Victim of Monks' Sex Abuse: Bishop's Apology Not Enough

This Week
August 5, 2013

http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/54459/chistopher-walls-victim-monks-sex-abuse-bishop-aberdeen-apology


Christopher Walls, abused at what was one of Scotland's top Catholic schools, says Church needs to make amends

A MAN who was sexually abused as a child by Benedictine monks at one of Scotland's most prestigious Catholic schools has complained that an apology from the Bishop of Aberdeen at the weekend was "a bit thin" and had only been offered because the Church felt cornered.

Christopher Walls, now in his sixties, said: "You don't get absolution when you go to confession just for saying sorry. You've got to have a firm purpose of amendment and that involves taking action. And you've got to make good the damage you did. And there's no hint of that."

Walls was physically and sexually abused when he was a pupil more than 50 years ago at Carlekemp Priory School in North Berwick, East Lothian, which served as a feeder prep school for Fort Augustus Abbey School in the Highlands. Both schools have since closed.

His plight was exposed last Monday by a BBC Scotland documentary, Sins of Our Fathers, which heard evidence of abuse against seven monks who taught at the two schools.

Yesterday, the Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Gilbert, apologised on behalf of the Church in an address to parishioners at Fort Augustus. He said the abuse had been "bitter, shaming and distressing".

As Mark Daly of BBC Scotland notes, Bishop Gilbert's address marks the first time a senior Catholic cleric has spoken publicly about abuse at the abbey schools since the documentary was broadcast.

It was also significant because “the allegations centred on monks from the Benedictine congregation, which is essentially an autonomous order within the Catholic Church... The Catholic Church had told us this was not a matter for them, it was a matter for the Benedictines."

But for Christopher Walls, the apology was not enough. The six monks who abused him as a young schoolboy beat him with sticks and sexually abused him in the confessional. He told Radio 4's Today programme that when he finally reported it to Catholic authorities in 2010, he was urged not to say anything but to "offer it up as a sacrifice".

He added: "On a daily basis I've had to swallow anger, fear and regret at my lost childhood." According to Walls, neither the Scottish police nor the Catholic Church has made contact with him since the abuse was made public. ·