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Irish private school abusers ‘protected by fees’
As a catalogue of sexual abuse cases in Irish fee-paying schools grows, survivors say they held back reports for fear of letting down hard-working parents
Justine McCarthy, The Sunday Times
Sunday March 14 2021, 12.01am GMT
Their nicknames were Doc, Smirker, Drip and Cow, which hinted at what was an open secret in Terenure College. Drip had a tendency to slobber. Smirker’s smile foretold another of his brutal beatings. Nobody can quite remember the inspiration for Cow’s name, but Doc got his because he used to rub the boys’ limbs to treat sports injuries.
Terenure College
Otherwise known as John McClean, an English teacher and rugby coach, “Doc” was jailed for eight years last month for sexually abusing 23 former pupils at the college. The garda investigation had begun with 24 complainants, but one man died by suicide before the case reached the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
But McClean, 76, was not the sole offender in the south Dublin school during his crime spree from 1973 to 1990. At least one of the 23 victims also made a statement to gardai about violent physical abuse by a priest in the school, but no charges were brought because of difficulties associated with its historical nature.
“I said in my statement that, when I was in third year, this man took me out of the class, stood me against a wall, stared into my eyes and then smashed my face with his fist,” he said.
While McClean was prowling the corridors for prey, two other teachers — one a priest — had been accused of sexually assaulting students and two more of violently attacking them. Gardai are investigating complaints against all five men. Prosecutions are unlikely in relation to three of the cases, given the time that has passed and the fact that two of the alleged perpetrators have since died.
Not to mention that Irish prosecutors seem to be the laziest in the world - just my humble opinion.
“On my very first day in school, [Father A] put his hands down my pants in class,” said a man who, in the 1970s, attended the school run by the Carmelite order. “[Teacher B] told me I had flat feet and to come and see him after sport. He stripped naked in front of me, had a shower and started rubbing himself with a towel, masturbating. [Fathers C and D] were violent psychological terrorists. The place was bonkers.”
The Carmelites, who are being sued by four former students over abuse by McClean, say they are assisting gardai with their investigations. One solicitors’ firm in Dublin says it has been instructed by seven other clients to issue proceedings against McClean and the school.
McLean sexually abused pupils at Terenure College
COLLINS PHOTO AGENCY
McClean’s jailing has triggered abuse complaints not only about Terenure College, but also some of Ireland’s other leading fee-paying boys’ schools as well. On March 2, the Jesuit order issued a statement naming the late Fr Joseph Marmion, who taught at Belvedere College in Dublin, as a child sex abuser. The school first received a complaint about him in 1979.
In his 2004 memoir Muck and Merlot, the food writer Tom Doorley recalled Marmion from his school days in Belvedere as “a huge man, with ham-like fists and a head the size of a pumpkin”. Doorley wrote: “He exuded a curiously seductive combination of charm, intelligence and sheer menace. A bully, a sadist, a brilliant teacher, a highly talented man, he was also an active paedophile.”
In an uncanny echo of McClean’s modus operandi of molesting pupils while preparing them for the school play in Terenure, Marmion abused his charges while fitting them for costumes for Belvedere’s operettas. He also targeted victims on the annual school trip to Austria.
“The abuse in Belvedere was not confined to sexual assault — physical, emotional and psychological bullying were also Marmion’s stock in trade,” said Mark Harrold, a clinical psychologist and old Belvederian. “One of his regular ruses was to randomly order an entire class to physically attack one unfortunate pupil. This happened to me one morning in German class. ‘Get Harrold’ was his command. As a chunky tighthead prop on the junior cup rugby team, I stood up to challenge the first [boy] to arrive, at which point they all sat down.” Harrold said Marmion subsequently barred him from German class.
Marmion also taught at the Jesuits’ former Crescent College private school in Limerick and at Clongowes Wood in Co Kildare. A High Court action was lodged in 2019 against Clongowes Wood by a former student who claims he was sexually abused by another Jesuit teacher there in the 1980s. The school has entered a defence.
Clongowes Wood has also been at the centre of abuse allegations
On Monday, William Gorry, a survivor and campaigner, made a statement to gardai alleging that a Carmelite priest, now deceased, sexually abused him when he was 10, as well as his disabled younger brother, when they were in an industrial school in Moate, Co Westmeath. A former student in the nearby and now closed Carmelite College boarding school also says this priest sexually abused him there.
One of Terenure College’s most notorious sex-abusing priests, now deceased, was transferred to a friary in Kildare in 1982 after a complaint to the school. While there, he volunteered to teach rugby at the Dominican-run Newbridge College. On Friday, a former student met the provincial of the Dominican order, outlined the priest’s sexual abuse, and asked that the order issue a public statement naming him as a child sex abuser.
A solicitor for some of McClean’s victims said they mentioned this priest in detailing sexual abuse at Terenure while they were students.
Diane Treanor, a solicitor with Coleman Legal who is acting for a plaintiff in a school’s sexual abuse case, said abusers in private schools had the benefit of added protection. “Many of these boys knew their parents were making sacrifices to pay the school fees. They didn’t want to let them down by telling them,” Treanor said.
A paedophile priest taught rugby at Newbridge College
Another solicitor said it was clear from plaintiffs’ experiences that extra classes and activities that parents paid for — such as drama and foreign trips — facilitated abusers’ access to children.
That sentiment was expressed by Damien Hetheringon, whom McClean sexually assaulted when he was 12 during costume fittings in 1973. “My father worked in construction and I know he worked hard to pay those fees,” said Hetherington, one of the 23 complainants. “A lot of sacrifices were made — my father was by no means wealthy.”
Many of the private boys’ schools that are the subject of sexual abuse complaints had a reputation for sporting achievement. Some of the men say a “macho culture” prevailed, which made it more difficult to disclose abuse.
Henry Moloney, a priest with the Holy Ghost Fathers, was convicted in 2000, 2009 and 2015 of abusing boys in the prestigious Rockwell College in Co Tipperary in the 1980s. He had also taught in Blackrock College, which has won the Leinster Schools Rugby Senior Cup a record 69 times.
“A lot of people made sacrifices to send their children to Belvedere,” said Harrold, the author of Parenting and Privilege: Raising Children in an Affluent Society. “That certainly contributed to the conspiracy of silence.”
‘I was shocked’: Alleged abuser wanted to have sex in St. Peter’s Basilica bathroom, ex-altar boy claims
18 Mar, 2021 08:18
St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, September 2020. Reuters / Guglielmo Mangiapane
A young man has told a Vatican court that a fellow seminarian, who is now a priest, wanted to have sex in St. Peter’s Basilica when the pair were altar boys. He alleged that the seminary rector sought to cover up the abuse.
The accuser, who has been identified only as L.G., testified for the first time during a criminal trial inside the Vatican on Wednesday.
He alleged that priest Gabriele Martinelli abused him between 2007 and 2012, mostly while both were minors in the Pius X Preparatory Seminary, which houses altar boys aged 12-18 who serve Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican’s main church and one of the most iconic temples in Catholicism.
L.G. testified that Martinelli, who is older than him, would slip into his bed at night and force him to touch him and have sex in another room. He said it was his first sexual experience, and that he felt “paralyzed.”
The accuser also claimed that Martinelli tried to convince him to have sex in a bathroom behind one of the altars in St. Peter’s Basilica while both were due to serve Mass. He added that, during the alleged incident, Martinelli was naked under his cassock, a robe-like garment worn by the clergy.
“I was shocked,” L.G. told the court, saying that he refused to follow Martinelli into the bathroom.
Martinelli previously denied the allegations. He told the court last month that the abuse claims made by L.G. were physically impossible due to the layout of the seminary and that the rector could come into the dorm rooms at any time. He also denied having any power over the altar boys. Martinelli further said that, by making false accusations, L.G. wanted to discredit him and the seminary, and that there was “jealousy” among former seminarians that he was eventually ordained a priest.
L.G. alleged that in 2009 he alerted the former seminary rector, Enrico Radice, about Martinelli’s behavior, but did not provide details. He told the court that Radice threatened to banish him from the seminary unless he stopped complaining. The former rector is now charged with shielding Martinelli from investigations.
Radice denied having known anything about the alleged abuse. “The walls were thin, you could hear everything,” he told the court, adding that he believed the accuser was motivated by “financial interests.”
The high-profile trial, which is the first of this kind in the Vatican, is the latest in the string of sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years. Most cases have involved accusations of the abuse of minors by clergymen, and the alleged attempts by the Church elite to cover up abuse.
In November 2020, the Vatican published a report implicating senior Church officials of ignoring complaints of sexual abuse within its ranks. Pope Francis expressed support for the victims and vowed to “eradicate this evil” from inside the Church.
If he did, I fear, there wouldn't be much left of it.
Explosive German child abuse investigation reveals 200+ perpetrators, 300+ victims in Catholic Diocese of Cologne
18 Mar, 2021 13:35
After five months of investigation, hundreds of alleged child abusers and victims have been identified in an 800-page independent report on abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne, Germany, spanning decades.
According to the investigation, as many as 243 members of the clergy and laity were identified as abusers of minors, with around 50% of the incidents – between 1946 and 2018 – involving sexual violence and 55% involving children under the age of 14. Over 300 victims – the majority male and abused before 1975 – were also identified.
At least two clergymen will be dismissed from their positions following the report and several "high-up church figures" are accused of breaching their duty and attempting to cover up the allegations.
The Archdiocese of Cologne commissioned German law firm Gercke Wollschläger for the report, which was compiled over 5 months through interviews with those involved, after being accused of suppressing previous reports on historical child abuse.
Cardinal Rainer Woelki said the incidents reported "affect" him "deeply," and added, "Clergymen are guilty of inflicting violence on people entrusted to them, and in many cases without being punished for it."
Affected you deeply!!?? How do you think it affected the boys? How do you think it affected God? Such a stunningly beautiful cathedral in His Name disgraced thousands of times by perverts pretending to be men of God.
He said that it was "even worse" that many of "those affected by this violence" had struggled to be "taken seriously and protected," before calling the initial handling of allegations a "cover-up."
The first results and official "consequences of the report" will be formally presented on March 23rd.
Back in February, German nuns belonging apparently to the same Catholic Archdiocese of Cologne were accused of having "rented" orphan boys to businessmen and clergymen in the '60s and '70s for "gang bangs and orgies", according to a report seen by media that was withheld from the public.
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