Priest told us ‘Forgive, but don’t report sexual abuse’
Case of woman who fell victim to horrific sexual abuse by her close relative went unreported for many years over advice from a priest
A case of horrific sexual abuse on children went unreported for many years because a priest urged the victims to forgive the abuser instead of reporting him, according to one of the victims.
A year-long Times of Malta investigation has revealed that the abuse, which was rife in the 1980s, was only reported to the police in the early 2000s, more than 10 years after Dominican friar George Frendo, who later became archbishop of a diocese in Albania, learned about the abuse.
Both the woman and retired bishop George Frendo sat down for an interview about the case. Video: Antoine Farrugia Lauri The investigation is being published in the latest episode of Times Talk, during which one of the victims recalls the horror of the abuse in graphic detail.
She says that along with other children in her family she was abused repeatedly by a close relative and later abused again by a priest she turned to for help. But Bishop Frendo urged her family for years to forgive her abusers instead of reporting them to the police.
Frendo, now 80 and retired, also agreed to sit down for an interview on Times Talk, in which he insisted his decision not to go to the police came from pressure by other relatives who feared the case would tear the family apart if it went to court.
He said when he first learned about the abuse in 1990, the country was still immersed in a culture in which people felt that reporting abuse to the police would only harm the victims further. But he admitted that this “mentality of omertà ”, as he described it, was wrong, and acknowledged that in hindsight, he should have gone to the police immediately back then. But the awareness around the negative impacts of child abuse then was not as strong as it is now.
Naked children, grown-up men
The woman, whose identity Times of Malta is protecting, came forward after seeing Frendo on a television panel discussing a separate abuse case last year, in which he said victims should forgive before seeking justice.
She said hearing those comments made her fear that he had “learnt nothing” from what had happened to her decades earlier.
“I had no intention of going public before I saw him on TV last year. But his words made me think he might still be pushing people to forgive instead of report, even today,” she said.
“What’s worse is he’s now a bishop, and he has more influence, and his words carry more weight.”
He’s now a bishop and he has more influence, and his words carry more weight.- Abused womanShe says she was sexually abused by a close family relative for years, with the abuse starting before her First Holy Communion. She claims he also abused other relatives and family friends who were children.
She says the relative would show them pornography before forcing them to perform sexual acts on themselves, on other children and on himself, while he watched.
Sometimes he would ask them to strip naked in front of him, touch each other and his genitals. He would also force them to use sex toys and other objects like broomsticks.
Statements given to the police years later, and seen by Times of Malta, confirm that other victims recalled instances when he would be alone with them and other occasions when he would bring his adult male friends over to watch the children perform sexual acts.
Sometimes they would be having dinner with the extended family, and he would sit her on his lap and slide his hand in her underwear, or put her hand over his genitals under the table.
He would sometimes abuse the children at his home or at his workplace, and this woman recalls that he raped her as a child.
“I remember one time, way before I had my first period, I bled,” she said. “I wasn’t even 10 years old then. I didn’t even know anything about periods and reproduction.”
The man would tell her she must keep their activities a secret or otherwise she would be taken away from her family and sent to live in an orphanage. This is why it took years for the woman to pluck up the courage to tell her parents – courage she only found when she started secondary school.
When in science class they began to learn about reproduction, she became gripped by an intense fear that she could get pregnant from her relative, and that fear eventually pushed her to tell her mother about the abuse.
The woman said the relative would show pornography to children before forcing them to perform sexual acts on themselves, on other children and on himself. The priest’s advice
In a moment of intense panic, her parents turned to Fr George Frendo, a priest who was close to the family and whom they trusted. And the woman says he advised them not to go to the police.
“I remember him telling my mum that reporting would cause me more suffering and the best way to help me was to support me in forgiving,” she said.
In the interview with Times of Malta, Frendo confirmed he was contacted by the family in May 1990 but insisted that at the time he was not made aware of all the graphic details of the abuse, and that when they first called him, the parents did not tell him they wanted to go to the police.
They simply wanted him to reprimand the relative to stop the abuse, which he did that same day.
He said he also told him to see a psychologist and go to confession, and insists that, to his knowledge, the abuse had completely stopped as the children were not allowed to be in contact with the abuser until he died years later.
The victim, however, says this is not true. She said her mother made it clear to him she wanted to go to the police the first time she told him about the abuse, but he told her true healing would come from a journey of prayer and forgiveness.
Though contact with the abuser stopped temporarily, it resumed around a year later after Frendo urged the extended family to reunite for Christmas, an occasion during which she had to face her abuser.
The woman who spoke to Times of Malta said that experience was almost as traumatic as the abuse itself, because it minimised the severity of the trauma.
“The occasion felt like it gave him permission to abuse again,” she said.
Frendo denies he ever encouraged the family to reunite and insists that, to his knowledge, the abuser did not have access to the children. The victim insists he had.
Frendo did admit there was a time when he discouraged the family from reporting the case to the police, but it was only years later, and he only did it because two of the victim’s relatives pressured him to persuade the victim to drop the case.
“You must understand I was under pressure from her own relatives, and who am I to go against two important people in her family?” Frendo said repeatedly during the interview.
“That’s why I felt I shouldn’t go to the police.”
He admitted that in hindsight he feels he should have acted differently. If the case came to him today, he would immediately report it to the police because while forgiveness is important, it must go hand in hand with justice, he said.
He said he now understands it is “not enough to condemn evil” without also acting to prevent it.
“It is through justice that we can ensure the abusers do not create more victims,” he conceded.
But he also said all of this happened more than 30 years ago, in a society that thought differently about the importance of seeking justice. There was much less awareness around the negative impacts of child abuse, and this context is essential, he said.
There was much less awareness around the negative impacts of child abuse and this context is essential- Mgr George Frendo
1990s Malta spoke to several experts during the course of the investigation, and they confirmed this was the prevailing culture in the 1990s, not just in the Church, and not just in Malta.
Due to a lack of awareness and a shortage of support services, those who learned of abuse rarely reported it. Often out of genuine concern, people advised victims against taking legal action, fearing that the court process would tear families apart and compound the trauma.
That fear was not entirely unfounded. Research shows that while seeking justice is vital for healing, court systems frequently cause what is known as re-victimisation.
Cases stretching over a decade force victims to repeatedly take the stand, face media exposure, and relive their trauma long after they have moved on. Some experts warn this secondary victimisation can end up being as damaging as the original abuse.
However, experts agree that remaining silent carries an even higher price, as it allows a culture of silence to take root and create far greater harm. Knowing they will never be exposed to the authorities, perpetrators feel secure in continuing to abuse old and new victims.
The woman eventually reported her relative to the child protection services in the early 2000s after she spent some time with her young cousin, who told her about how he would tickle her when she was with him.
She reported the case, fearing he could still be abusing children. The relative was immediately arrested and questioned by the police and charged in court with child sex abuse. Throughout the proceedings, he pleaded not guilty to the crimes, and he died while the case was still ongoing.
Dominican friar Fr Charles Fenech, who years later had a romantic relationship with the woman, is prohibited from practising the priestly ministry. A second abuser
But before all of that, the woman claims she had to endure a second abuse when she was still a teenager, this time from a priest, another Dominican friar like Frendo.
After he learned of the first abuse, Frendo introduced her to a youth group run by Fr Charles Fenech, then a rising figure in the Dominican Order who had founded the popular Kerygma Movement and Radju Marija.
She was 17 at the time, and Frendo felt the youth group would help her out of her troubles, which were clouding her teenage years.
She says Fenech did help her a lot, especially after he learned about the abuse she went through as a child.
She said he took her under his wing and became her spiritual director, but the two eventually developed a “romantic relationship” during which they would sometimes kiss and even lie together in the same bed.
The woman said he initiated the relationship and that she would tell him she was growing romantically attached to him. She says this did not stop him, even though he knew how vulnerable she was due to her childhood abuse.
She says that when, sometime later, she confided in Frendo, by then a missionary in Albania, about what had happened with Fenech, he refused to intervene.
Back then, Fenech had been appointed the provincial of the Dominican Order in Malta, and the woman says Frendo would not take it against his superior.
“His words were: ‘I cannot do anything about this. That man is like my father now, because he is the provincial of the Dominicans’,” she said.
She says that when she insisted she wanted to report him, Frendo sent her a letter from his Albanian mission, urging her to love and forgive instead of seek revenge, and to respect the people he loved and respected.
Bishop George Frendo today acknowledges that in hindsight, he should have gone to the police immediately back then, because “while forgiveness is important, it must go hand in hand with justice,” he said ‘I didn’t believe her and I’m sorry’
During the interview, Frendo admitted that when she told him about the second abuse, he did not believe her, thinking she was perhaps making it up as a result of her troubled teenage years.
“That was a mistake on my part – not believing her – and for that, I sincerely ask her forgiveness,” he told Times of Malta.
“Fenech had also written to me in Albania to tell me that her mother had gone to him to scold him for what he had done to her daughter, and he told me to persuade them to drop these allegations.”
He said that at the time he believed him over the woman, and that is why he wrote her that letter.
He did clarify, however, that when he first introduced the woman to Fenech and the Kerygma movement, he had never heard any allegations that Fenech was behaving immorally in any way. Till then, he only saw him as the charismatic leader many people admired.
Questions sent to Fr Charles Fenech remained unanswered by the time of writing.
Fenech was eventually charged with sexual abuse over a separate case.
In 2017 he was found guilty of sexually abusing an adult woman who had mental health problems, and who had made similar allegations, but was acquitted on appeal a year later, after the appeals court ruled the relationship had been consensual.
The woman who spoke to Times of Malta also reported her case with Fenech to the Church’s Safeguarding Commission, which investigated it some years later.
The police could not take her case to court because it had been time-barred by then.
Times of Malta has seen documents from investigations into both abuses, and they support the woman’s account. Sources close to the Archbishop’s Curia also confirmed her version of events is considered credible.
Times of Malta also sent questions to the Church and the Dominican Order about Fr Charles Fenech’s status now.
Although he was cleared of all criminal charges years ago, both institutions confirmed he is still prohibited from practising the priestly ministry in public indefinitely.
The Dominican Order also confirmed he is banned from practising as a priest abroad.
In their reply, the Dominicans said they take all allegations of abuse seriously, that they refer such cases to the safeguarding commission due to conflict of interest, and that the law obliges them to report abuse of minors.
“I wish to reaffirm the Maltese Dominican Province’s full commitment and alignment with the highest standards of safeguarding, as outlined by the Church’s Safeguarding Policy adopted by the Church in Malta and Gozo in 2024, so as to ensure that our spaces remain safe for all those who frequent them,” the provincial said.
The safeguarding commission said any allegation involving minors or vulnerable adults is treated with the utmost seriousness, and that cases where minors remain at risk are referred directly to the police and the Child Protection Directorate.
“No allegation or concern relating to the abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult should ever be minimised or overlooked. Anyone wishing to report concerns involving Church personnel should do so in confidence to the safeguarding commission or the relevant ordinary,” a Curia spokesperson said.
“Where a complaint concerns the alleged abuse of a minor, or where a minor may be at risk of harm, the commission immediately reports the matter to the police or the child protection directorate, in accordance with Maltese law.”
If you are a victim of rape or sexual assault, irrespective of whether the crime has been reported or not, whether recent or not, you can get in touch with Victim Support Malta on 2122 8333 or info@victimsupport.org.mt.
