‘funded by the Church’ – but no knows where the money comes from, who it’s funnelled through –except in my case it was the Knights – and how else it’s used.

It’s time we found out.

If  Survivors and ordinary concerned people are ever going to make sense of the the Catholic Church, its current potential for abusing and corrupting new generations of poor children in the Global South – where it’s acknowledged by the Church the safeguarding protocols are not as strong as in affluent countries – then it’s important to follow the money.

So this view, sent to me by an insider, knowledgeable in the workings of the Catholic Church, is important. I had no idea about Missio Invest before I read this.

I’ll comment further after their analysis.

I poked around a bit on the internet after reading your blog post about the palazzo – I was intrigued by Fr. Small talking about fundraising to do up the place, I thought, “Surely the Vatican funds the Commission and accepts that it has to throw resources at problems to resolve the crisis for the Church.”

Small’s background is that he’s a commercial lawyer cum entrepreneur. He’s involved in Missio Invest, a Church fund for start-ups by Church entities in the 3rd/developing worlds which got $20m from the World Bank in recent years. The idea is to put Church assets and the assets of Catholic lay organisations to work.

As you know, the De La Salles set up an investment fund in 2009. CBIS Global (Christian Brothers Investment Services) is an offshore fund that’s managed from Dublin. I don’t know how to find out for sure, but what’s the betting that CBIS and Missio Invest don’t have dealings with each other somewhere? What’s CBIS investing in if not the kind of thing that Missio Invest encourages?

Who would pay to do up a palazzo for the Vatican? Especially when that should come way behind redress for victims, an issue on which the Church clearly doesn’t impose universal rules? My mind is boggled 

It said somewhere in the articles I read that to get a loan from Missio Invest an organisation has to adhere to the guidelines for safeguarding laid down from Rome. So which comes first in Small’s world: safeguarding and justice for victims, or getting the organisations that want loans from Missio Invest to sign up to safeguarding so that he can spread money around and build his reputation as an entrepreneur?

This kind of thing may be what Zollner was hinting at when he said that concerns about financial transparency were involved in his decision to resign from the Commission.

COMMENTARY:

Investors acknowledged by Missio Invest include the Jesuits  and the Sisters of Saint Louis. But it’s quite possible the De La Salles are involved, given that ‘CBIS manages assets of $3 billion (€2 billion) in 10 funds based in the US through which “socially responsible” investments are made on behalf of more than 1,000 Catholic organisations. The Dublin-based fund will mirror the investments made by the firm in the US and will initially target Catholic organisations in Ireland, France, Italy and Spain.’

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/de-la-salle-brothers-launch-investment-fund-in-dublin-1.780525

I’ll return to the subject of the actual value of  Missio’s developmental aid another time. It’s a subject I know a fair amount about having written a two year semi-documentary series Third World War that concluded in 1990. It exposed numerous scandals in the Third World such as the Nestle Baby Food Scandal, the human cost of monoculture exports, and the IMF ferocious policies leading to suicides but also heroic resistance by indigenous people.

Today, it’s far worse. Nestle try to control water supplies and seeds are patented so farmers are at the mercy of transnationals. Given that Missio Invest is linked to the World Bank, I fail to see how it’s following a different and more noble path.  

Common criticisms of the World Bank

• Creating a climate where high levels of lending are deemed to be good.
• Advocating disability adjusted life years as a health measure.
• Disregard for the environment and indigenous populations.
• Evaluating health projects by looking at economic outcome measures.

And, if you imagine Father Small’s Church would have respect for indigenous populations today, then I need to tell you about the Jesuits who threw the Apache Indians off their sacred mountain so they could build a Vatican-controlled and financed observatory on the top. It has the most powerful telescope in the world called Lucifer (Truly!) which searches for alien life. According to Father Chris Corbally, the project’s deputy director, ‘If civilisations were to be found on other planets and if it were feasible to communicate, then we would want to send  missionaries to save them.” The Jesuits wanted to name the observatory ‘Columbus’ which the Apaches objected to for obvious reasons.

Some of the information I discovered is on these links :

http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/471  https://rense.com/ufo/popescope.htm (quoting the London Sunday Times)

The Apaches now need a prayer permit to ascend their sacred mountain. Their claim to it is disputed by the Jesuits because they don’t have written records.

 Father Coyne, director of the Observatory, further declared that Apache beliefs were “a kind of religiosity to which I cannot subscribe and which must be suppressed with all the force we can muster.”

Plus ça change

Will the Knights of St Columba Ipswich now be investigated?

According to the latest Vatican information it now seems possible that the Knights of St Columba Ipswich could be investigated.  Because I believe all Knights are recognised by the Holy See.

Here’s the link:, dated March 25 this year:

https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pope-francis-promulgates-revised?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The relevant text from it is as follows:

Pope Francis promulgates revised ‘Vos estis’ – Here’s what changed

The revised policy makes permanent the norms introduced experimentally by Pope Francis in 2019, while broadening the scope of the law to include investigations of lay leaders in international associations of the faithful. 

One significant change to the text of Vos estis lux mundi is the inclusion of lay leaders of international associations recognized by the Holy See, who might now be investigated either for perpetrating abuse themselves, or for failing to investigate or address allegations of abuse or misconduct made in the context of their communities.

The move was likely influenced by revelations which emerged in recent years concerning the spiritual and sexual abuse of prominent Catholic layman Jean Vanier, founder of the international L’Arche community, who died in 2019. While the new norms would not have actually impacted the allegations against Vanier himself, because L’Arche is not recognized as an association by the Holy See, it would apply to other founders of international apostolates, movements, or spiritual associations accused of abuse. 

The revised text of Vos estis lux mundi clarifies that investigations of lay leaders will be undertaken under the aegis of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, which is given legal competence to oversee them.

The text does not make clear how lay leaders might be punished for sexual abuse if the allegations arise after their terms have expired. While clerics can face the penalty of laicization, it is not clear what meaningful sanction might be imposed on a layperson.

Pat’s comment on the above:

Surely the obvious sanction for criminal abuse or concealing or ignoring criminal abuse is court action and penalties according to the law of the land? Or is this another case where Canon Law takes priority?

Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life ?  Another Safeguarding organization?

It does add to the current lack of clarity about Safeguarding which I barely understand, and I’m sure is very confusing to others.

Perhaps this Dicastery is not relevant, but it sounds tailor-made to fill a current gap in Safeguarding.

http://www.laityfamilylife.va/content/laityfamilylife/en.htm

info@laityfamilylife.val

Is it relevant for the UK? 

Or does Laity abuse fall under the aegis of the CSSA or the RLSS ?  The RLSS because Laity was abusing in collusion with a religious order as I’ve exampled in so many past posts

Currently neither the CSSA or the RLSS (and their predecessor the SCOE) have taken responsibility for looking at these crimes of the Laity which I’ve told them fall within or overlap both their remits

Perhaps the RLSS and the CSSA can explain or pass on my past concerns to the Dicastery.

I would also point out to the Dicastery that the CSSA did not respond to my concerns about Solidarities which may also fall within their Laity remit.

Perhaps the CSSA will pass on my previous post on that subject

For due diligence, the RLSS, the CSSA  and the Dicastery have now been informed via a copy of this post

 And I would repeat for the Dicastery the summary of my numerous past posts – namely:

The Knights of St Columba Ipswich Province were involved in serious ‘historic’ organised child sex abuse crimes. That female Catholic Laity were also involved.  And the De La Salles were in collusion with the Knights. That there are current concerns about the Knights not having DBS checks and that the Colchester Knights ensured that recent serious sexual abuse offences by one of their Knights did not reach the national media. It’s possible Colchester children may still be at risk as there appears to have been no audit after the trial and guilty verdict of the Knight abuser.

All this I’ve gone into in exhaustive detail in past posts.

The Knights are aware of my allegations which can be found on endless Google posts, but they have not officially responded.

Neither have  the RLSS or the CSSA.

MORE CATHOLIC LAITY ESCAPE SCRUTINY

Stephen Ashley, CEO of the CSSA, has admitted to me that the Laity has been overlooked thus far.  Now it looks like more Catholic Laity escape scrutiny.

The Laity – in the form of Knights of St Columba – was/is intimately connected with the De La Salles.  And a Colchester Knight’s current and horrifying abuse of children was provably concealed from the national press. So his fellow Knights really need auditing to ensure he acted alone.

They haven’t been.

The CEO’s response was rather relaxed to this real and present danger to children.  He said:

I agree with you over this issue around abuse by the laity does seem to be largely ignored and certainly has given me some pause for thought. I think that in our future audit and review processes we need to give this more consideration.

How do the Laity get away with it? Well, the Knights organized a cover-up of priest abuse (one insider source), as well as De La Salles abuse (a second insider source). And I’m sure it’s widespread, so I guess the Church owes the Knights for their protection.

I believe that’s why they’re off limits to the CSSA.

But it’s not just the Knights of St Columba and similar organisations who are let loose on children with no audits and no DBS checks.

An insider has just advised me:

‘Those confraternities, sodalities, orders to venerate saints and so on obviously are significant financially plus many of them are international and so offer support systems to people who relocate from one jurisdiction to another, but they haven’t featured in audits of how the Church has handled concerns and allegations about abuse.’

So children are at risk from these organizations, apart from the fact they are also mentally abusing kids. I looked one sodality up and was horrified to see its current ‘humility’ message to girls.  My wife Lisa described it as ‘toxic, sinister and intrusive.’

Another female source noted the Virgin Mary ‘meekness and subservience’ role model promoted by such sodalities was problematic. ‘It creates a lot of repressed anger and aggression that gets taken out on children and other women who don’t fit the mould.’

I know that from first hand as a kid.

It’s this female Catholic obsession with obedience (‘humility’) and purity that led to my being abused by intelligent and sophisticated Catholic women – probably from a similar sodality and/or the Catholic Women’s League –  obsessed with a neurotic hatred of the body and sexuality.

Such women don’t just screw up girls, they needed to work out their perverted, Church-approved neuroses on boys in the form of criminal aversion therapy I’ve described previously.

So it’s alarming to think that similar Catholic women – with an identical dangerous mindset and identical language I remember from my childhood – are still unleashed on today’s children.

Someone needs to monitor these individuals and thus far they seem to have slipped under the radar, just like the Knights of St Columba.

I know from first hand experience the unpaid diocese safeguarders  are a joke, and they don’t care what abusive poison the sodalities inject into children’s minds as their brainwashing has been approved by the Church. So it’s okay. In fact, many diocese safeguarders could well be members.

But I suspect these sodalities – who have the authority to teach children Catholic ‘values’ – have also not had DBS checks and they clearly have not been audited.

In short, the entire Catholic Laity  can currently do what they like to children with no audits, no supervision, and no dbs checks, to prevent current sexual assaults.

Never mind their mental assaults on children’s minds  – which are intimately connected, the one leading to the other –  and which the CSSA will say is none of their business.

I can assure the CEO of CSSA that one day soon this is going to come out and his lack of action – when children are in danger now – within his remit – is noted and will be added to the charges against the Church and Safeguarding.

A FORUM FOR SURVIVORS OF CATHOLIC ABUSE?

I wrote to the RLSS as follows:

It’s a pity there is no forum for Catholic Survivors to air their grievances and get a response.

The Tablet, the Catholic Herald and the two Catholic Safeguarding agencies ensure they are carefully cloistered from the reality of survivors anguish.

Consequently, we use social media and we are making some progress – not least in advising each other when we’ve been duped by the Church.  Sooner or later we’ll find a national media to highlight the shame of the Catholic Church of which your organisation is part.

The RLSS responded:

I would like to hear your ideas on how such a forum might work to see if there is anything I can take forward with this

Thank you for all you are doing to hold the Church to account.

Dani Wardman

I found that positive, so I thought I would share my ideas for a Forum here which Survivors can add to. It’s a discussion document and I’m thinking off the top of my head, but of course it’s possible. What do others think?

1)Naturally legally ongoing or potentially pending cases couldn’t be discussed, but there’s still potential for general debate.

The Catholic Church has cruelly and willfully shut itself off from survivors and that has to stop.

I’d guess if the RLSS set it up, it would need two or three moderators and very open access.  

The moderators can say something like ‘The views expressed by moderators or others on this forum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Catholic Church’

So moderators are protected and can say what they want – good or bad.

The cost is peanuts. If the Catholic Church can’t fund that, then it really is beyond words. I’ve spent thousands of pounds in therapy and I’m sure other Survivors are the same.

Don’t tell me they can’t afford it.

And limiting the Forum to just religious orders subject would be impossible.  There’s too much overlap.  Survivors would find it too frustrating.

2) The biggest concern for Survivors is PR exercises. Avoiding being love-bombed with platitudes or photo opportunities. Thus the Church has a cruel, cynical and BAD track record like smiling and shaking hands with a Survivor, promising results, then effing off and never seen again. That was a con trick in which the Tablet played a dubious role.

We won’t be fooled again.

So a forum needs to demonstrate its credibility in the knowledge that Survivors are now very cynical.

That’s inevitable after past confidence tricks.

3) A discussion subject that should be talked about is one I brought up with Zollner ( Vatican Safeguarding) yesterday:

In Britain, as you may be aware, there is now no coverage of survivors of past Catholic and clerical abuse. The various agencies either don’t cover past abuse, or have reneged on promises in writing, or pass it to police who can do nothing. Comment?

I suspect he’ll ignore me as he usually does.

This can all be talked about openly without legal constraints because it’s general. It’s not specific.

4) It needs interaction to give it appeal – so a moderator might say, ‘We reached out to Nazir Afzal for comment and he said xyz…’

Even if we don’t like what Nazir says, at least he’s communicating in a forum.

Currently Nazir throws a grenade over the parapet – mitigating child sexual abuse in a shocking tweet which will eventually lead to his resignation – and then is heard of no more.

5) I’d personally like to see Catholic Herald, The Tablet, Knights of St Columba, Catenians, & other leading Catholics respond to Survivors. Even the Brit equivalent of Bill Donahue (An aggressive Irish American, head of the Catholic League).

Currently, to me, they are all the enemy. And I’m darn sure leading Catholics see Survivors like me as the enemy,too. In their arrogance they want us to be meek and mild or  broken alcoholics or drug addicts.

They’re not used to people standing up to them which is happening more and more post IICSA which we all know was a waste of time (another valuable forum subject).

6) Catholics may choose to pass on really valuable information which currently I’m having to play detective to discover. E.G. Clarifying the complex role of Safeguarding and ADMITTING the diocese Safeguarding is useless. Or prove me wrong with some of the latest figures.

I’d love to know they were getting results. But I doubt it.

Many Survivors are completely baffled by the confusing dimensions of Safeguarding and if the RLSS are different we’ll start worrying, ‘When are the Catholic Church going to dump the RLSS and  replace it by a new bs organization?’

That’s a genuine fear for many of us.

The RLSS could PROVE its credibility now by telling us all why the SCOE shut down. I know it was sort of in response to IICSA, but I think we’d all appreciate a bit more detail.

Currently it feels a bit odd to me.

We are starved of information which has resulted in many of us becoming detectives and gathering important info for ourselves and other Survivors.

That’s unfair, it’s not our job, and the Church must provide hard information. I know they’ve been secret for 2K years, but they can’t go on like that.

7) There’s a strong theory which blackens every aspect of the Catholic Church seeing it as a sinister organization like the Mafia or a religious cult or far worse. There’s considerable evidence to support this theory. For example, the first fifteen years of my life I experienced organized Catholic male AND female abuse which I can prove to my satisfaction.

Other commentators have similar evidence of organized  Catholic crime.

Thus I believe the principle of ‘double effect’ – embedded in Catholic theology via Aquinas – allowed Catholic abusers to do anything they wanted in the past.

‘The end justifies the means.’

I fear that’s still the case.

That could be aired on a forum and Catholics could respond with counter-arguments and show me if I’m wrong.That’s fine with me.  The Truth can take it.

Or, alternatively, acknowledge the Church’s crimes.

But Catholics usually just retreat into their hidey-holes and NEVER engage in open debate with their critics.

8) I would hope that debate if the Church is genuine ( and that’s a huge IF) will lead to remorse and understanding.

For instance, I talked to a leading Catholic theologian about my childhood, in a very casual way, and I was startled to see the tears streaming down his face.

Unlike Cardinal Nichols who had the most transparently fake expression of remorse on his face after IICSA. I’m a lousy actor, but I could have done better.

Or Pell with his hulking aggressive response to accusations.

Neither of them looked remotely holy.

But if priests are following in the footsteps of Jesus, they should surely welcome this ‘humiliation’ which their founder embraced.

As Survivors we want to see penance/remorse/call it what you like. Not ‘Here’s some money,we don’t admit anything, now can you eff off.’

Zollner (Vatican Safeguarding) is a good current example. He exuded passive aggression. He quoted in a clumsy tweet how some Survivor was pleased that dealing with his abuse would help the wounds of Mother Church.

Survivors, understandably, said that Survivor was in a minority – what about OUR wounds? There was a pile-on on Twitter.

Zollner just kept repeating the same message several times and we wondered if he was actually employing AI which is now feasible.

It’s noteworthy that, despite the pile on, NO Survivor was  abusive and Jeez, have we got reason to be! An irony there, given we are Survivors of abuse.

This is the kind of thing that could be handled so well  in a Forum but it means Zollner would need to leave his obvious contempt for his critics at the door.

9) Those are my opening thoughts. 

I think the Catholic Church won’t allow the RLSS to proceed with a Forum – because it’s a cowardly organization. Cowardly because it’s guilty of past and ongoing current crimes.

And it’s desperately afraid of what might happen.  Because it’s not following the Truth.

It’s also suffering from the arrogance of clericalism – Zollner being a good example – and doesn’t want to lose its status.

I would appeal to them ‘The Truth will set you free’ – even though I know their reaction (from observing priests close up in recent years) will be ‘How dare you tell me what to do? I am a Man of God with a divine mission. And you are nothing.’

That dynamic of clericalism needs reversing. The Church needs to come to us as penitents.

If the Apartheid regime and N.Ireland factions can respond to Truth and Reconciliation, who knows?

In the case of the Catholic Church it would be more like a denazification process after WW2.

A Forum would be an important step in that direction. AFAIK there is no such arena of honest debate at the moment.

That also speaks volumes.

Maybe if the RLSS had a twitter account and responded to Survivors there it would be a positive small first step.

POLICE – OPERATION HYDRANT

The position on Police Operation Hydrant is far from clear, so I thought I would  attempt to clarify it.

I think the key to understanding it is – it’s a mess.  The police are overworked – for which I have great sympathy – and there are regional variations in their responses  and that adds to the confusion.

The Police Hydrant website does not make clear its scope and terms of reference.

I was told that Operation Hydrant dealt with past organised abuse, irrespective of whether the abuser was alive or dead. And I was told by Ipswich Police that any complaints to Hydrant had to go through an organised body.  That isn’t always the case, but that’s the road I duly took.

I went through the CSSA – Catholic Safeguarding – who actively encouraged me to do so (I have their emails confirming this) even though their terms of reference are now revealed as current cases only and they KNEW it was a waste of my time.

So the CSSA sent on my detailed allegations to Hydrant.

The SCOE (predecessor to the RLSS) Religious Life Safeguarding  also sent on my detailed allegations to Hydrant.

I believe the RLSS still talk in terms of using Hydrant today.

Although Hydrant is a national entity, it operates through local police forces. So in my case it was Ipswich.

As a precaution, I also sent my Hydrant allegations direct to Ipswich police force, because I do not trust the CSSA, the SCOE and the RLSS – all of which are so obviously designed as a shield to safeguard the Catholic Church from its crimes.

There may be some Hydrant regional variations where things are better than Ipswich. And I’ve also heard that the whole set-up is  supposedly different today. But I don’t believe it and I  have no evidence for this.

Survivors have pointed out that Savile was investigated after he was dead – but that was in response to a national outcry.

And there was also a police investigation into the Salesians in 2013, where the abusers were dead.

But in 2023 I believe the position is entirely negative.

It’s been over a year since my  allegations were passed onto Hydrant with no response.

I believe this is because the Police will only deal with abuse when the abuser is alive.

And it has to be someone who abused the complainant personally.

Then the police WILL act.

But allegations of  current abuse by organised Catholic groups (a matter of press record) have also been ignored – even though children and vulnerable people are potentially currently at risk. It  is presumably classified as ‘hearsay’ and ignored.

The CSSA  were not interested, even though it is actually current and thus within their remit.

Tracking down the few De La Salle and lay teacher abusers who may be alive is a monumental task. I’d say the teachers from my generation are now dead.

There ARE De La Salle Old Boys in their early 50s who have made allegations of sexual abuse by De La Salle brothers and lay teachers of their generation on this site. So there is a good chance those DLS brothers and teachers will still be alive.

But although they’ve written to me with their allegations or posted it on this site, that’s usually as far as a Survivor will go. He’s gotten it off his chest and is understandably reluctant to go to the police and rake it all up.

I would still strongly encourage them to do so. I personally find a search for justice an excellent catharsis, but we’re all different and I understand their reluctance.

So I don’t see a way forward for the allegations of organised De La Salle and Knights of St Columba through the conventional Operation Hydrant path.

However, I am looking at other paths.

Worse, I think the Catholic Safeguarding agencies knowingly encouraged – and still encourage – survivors to use Hydrant, although the success (or reply) rate is zero. (I asked the CSSA what the Hydrant success rate was and got no reply)

But the more we can expose the Catholic Safeguarding agencies – the CSSA and the RLSS – who are designed to obfuscate, to create smoke and mirrors to exhaust the survivor and make him or her give up – something good can come out of this.

The RLSS and the CSSA I think genuinely believe in themselves and that just makes them worse!  Their personal integrity only adds to the confidence trick being played on survivors by the Catholic Church. The CSSA and RLSS  are pawns in a cynical game knowingly being played by the Leaders of the Catholic  Church.

True integrity involves stepping back and saying ‘What are we actually doing here? What are we actually achieving where the De La Salles are concerned?’   

Here’s the thoughts of Steve Ashley CEO of the CSSA:

This of course leaves those that have been subject of abuse over two years ago have very little redress. I think you are right in saying that agencies, including the police, draw a line and say “we are not investigating anything before X date” and that is seen as the end of it which of course it isn’t for victims/survivors. I don’t know what the answer is. IICSA was obviously put in place with the intention of dealing with this but quite honestly I think they were overwhelmed and in the end they presented their final report and it is difficult to know what it all achieved.

If the CEO of Catholic Safeguarding thinks going to the police is a waste of time – and IICSA was a waste of time – who am I think differently?

Our energy as activists could so easily be exhausted by addressing official bodies and  I feel that is the calculated intent of Safeguarding.

I would hope the RLSS and CSSA will stop misleading survivors now.

Fortunately there are other routes to justice. Namely:  exposing the De La Salle and interconnected Knights Catholic child abusers, by publicly naming and shaming them, not just on this site but in the media.  

And naming and shaming the truly pathetic (see Ashley’s quote above) role of the Catholic Safeguarding agencies

If they have any true integrity, the RLSS should strike the De La Salles off their client list – unless they are happy to have a religious organisation with no moral compass on their books.

ST PANCRAS CHURCH, IPSWICH, REMEMBERED

I have many happy memories of St Pancras Church in Ipswich (Saint Pancras is the patron saint of children). It was my local church until I was ten (1959) when we moved to Chantry Estate and Saint Marks.

I was an altar boy, a proud member of the Guild of St Stephen and was thrilled when my red lanyard was replaced with a black one. And my red cassock replaced with a black cassock. Even if older altar boys called themselves ‘The Rhubarb Club’ (after the Goon Show), I had no such cynicism, nothing could match the excitement of carrying a lit torch or the incense ‘boat’ or swinging the thurifer.

The old Georgian presbytery next to the church was a most enthralling building. In the cellars it had a smuggler’s tunnel leading to the nearby River Orwell. The first tunnel section could still be explored, but then it was blocked off, to my great disappointment. It was such a shame the presbytery was knocked down and replaced with a faux Georgian building.

The priests Canon Burrows and his curate Father Wace were very warm and friendly. Canon Burrows was always round our house in Stoke, dressed in his boiler suit, doing handyman jobs for my mother.  Father Wace presented me with a copy of ‘A Little Hero’ by Mrs Musgrave which had a cover of a boy wearing a school uniform remarkably like a St Joseph’s College blazer. He told me I would go there one day and he was right.

Father Wace was the Akela in charge of the cubs and I was always baffled why I was a cub for just one week. Then I stopped going and no-one would talk about the reason why. It seemed to be because I had told a friend of my mother’s about ‘something that happened at cubs’ and this friend had stern words with Father Wace.

The Catholic laity – the Legion of Mary; the Knights of St Columba and the Catholic Women’s League – were also an important part of my life. My mother was a vulnerable, devout Irish Catholic widow and these organisations did their best to help her. They introduced her to another Catholic widow, Mrs Czech, and her two daughters and we went on a pilgrimage to Walsingham together.

But writing about the laity at St Pancras is still difficult for me and this short article below by Doctor Philippa Martyr for The Catholic Weekly explains the reason why.

The lay role in covering up abuse

Doctor Martyr concludes:

‘This is the ugly underside of our local vibrant Catholic community. Covering-up goes on all the time, for all sorts of things – and yes, lay people enable it. We just haven’t been brave enough to face this about ourselves yet.’

But before coming back to the laity, I have to say there was also another side to both Canon Burrows and Father Wace which was a real shock to me when the memories came flooding back to me in mid-life.

THE PRIESTS

My mother worked as a housekeeper at St Pancras presbytery. Her vulnerability meant her children were prime targets for clerical abusers.  

Canon Burrows – a listed Knight of St Columba – was a sexual abuser. It took a lot of therapy for me to get my recollections of his behaviour out of my system. His particular technique was magic and conjuring tricks. ‘Now you see it, now you don’t.’ At age six, I wanted to be a magician like the Canon and spent all my pocket money on jokes.

Father Wace is not listed as a Knight, but, given his wealthy background, it seems likely he, too, was a member.

He also was a sexual abuser. My mother smiled at my thrilled expression when I saw Wace’s pyjamas casually thrown across his bed. Because his pyjama jacket was weighed down with maybe twenty fantastic metal collectors’ badges – which would make it impossible for him to sleep in. But they were really cool badges that any eight-year-old boy would do anything for.

And did.

MALE CATHOLIC LAITY AT ST PANCRAS

I’ve previously covered the Knights of St Columba on this site. There are statements from myself and other survivors  that prove there was a ring of sexual abusers in the Ipswich Knights.

The Knights were also the Eminence Gris for the Church, which meant they controlled my school fees and they exacted a price in return. The similar Knights of Columbus describe themselves as ‘The strong right arm of the Catholic Church.’

The only thing relevant here is their use of psycho-coercive ‘double bind’ techniques. These are recorded in their theatrical ceremonies which I have previously featured on this site. Such ceremonies stopped – supposedly – in the late 60’s. Too late for me, unfortunately.

 It’s relevant because female laity abusers used similar ‘double binds’.

A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual receives two or more reciprocally conflicting messages. It’s a mind-twister and shows a deep knowledge of psychology and how to manipulate people.

Especially children.

When – or if – the Knights stopped abusing children I have no way of knowing and no one today cares. Catholic Safeguarding ignored a recent newspaper report of a Knight of St. Columba sentenced to a long prison sentence for child abuse. The Knight was provably not given a police check, which would have shown he had a previous conviction for child abuse.

FEMALE CATHOLIC LAITY AT ST PANCRAS

When I looked at all my bills for therapy, I was startled to see that a good 50% of my recent therapy – over the last three years – related to female Catholic laity at St Pancras.

And that it took emotional priority over male clerical abuse. You might conclude it’s because female abuse is a far greater betrayal to a child, but, actually, I think it’s because of the bizarre but very effective nature of the abuse.

I believe the women were members of the Catholic Women’s League: the female equivalent of the Knights of St Columba, and it’s acknowledged they work closely together to this day.

The CWL doesn’t list deceased members, but I’ll happily supply the five names of the female parishioners concerned for the CWL to check against their records. I would, of course, also need sight of those records. I’d say ‘Deceased Ipswich members 1956 through to the millennium.’

If I’m wrong, I will write a retraction.

If I’m correct, their names will be listed here as child abusers, alongside Burrows and Wace.

Some may have also been members of the Legion of Mary at St Pancras. My eight-year-old self didn’t fully understand the difference between the two organisations.

But I have focused on the CWL because the five women concerned were all middle-class high achievers, which seems to be the hallmark of this organisation. Two of them were spinsters. There is also the CWL’s close connection to the Knights who were provably abusers. But principally because one of the key female abusers was a close friend of the famous Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth – Wikipedia.

Barbara Ward went to St Mary’s Convent Grammar school in Ipswich (I went to the adjacent St Mary’s primary school). She then went on to be President of the Catholic Women’s League in the 1940s and introduced my abuser to her husband who was almost certainly a Knight. This was long before my time. And I’ve absolutely no reason to think Ward was an abuser. 

But Ward shows just how intellectual, well-connected and powerful the Catholic Women’s League were when I had the misfortune to come across some of their members, including her close friend.

Exactly like the powerful Catholic laity described in the link above.

Although their abuse was as perverted as any abuse, it had a certain ‘logic’, which perhaps helped them with their justification for their obscene gratification.

I won’t go into graphic details here, but it was a physical form of aversion therapy (not like today’s conversion therapy as fair as I know), an attempt to thwart puberty using psycho-coercive double binds.

It would have had different names in the past, but various forms of aversion therapy – some quite barbaric – were commonplace from Victorian times through to the 1950s. It was still very scary.

Why did they do it?

Because of the abuse I suffered at the hands of Burrows and Wace, I was definitely ‘acting out’ as so many children do.  For instance, I recall drawing and talking openly about what the priests did to me. So it may have been an attempt to physically put a stop to a child’s ‘play’.

But it actually feels rather more ambitious and organised. There were several of them involved, for instance. Even though I was earmarked for the priesthood from an early age (I was signed up for the seminary at age thirteen) I don’t believe that fully explains their behaviour.

It was certainly a ‘procedure’ they were used to.

However, it’s not my responsibility to understand their sick mindset. Or explain how it all worked in detail. I bear the psychological scars and that’s enough.

If your cognitive dissonance is kicking in at this point, and you find it hard to believe that respectable, middle-class Catholic women could behave in such a manner, let me tell you that in the same decade, a number of Dutch boys were castrated on the orders of the Catholic Church because they had shown gay tendencies. In the 1970s, on the orders of his British Catholic school, a young teenager was given hospital electric-shock treatment to similarly erase his gay character. There are other examples.

Aversion therapy seems designed to suppress, reduce or redirect a child’s sexuality. In practical terms, it limits your power over your own body. Instead, these women had control over my body. I’m pretty certain they saw their abuse as ‘holy work’. I’d love to tell you they failed miserably, but, annoyingly, its effects actually lasted until I was aged sixteen.

These fanatical women knew what they were doing.

If you’re a Catholic Safeguarder, or a member of the priesthood, the Knights or the CWL, you may well be thinking, with some relief, as you read this, ‘Ah. But it’s impossible for him to prove.’

Well, it’s true it’s hard to prove. Most survivors must have either accepted their programming, maybe they even thought it was good for them, or are too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about it.   

I’m not.

The best proof I have is the fortune I spent on recent weekly therapy, over the last three years, deprogramming the abusive program these women had instilled into my psyche.

And also the evidence of my therapist who has previously given evidence to the Ipswich police. This resulted in an abusive Ipswich Catholic teacher recently being arrested.

So I wouldn’t be too relieved if I were you.

Needless to say, I would be delighted if the CWL decide to challenge my account.

I know Catholics practice secrecy from the Pope downwards, but this really needs to be brought out into the open.

SAFEGUARDING

You might suggest that Catholic Safeguarding could help me with this matter.

Not a chance, I’m afraid, so I should explain why.

You may believe Catholic Safeguarding are there to help past survivors and investigate past clerical and laity abuse

They’re not.

Catholic Safeguarding is actually in a terrible state today, the worst it’s ever been. And, in case you think that’s just my negative opinion, there is already media concern and research on this aspect.

Furthermore.

The CEO of the CSSA (Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency) admitted the following to me:

‘IICSA was obviously put in place with the intention of dealing with this but quite honestly I think they were overwhelmed and in the end they presented their final report and it is difficult to know what it all achieved.’

All IICSA’S recommendations (The Elliott report etc) have been ignored by the Church, even though the Bishops claimed otherwise.

As the Daily Telegraph reported: ‘Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse had previously concluded Cardinal Nichols was more concerned with protecting Church’s reputation.’

Today, the CSSA only deals with current issues up to two years old.

‘This of course leaves those that have been subject of abuse over two years ago have very little redress.’

The CEO confirmed my own experience that the police (Operation Hydrant) will only deal with cases where the abusers are still alive.

And:

‘Our remit does not include an investigative branch. The process is that the diocese or religious life group (through the Religious Life Safeguarding Service (RLSS) investigate concerns when raised.’

So where St Pancras is concerned this means that the diocese will investigate.

I’ve been here before during Eileen Shearer’s COPCA era when I first raised Canon Burrows with the diocese. I learnt that Catholic Safeguarding diocese members are unpaid, they do nothing (e.g. they didn’t even look up records) they simply dump complaints onto the police, who can do nothing (see above). The diocese Safeguarders know this and – under the  convenient excuse of ‘we have a mandatory reporting duty’ – they are wilfully and knowingly wasting valuable police time.

The diocese Safeguarding officer also reassured me personally everything would be ‘so much better’ with Shearer’s recent appointment because she was a protestant. So nothing would be covered up anymore.

I was briefly impressed.

Shearer resigned shortly afterwards.

But it’s worse. The investigating officer is from the diocese where the crime took place, so he or she is still part of that Catholic community: they will certainly know the organisations concerned at the very least, they may even be members of it, and they are thus not independent.

This has put off many survivors from reporting abuse and that’s no accident. It’s exactly what the Church intended.

Returning to the laity.

The CEO of the CSSA said to me:

‘I agree with you over this issue around abuse by the laity does seem to be largely ignored and certainly has given me some pause for thought.’

Most of my claims against the Catholic laity can be deemed historic (over two years old) and therefore will be ignored, which is, of course, outrageous as we survivors have to live our entire lives with the results of their crimes committed against us in childhood. But two cases are actually current and one relates to the East Anglian diocese. The other to an adjoining diocese.

In both cases there was a lack of police checks and thus vulnerable people and children may be in danger.

Today.

There was no response from the CSSA and Police Operation Hydrant when I raised this with them both.

THE LIKELY RESPONSE FROM ST PANCRAS, THE CWL AND THE KNIGHTS OF ST COLUMBA

From past experience with the Knights and the evidence presented about them on this site, I fully expect the parish priest of St Pancras today, the Catholic Women’s League and the Knights of St Columba to do nothing.

They don’t seem to see it as their duty to children past and present to look into this most serious matter.

They will prefer to keep their heads down and hope it will all go away.

Or at best, to write back to me with some dismissive hand-wringing, ‘We’re sorry what happened to you, but there’s nothing we can do. We have no records and thus no way of looking at your allegations.’

But in 2023 silence – or such a dismissive lack of interest – is not a good look.

Even if the Catholic insurance company has advised or even ordered them, ‘Say nothing. Admit nothing.’  

(It’s sad when a Christian religion is controlled by an insurance company.)

Today, not responding to hard evidence of abuse means only one thing.

Collusion.

If you have been made aware of crimes past and current, and you choose to respond with silence or in some Pontius Pilate manner, it means you are colluding with the original child abusers to keep these crimes hidden from public view.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?

If you’re a Survivor you might feel nothing can be done. That – post IICSA – the Church has managed, with its own admitted poor Safeguarding (see above) to still successfully silence its critics. 

That’s not the case.

‘Naming and Shaming’ abusers at my Catholic school on this site has worked very well in the past and has led to positive results which I’ve described in previous posts. With both local media (EADT) and national media (Sunday Times and the Tablet) covering and investigating the accounts I have brought to light.

It’s only now that I’ve been able to focus on the parish I grew up in, and the clerical and laity abusers, male and female, who harmed me as a child.

So I would hope for similar results here. I’m sure it will be of equal interest to the media.

Particularly local media.

And if you are a survivor of abuse by any of these people I’ve described here, and would like to share your experience, please get in touch. As always, your anonymity is guaranteed.

However, if you are a member of the congregation at St Pancras and are rightly shocked by what you have read, I would appeal to you to raise some or all of these issues with your parish priest.

It is clearly his personal duty to act.

Diocesan Safeguarding is not an alternative. It is provably flawed for the reasons I’ve given and I strongly believe is deliberately designed to waste everyone’s time.

Even if you discount some of the allegations I’ve made, there is still a great deal left that should be looked at, discussed, and which you would hope would be of great concern to your parish priest.

Based on the past, I fear your parish priest will not take responsibility, but I would love to be proved wrong.

Furthermore, my experience is that – even today, despite the Church being called out for its crimes at IICSA – Catholic congregations will not respond to allegations of child abuse within the Church. They will look the other way at clerical and laity crimes.

This is because of the Oath of Allegiance they took and similar ties that bind.

However, I would hope that there are some exceptions who are not sheep and have the courage to challenge their shepherds.

In any event, at some point in the near future, there will be further investigations into the Catholic Church and this post and others will be useful in providing evidence.

Meantime, no one in the parish of St. Pancras can now say ‘We didn’t know. We had absolutely no idea these terrible things went on.’

You’ve been told.

And anyone curiously searching the web for nostalgic memories of St Pancras will come across this post.

They will be appalled to see the Church’s dark history in which the crimes of priests such as Canon Burrows and Father Wace and Ipswich female and male Catholic laity are laid bare for all to read.   

That is the legacy of shame for all the world to now see that St Pancras, its current parish priest, as the representative of the Church, the CWL and the Knights of St Columba will have to live with from now on.

Unless they choose to take a path of light and look at the truth.

Otherwise, it’s a dark cross all of them rightly have to bear.

BROTHER LAURENCE HUGHES – THE MISSING APOLOGY

THE DE LA SALLES – THE MISSING INVESTIGATION

As you may have seen on my previous blog, the RLSS  – Religious Life Safeguarding Service –  have successfully arranged for DBS police checks on Cistercian monks on Caldey Island.  

So it’s a great step forward for Caldey Island Survivors and the RLSS are to be congratulated for their supportive work.

It suggests that, despite, IMO, the questionable nature of all Safeguarding organizations as ‘fronts’ to protect religious orders and priests, that individuals can still work within the system and create real change.  Even though independent agencies are the real answer.

But this still leaves the serious matter of the De La Salles and the RLSS long outstanding.

Currently there is a missing apology and a missing investigation.

Both are of considerable current importance to survivors of the De La Salles.

 I’ve got a little tired recently of reading in posts here how wonderful the DLS  were with barely a grudging nod to survivors, and often with the qualification, ‘But I never saw the brothers do anything wrong myself.’

Well, of course you didn’t because you weren’t at risk!  

It’s like we survivors are necessary collateral damage to fulfill the perverted desires of the De La Salles, while you high achievers got on with your splendid careers, thanks to these wonderful and ‘holy’ brothers you admire so much.

Such high achievers should reflect that, in my era, at least 10%  of every class were physically and sexually abused by the DLS. (I can break that down for skeptics.) That makes the DLS a criminal organization and it’s impossible to identify, with any certainty, who was good and who was evil. Only the blatant ones, a very few of whom were caught. Please reflect on that before you continue to sing the praises of a questionable organization that is still operating today and still has its hand out for more funding to continue its ‘holy work’ in the Global South.

So onto the missing apology and investigation.

I’ve been holding off for some time on both the foregoing, not least because the SCOE, the Safeguarding organization for religious orders of which the De La Salles was a client, was disbanded earlier last year and replaced by the RLSS, a new safeguarding organization.

Before it disappeared, the SCOE didn’t pass any information about these two matters above onto the RLSS.

But of course the SCOE was directed by the DLS who could have easily updated the RLSS.

In both instances, the Safeguarding organizations are limited by their client, the DLS, who actually have the real power as the RLSS have indicated to me.

To reprise, when it existed, the SCOE/DLS assured me there would be a public apology for the horrific corporal punishments delivered by Brother Laurence Hughes previously head of the DLS. He has been ‘reduced to the ranks’ following an investigation which is now complete without criminal charges being made.

I’ve been told that it’s almost impossible to bring criminal charges for physical abuse after such a long time period.

The important issue of how Laurence Hughes dismissed abuse complaints while he was head of the DLS has never been addressed.

Given that he has been reduced to the ranks, it should be.  It means that those complaining of child abuse received a hearing from a man who committed savage physical abuse on children.

Here’s what the SCOE actually said to me on 15^th July last year.

I have been waiting for confirmation on the outcome to the investigation
following receipt of allegations made against Bro Laurence Hughes (LH).

De La Salle (DLS) in the near future will be making a statement about of the
outcome of the investigation and I understand this statement will contain an
apology to victims and will be published. I will ask DLS to make the
statement easily accessible, through their website or to others if/as
requested (* see note below).

I understand that LH no longer holds any leadership or safeguarding role
within DLS.

AFAIK the DLS did not make a statement in the ‘near future’ as promised.

It was also stated, as you can see, that it would be a prominent apology, rather than the earlier example of a DLS apology on a separate and general matter. That was a vague and general apology to all survivors of DLS abuse. Such a cursory ‘sorry’ was buried on the DLS website only after I’d shown the announced apology was actually missing.   Even the Tablet had to acknowledge this was untoward.

And the DLS also said in a newspaper interview last year that there would be a thorough investigation of all the allegations about the DLS in Ipswich and elsewhere in the South of England which it suggested were ‘unheard of’.

As I’ve told the RLSS the cases against Brothers James, Kevin and Solomon in particular are overwhelming and need public acknowledgement by the De La Salles.  They also involve the Catholic laity who helped cover up the crimes of James and Solomon.

Since then, there has been nothing about this ‘investigation’ which I do not believe even exists.

There have been meetings between the RLSS and DLS with no outcome and emails from the RLSS assuring me of their best and genuine intentions.

Because they are a new organization I believed I should give them the benefit of the doubt and also in the interests of due diligence.

So – after an extended delay on the apology and the investigation – we are no further forward.

The DLS have done an excellent job of stalling for most of last year and their RLSS has played a role in this. 

The DLS – according to the RLSS – have not been very communicative with them either. Whilst I have some sympathy with them and the frustration they must feel, my priority is we survivors who have been harmed by the DLS.

The comments below relating to the CSSA (the ‘general’ Catholic Safeguarding agency) apply equally to the RLSS.

I think both commentators on twitter put it very well.

Reference Group 

@Smartcairns11·

Nov 11

Every ‘respectable’ persons engaged as the face of ‪#CSSA‬ must be responsible for their use by church leaders as a ‘smokescreen’ of safeguarding to disguise, facilitate false trust &  add more layers to leaderships cover up and concealment of clerical sex crimes.

‪@nazirafzal‬ ‪https://twitter.com/Smartcairns11/status/1590654903328051200…‬

Countess Sigrid von Galen

@instcrimjust

Nov 10

Those ‘respectable’ persons are dangerous accomplices, as they create a smokescreen & illusion of safeguarding to disguise & facilitate cover ups & ongoing crimes. All inquiries have shown that the churches can’t be trusted & safeguards are PR stunts. ‪https://twitter.com/Smartcairns11/status/1590654903328051200‬

Despite the positive result at Caldey Island, after my personal experience with the SCOE, the RLSS and the DLS, I see nothing to disagree with here, not least because Safeguarding organizations have very limited power.

Of course the real culprits are the De La Salles who would seem to be more formidable opponents than the Cistercians and who are treating survivors with absolute contempt.

Not the behaviour of supposed ‘holy’ men.

MIKE KEARNEY (1): RECOVERING MEMORIES

I’ve been prompted to write again about Mike Kearney, the lay Irish chemistry teacher at St Joseph’s College, Ipswich. For anyone not familiar with this man, he taught from the late 1950s to the 1980s. There’s plenty of accounts of his brutality on this blog, seen by apologists as ‘normal’ for the time, and one account by an Old Boy of his racism. Whether this is connected to Kearney having spent some time in apartheid South Africa, I have no way of knowing.  It has been challenged by a white Old Boy as ‘not true’. Several Old Boys also thought he was a poor chemistry teacher. Personally, I thought he was ‘okay’, but then I was a poor chemistry pupil. I think Old Boys generally are divided between seeing him as ‘stern but fair’, ‘his bark worse than his bite’ and others regarding him as a violent, cruel sadist. Given that he punched a boy in the face and had to apologise to him, I subscribe to the latter camp.

i don’t accept these were ‘different times’. Punching a child in the face, then and now, is a criminal offence.

St Joseph’s today, although it claims to have no connection with its dubious and  criminal De La Salle past, where organised sexual abuse in the 1960s and beyond is now a matter of record, had a Mike Kearney Memorial Chemistry prize. I think this has now been withdrawn, I certainly hope so because this individual does not deserve to be remembered in a positive light.

But my concern has always been about a much darker side to him which resulted in my spending considerable time and money in therapy trying to make sense of really terrible memories about him. The more I looked into them, the worse they got.  Daymares, nightmares, PTSD flashbacks, you name it. I tried blocking my memories of him, but it  didn’t work.  My experience of recovered memories was similar to the account below.

Where other St Joseph’s abusers are concerned, I’ve pretty much laid them to rest. Although, I’m touching wood here, of course.  Kearney was more problematic and there’s a reason for this. The awful events concerning him happened outside the school, so there were not the usual witnesses to validate my recovered memories.

 Nearly all survivors who write into this site are boarders and I used to thank my lucky stars I was a day boy.  In fact, it’s an illusion I used in order to survive. Day boys could also be in danger and I’m sure I wasn’t alone.  My mother was a devout, Irish Catholic widow with no income, no job and recurring mental health problems, probably worsened by medication both legal and illegal. Father Jolly, our parish priest and St Jo’s chaplain, whose crimes have been detailed on this blog by at least one other Old Boy, was a drug supplier which may sound unlikely but I can assure you is true. He was not the only one. Leaving aside for now the question of how my mother could afford to send her two sons to a posh Catholic grammar school (neither of us had passed the eleven-plus), it meant we were a prime target for Catholic predators.

These predators, from my primary school days through to secondary school, were sometimes given the right to act  ‘in loco parentis’. It was felt boys needed ‘a strong fatherly hand’, especially in 1950s Britain and –if they had been genuine – I would possibly agree.  It’s also the supposed norm in Catholic communities that the poor and the widowed are supported and so a series of predators used this to their advantage. In our tightly knit Catholic community, Catholic widows were also considered ‘fair game’ and a better alternative to having affairs with Protestants or not ‘sullying’ unmarried Catholic women. I’m pretty certain it also had some pseudo-religious rationalisation.   

I’ve been able to prove the conduct of a number of these predators to my satisfaction: Canon Burrows (Knight of St Columba), Father Wace (probably KOSC), Father Jolly (KOSC, St Joseph’s chaplain and our local parish priest), two or more lay Knights of St Columba, and… a couple of lay teachers from St Joseph’s. That sounds like an awful lot, but we’re talking over a fifteen year childhood and some of these characters may have only had brief involvement as ‘do-gooders’ or rather ‘do-badders’.

Kearney had such a ‘loco parentis’ role.

The predators’ exact terms of reference and their relationships with my mother must have varied considerably.  Some may have been interested in my mother, others her sons, yet others in both. Certainly widows – then and now – are prime targets for predators and it’s a well-known technique for abusers to relate romantically towards the mother in order to get at the kids.  Canon Burrows, the first, typically always around our house doing ‘little jobs’ and mysteriously paying for school extras,  was a truly vile sexual abuser. So were most of the other ‘father figures’ that  I’ve listed that followed him, although not necessarily all. Some may well have just been interested in my mother and not her children.  It’s not easy to be sure every time. In some cases I’ve had to speculate about the real nature of the relationships and, of course, it’s impossible to know with absolute certainty. Much of the time everyone was very ‘discreet’.

The dynamics of just how Catholic predators exploit Catholic widows like my mother and the way she would have been groomed to fulfil a certain role in her Catholic community, I would only have been dimly aware of as a kid.  It’s a role Catholics will, of course, deny then and now.  Like they’ve denied so much abuse that’s subsequently been proven.

Here’s a brief example. She was ‘put in charge’ of a young French Father Gonnet who, mysteriously, was having an extended ‘holiday’ in our industrial town. She was told to ‘look after him’, so he was always round our house having tea when I came home from school. They got on extremely well and he was always making a fuss of me, too. We would also go on picnics to Stratford St Mary, a couple of miles down the road from East Bergholt where Gonnet was staying with the local Franciscans . Their place was a very convenient location for him to abuse.  Gonnet and these far from holy Franciscans left a deep trauma scar on me, which I still resent, because my abiding recollection of this particular predator is ‘The bastard was only staying in Ipswich for a few weeks.’  A few weeks is all it takes.

 I knew my mother had a kind of exalted status in the parish and this was certainly her own perception of herself, but I knew also there was something ‘not right’, something ‘odd’, ‘evasive’ and ‘mysterious’ about her. Trying to make sense of her behaviour, her constant absences for instance, I was a latch-key kid yet she had no job, I read everything I could about fictional women like her and that helped considerably. As an adult, I can  fill in the blanks from my life experience and examples such as Gonnet. Doubtless you can do the same. I’ve had to outline the role of my mother because it’s most relevant to Kearney as he, too, had this loco parentis role which will be more defined in later posts.

Kearney was a particular threat because I was older when we clashed and starting to make sense of the world.  And, unlike the previous men, he didn’t have a  typical ‘cover story’ for his involvement with my mother AFAIK,  e.g. he wasn’t in the church choir. In fact his cover story was to go boot camp on me, to ‘bring me to my senses’, to stop being a rebellious teenager. But there was much more to him than this.

As you can imagine, in such a world, everything is ‘smoke and mirrors’, everything is deliberately mysterious, vague and hard to pin down in order to keep victims off balance.  

My agenda in writing about Kearney is firstly as a catharsis. Secondly, because it may help other survivors dealing with recovered memories and highlight how predators work. Thirdly, it’s to name and shame him.

Finally, because it may resonate with other Old Boys who may have other information about Kearney that dovetails with my account, although – as I’ve said – because this happened outside the school, it’s far less likely. But do get in touch if you can shed any light.

And this account, of course, bears out that I have no financial agenda. The De La Salles can’t be held responsible for or be financially liable for what this creep got up to outside school hours.  And so it adds to the validity of my case. Why would I spend so much time and energy on Kearney, when I have far better things to do with my life?

I’ll write more about Kearney in subsequent blogs.

This woman’s experience below of recovered memories (she’s not a Catholic AFAIK) pretty much dovetails with mine and I’m sure with many survivors of the De La Salles.

I realise all this may be upsetting or triggering to read for some, so I’d like to end with a cheerful anecdote to show how, despite everything, we survivors can beat these scum.

I was sixteen. I would leave home a few months later and Kearney’s connection with my family was over, as short-lived as all the previous predators.  My brother and I were drinking beer in a pub by the Old Cattle Market –I think it was the Plough.  I was excitedly talking to my brother about a gig we were going to at the Assembly Rooms next door. I believe it was Murray and the Mints,  they were St Jo’s boys who had a real ‘Animals’ sound, mouth organ etc, and I’m a huge fan of the Animals. ‘We’ve got to get out of the place’ wasn’t just an anthem for Vietnam soldiers, it was my anthem to escape the Catholic Church.

Then Kearney came in, ordered a pint and sat at a table on his own. We both recognised each other but said nothing.  There’s a look lonely men who drink alone in pubs have, which we all recognise, and Kearney had that look big-time. His shoulders were rounded, drooping with depression, as he stared down into his pint. I think his first-wife had died some years earlier, but that was something I’d been told on the playground grapevine, so I may well be wrong.  Whatever the reason, he was definitely down in the dumps.

Then he looked across and I could see he was weighing up whether or how to rain on my parade. As he had done until recently. In those days, there was no ID and anyway, like any self-respecting 16 year old, I’d have lied. And bar tenders don’t care. So he knew his options were limited.

I knew he was going to do something, because he always had to win, but I was ready for him. I’d taken more than enough shit from him and I was a very feisty teenager.

He finished his pint and came over. He looked sternly down at me, hoping to intimidate me.

‘Does your mother know you’re here?’

‘Yes,’ I lied defiantly, ready for him to use physical force on me.  Again.

The expression on my face was clearly saying, to paraphrase the Animals, “It’s my life and I‘ll do what I want. Drink what I want. I’ve left school, you’ve got no power over me anymore.’

There was an awkward pause. Then Kearney nodded, defeated, impotent to do anything other than show his disapproval. He stumbled off into the night. A sad, lonely loser.

That was the last time I ever saw Kearney and I can still remember the feeling of exhilaration that I’d defeated him.

Then I got back to talking about much more important matters than this odious prat – like that forthcoming gig watching Murray and the Mints.

I was finally free.

Below is a survivor’s account on Instagram which I found incredibly useful and sums up how recovered memories work.

GUEST BLOG CALDEY ISLAND – CISTERCIAN MONKS

I was talking to fellow survivor Kevin O’Connell yesterday about Caldey Island  and abuse by the Cistercian monks which he outlines in his guest blog, SEE BELOW.

Poor and deprived Catholic children – many from the Birmingham diocese – were sent on holiday to Caldey Island where the monks were waiting for them… It’s a familiar story.

Kevin is a vigorous campaigner, with plans to go to Rome in pursuit of his cause. His story has been covered on BBC Wales https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-59479131, but needs wider coverage.

Apart from Caldey Island, Kevin has also related the Catholic trafficking of  children in Southern England.

His story is relevant to this site because, alongside the story of systemic De La Salle abuse at St Joseph’s College, Ipswich, and that of Stephen Smith  (‘The Boy in the Cellar’ book where Stephen recounts St William’s organized De La Salle abuse), it means there are now THREE proven examples of organized, systemic Catholic abuse in the UK.

Organised abuse – Catholic paedophile rings –  in the laity, the Knights of St Columba, and amongst cleric and religious orders like the De La Salles and the Cistercians – has yet to be acknowledged by the Church.

Officially it never happened and all concerned have shown no interest in following up proven cases.

So it’s fallen to survivors to present the evidence that organized abuse was endemic in Catholic society and may still be. These crimes don’t go away in one or two generations – much as they’d like us to believe it.

Three examples should be more than enough. Possibly we will have to wait until there are six or more examples before the Church will admit it contained and maybe still contains organized paedophile rings.

It may take a public enquiry, as Kevin suggests, or some other independent means to expose the truth.  Certainly it won’t come from Catholic organizations themselves.

The slowness and indifference of the De La Salles and the Knights of St Columba in dealing with these crimes is certainly noted.

They clearly don’t care if children may still be at risk.

Let’s hope the Cistercians are different.

On 21 Jun 2022, at 19:46, KEVIN O’CONNELL <kevinoconnellandco@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi.

Thanks for your interest in our campaign Caldey Island survivors.

I suffered 50 years because of the horrible abuse from monks and priests.

I came out about it in late 2018 and since then with the help of Dinah Mulholland and others have campaigned for a public inquiry and to bring the Monks on Caldey into the UK laws and provide a independent safeguarding for children from Catholic Churches and schools still retreat on Caldey Island.

The abbot stated that they retain the right to oversee past present and future child abuse.

The whole story of Caldey and priests from Sussex/Surrey has not been told, this is why we need a public enquiry.

The police failure is unforgivable.

What I witnessed while on retreats on Caldey is industrial abuse of hundreds and possibly thousands of children, the poor, the weak and vulnerable children. Taken to the caves ,ruins, sand dunes and the monks cells in the ruins. Abusers would travel by boat daily as Caldey was well known for paedophiles

As a safe haven for them. Also the abbey hid paedophiles from the police.

But please have a look at our Facebook page Caldey  Island survivors campaign.

Web site caldeyislandsurvivors.org.

It would be lovely if you could help us .

I often ask people what do they see when they  close their eyes  at night, because what I see is the eyes of the children being dragged away to be abused.

INVESTIGATION INTO DE LA SALLE ABUSE

CURRENT POSITION

desbill.scoe@gmail.com

SCOE  – Safeguarding

Dear Des Bill

I wanted to see what the latest situation was regarding the numerous allegations of abuse by old boys, including myself, at the hands of the De La Salles. Not only at St Joseph’s Ipswich, but also Beulah Hill and elsewhere. As you know, they are all recorded on this website and have also been available in summary for an investigator’s convenience.

I’m aware that they have been sent to police Operation Hydrant, via yourself and Catholic Safeguarding, and I look forward to their response in due course. 

The DLS have also contacted Suffolk police  – see below – and this may be part of the Hydrant investigation or separate. It’s not been made clear and it would be useful to know.

It was also stated by the DLS spokesperson that an independent investigator would be commissioned to look into these allegations which he said were  ‘unheard of’.

‘ most of the accusations made on Mr Mills blog were “completely unheard of”, he (Hudd) said. 

See EADT December 11 2021

https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/st-josephs-ipswich-abuse-monks-ask-police-8553626

“With regards to St Joseph’s, we’ve put the ball in Suffolk Constabulary’s court”, Mr Hudd said. “It’s up to them to work out what happened and if the abuse truly was systemic. 

“We’ve also hired our own independent and experienced child abuse investigator to assist the police. 

In fact ‘most’ allegations were ‘heard of’ and were  familiar to the DLS as survivors of Brother Kevin’s abuse prove on this site. And the Beulah Hill survivors who have made numerous allegations on line about Brother Solomon. 

For the DLS to claim they were unaware of these allegations and more is unconvincing.

The DLS own records will confirm that ‘most’ were ‘heard of’ as I’m sure Hudd knows only too well.

Moving onto the investigation, I have not had any contact from an investigator. But how else are they to reach the authors of the various allegations on my site?

We have been waiting these many months and nothing has happened. Who the investigator is has not been revealed to us.

I have the strong feeling that the investigator – six months later – has done nothing.

Is that the case?

You will recall that when the DLS provincial Laurence Hughes was being similarly investigated for allegations of his violent abuse of children, I put your independent investigator’s details on my site. Consequently, several Old Boys got in touch with the investigator.

As a system, it worked well and I have no complaints.

Surely that is the way to go here?

On which subject, I’m sure survivors of Hughes’s alleged violence would like to know what is happening. I understand that police action against Hughes is not proceeding? Is this correct? But I believe you said that – whatever the legal outcome – there would then be an internal inquiry? 

Is Hughes now reinstated as head of the DLS or has he ‘retired’ ? I think the survivors of his alleged assaults would like to know. 

I’m putting this letter up on my blog so survivors can be kept in the loop. I look forward to hearing from you.

Pat Mills