The church wants me to die, but I am not done yet

By Eileen Piper
Australian
February 13, 2017

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/the-church-wants-me-to-die-but-i-am-not-done-yet/news-story/330bbb9cc4cc634b6429ff1a2d07b6f1

Eileen Piper, 92, with a picture of her daughter Stephanie who was the victim of rape by a priest and later in life committed suicide. Eileen is asking for a apology and compensation. Photo by David Geraghty

It was January 19, 1994, when the mother of two found a note left by her only daughter, Stephanie­, in her bedroom at the family’s Melbourne home.

“A blaze of glory streams from heaven’s gates,” it read. “The prize: eternal life. A dream no more, for God himself has opened his holy sacred doors to a peaceful place.”

After years of sexual abuse as a teenager at the hands of disgraced Pallottine priest Father Gerard Mulvale, Stephanie had been unable­ to recover and ended her life just after she turned 32.

Twenty-three years later, Stephanie’s 92-year-old mother is still battling with the institution that refused to acknowledge the systematic abuse of her daughter. Here she tells her story:

Don’t be fooled by the Catholic Church’s supposed grief and regret at the royal commission into child abuse as the archbishops give evidence. Don’t be fooled by their crocodile tears or their so-called quest to heal. These manufactured gestures mean nothing. I know, because the church continues to refuse to have anything to do with me, the elderly mother of one of the horrifically abused victims.

The year before my daughter Stephanie killed herself, she told me that she’d been repeatedly ­sexually abused as a teenager by a Catholic priest.

The Catholic Church did everything in its power to silence and deny this abuse.

Then, a few days after her ­suicide, a member of the church turned to me and said: “Don’t worry. God will forgive her.” I threw him out of my house and turned my back on my faith.

I’m now 92 and I have one mission I’m determined to fulfil before my time is up: I want a proper, personal apology from Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart and Pallottine leader Father Eugene San.

It’s time that they took responsibility for the evil that happened under the watch of their predecessors, and to properly compensate for my Stephanie’s horrendous abuse and subsequent suicide.

I adopted Stephanie as an ­infant because I wanted to give her a chance in the world. I trusted Pallottine priest Gerard Mulvale to care for and protect her. He did the exact opposite.

Mulvale told Stephanie she’d been born out of sin, because she was adopted, and she needed to “make up for it”. His way of doing that was plying her with alcohol when she was still little more than a child, then repeatedly sexually abusing her on many horrific ­occasions.

Then, he locked her in the boot of his car, drove down a dirt road and brutally raped her. Stephanie described it as being “torn apart ­internally” — an image that haunts me to this day.

Stephanie complained to the church and to the police. On the strength of her complaint, the police charged Mulvale.

But my beautiful daughter was so tortured and tormented that she took her own life before the trial.

The church, on the other hand, went out of their way to discredit my darling daughter. The church bullied a key witness into giving false evidence — an inaccurate character assessment of Stephanie. This witness later withdrew that false statement on oath.

I will not rest until my daughter’s good name is restored through an apology for the humiliation, the abuse and her lost life.

Mulvale was later convicted of sex crimes against two boys in my daughter’s friendship circle. Yet, to this day, the Catholic Church have said they won’t acknowledge my daughter’s assaults.

In December, I requested, through my lawyer, documents ­relating to the church’s internal ­investigation of Stephanie’s ­complaint from the 1990s, that are held by the Melbourne Response, including a suicide note of Stephanie’s. But such a request was ­refused and I am denied these ­documents.

They’re simply waiting for me to die. But I’m not done yet. I’ve been learning about the internet, and the power it has to shame the leaders of the Archdiocese of ­Melbourne and the Pallottines for what they are: hypocrites.

They preach from the pulpit about forgiveness. But refuse to ask for it when it’s needed most by society’s most vulnerable.

I’m now the oldest person in Australia to set up an online ­petition on Change.org. More than 45,000 people have signed it which, to me, is amazing.

This feels like the most anybody, aside from my lawyer Judy, has cared about Stephanie since she died. It has given me a new lease of energy and hope that the Archbishop and the Pallottines will finally do the right thing. The church needs to heal. But I need to heal too.

The Catholic Church has cashed up armies of lawyers and PR people. It’s hard for a pensioner like me to compete with that. But I now have more than 40,000 ­people who can help me persuade Archbishop Hart and Father San that they owe me a personal apology, and proper compensation. They can come to my home in Frankston and make it. I can still get around so I’ll even travel to them on the bus to hear it.

But I need to hear it before I die. I need them to look me in the eye and say it.

Before Stephanie died, she said: “Mum, what’s the use, they will never believe me.” The last words I said to her were: “Darling, I love you”.

As my petition grows, I’ll be asking the thousands of signers to contact the Catholic Church and tell them why the truth, an apology and proper compensation to somebody like me is so important and so urgent.

I gave 50 years of my life to the Catholic Church. The least they can give me is reparation and atonement for the brutal actions of their priests that led to the death of the daughter I continue to love just so much. They failed her, and to refuse to acknowledge it for a day longer would add insult to injury.