BishopAccountability.org
	Breaching the Wall of Silence By Michael Breslin the Fermanagh Herald May 19, 2009 http://www.nwipp-newspapers.com/fh/free/294521926814808.php ' I was 14 when I first met Fr Sean Fortune. He was in his late 20's then, tall and imposing. Always one for the dramatic, he would wear the long, flowing Roman-style black robes. And, he was loud'. This is how Colm O'Gorman, author of, 'Beyond Belief', recalls the Catholic priest who first abused him shortly after this encounter back in 1972 and went on to sexually abuse him for two and half years. Readers may recall that Fr Fortune overdosed himself in 1999 and, in doing so, cheated on a pending Court trial where he faced sexual offences against eight victims, the author among them. The priest had already appeared in court to hear the 29 charges read out. The intervening 27 years had been traumatic ones for O'Gorman, from leaving home in his teens in Wexford in the Diocese of Ferns to becoming a rent boy in Dublin and then London where, finally, he met a male partner who gave his life direction. Overarching the abuse by Fr Fortune was the always present fear the priest would tell his father, thereby buying his acquiescence and, beyond that, the protection given to Fr Fortune by his bishop Brendan Comiskey by his inaction when the priest was complained about. So, one can imagine the author's feelings when, at last, his alleged abuser made his court appearance. The first thing he noticed was that Fr Fortune was on crutches ('I didn't know what the crutches were for'). "My stomach lurched as I realised that this was finally it. It had begun. There could be no more secrets now. It was out and it would have to be dealt with." After each of the 29 charges, the priest answered, 'Not guilty'. He was granted bail and returned to a rented house in New Ross which, we are told, he had turned into a fortress. "He was right to be anxious, although some people refused to believe that a priest could be guilty of such awful crimes. Kids kicked the shutters of the house while he was inside. When the Gardai arrived, he showed them the video of the incident on cctv where he was seen running down the street after the boys. "This was the same man who had appeared in court a week earlier on crutches, with the wheelchair waiting at the foot of the stairs." It is one of the rare moments of levity in this book, written by an abusee who has become an iconic figure in the Irish Catholic church abuse saga. His abuser, it would seem, was not a nice man in other ways. For instance, he was supposed to publicly curse the first-born of any committee member who disagreed with him. "Such a threat was terrifying. These were very religious people who saw their priests as all-powerful." But, as the saying goes, for evil to flourish, good men must stay silent. In this instance, the hierarchy of the Catholic church sat on their hands. And, having been denied justice in court, the author directed his gun at a higher level, at Bishop Comiskey, the Papal Nuncio and the Pope. In the latter two instances, he failed, the Nuncio claiming diplomatic immunity and Rome simply ignoring his letters. A troubled Bishop Comiskey resigned and, in time, the ground-breaking Ferns Report was published. Before that, in 2003, O'Gorman was read an apology in the High Court on behalf of the acting Bishop of Ferns. It acknowledged the distress, trauma and hurt caused to him by Fr Fortune and, also, the failure of Bishop Comiskey, 'to recognise and act on the threat posed by Fr Fortune'. There was also a financial settlement. Out of tragedy, the author's legacies are many. He founded the One in Four support group for victims of sexual abuse, the name derived from the statistic that around a quarter of those abused experienced sexual abuse in childhood. And, there came a new realisation within the Catholic Church of the need for strict child protection guidelines. 'Beyond Belief' by Colm O'Gorman is now available in paperback in Eason's, Enniskillen at £10.99. It is published by Hodder and Stoughton and runs to 307 pages.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.