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Sexually Abusive Priest Was Reinstated As Minister on Cardinal Nichols’s Watch

By Gabriella Swerling
Telegraph via Yahoo News
December 8, 2020

https://news.yahoo.com/sexually-abusive-priest-reinstated-minister-143458572.html

A view of statue of Saint Pope John Paul II in front of the All Saints Church in Warsaw, Poland, 19 November 2020. Pope Saint John Paul II was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005. Statue of Saint Pope John Paul II in Warsaw, Poland - 19 Nov 2020 - EPA-EFE/Shutterstock/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

A “sado masochistic” priest who abused a boy was sent to the US for "therapy" before being reinstated as a minister on Cardinal Nichols’s watch, it has emerged.

Father Joseph Quigley, 56, a former national education advisor for Roman Catholic schools, sexually and physically abused a boy and locked him in a church crypt.

Quigley, who held various “prestigious” roles, was known as ‘Father Joe’ at the time of the abuse, jurors at Warwick Crown Court heard as he was convicted last week.

The offences took place while he was the parish priest in a Warwickshire church in the early 2000s. However, in 2008, when a complaint was made by a third party about Quigley's relationship with a sixth form student, he was "removed from high priesting" and sent to an institute in the US for six months.

“After six months of therapy, he was returned to the UK and put on restricted duties,” prosecutor Adrian Langdale QC told the court. “It would seem the Catholic Church believed that by doing so it had met its duties.”

He added that the police were not informed.

At the time, Cardinal Vincent Nichols (below) was Archbishop of Birmingham, a role in which he served from 2000 to 2009. He now acts as the most senior Catholic in England and Wales in his new role as Archbishop of Westminster.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, leaves after giving evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in London, as part of the IICSA investigation of the Archdiocese of Birmingham. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Monday February 13, 2017. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is examining if there were failings across a range of organisations in protecting children from harm, including the Catholic Church. As part of the investigations into the churchOs handling of child sexual abuse allegations, the inquiry team has looked at the Archdiocese of Birmingham as a case study. See PA story INQUIRY Abuse. Photo credit should read: Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire - Kirsty O'Connor/PA Wire

This is not the first time that Cardinal Nichols has been accused of turning a blind eye to abuse scandals.

Last year the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) concluded that he was more concerned with protecting the Church’s reputation than historic victims of child sex abuse.

The government-ordered inquiry concluded that children could have been saved in the Archdiocese of Birmingham had the Catholic Church not “repeatedly failed” to alert police to allegations.

Since the mid 1930s, there have been more than 130 allegations of child sexual abuse made against 78 people associated with the Archdiocese. At the time of the IICSA report, at least 13 of them had been convicted in criminal courts and three others had been cautioned.

One of them was James Robinson, a motorbike-riding "role-model" to his victims who is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence.

After avoiding prosecution for 25 years, he was eventually extradited from the US after being helped to flee there in 1985. He had continued to receive financial support from the church for seven years.

Responding to the fact that Quigley was sent to the US for “therapy” before being allowed to return to the UK to minister, one Catholic abuse victim who gave evidence to the inquiry, told The Telegraph: "I felt absolutely sickened when I read the account of this case.

“What shocked me to the core was the fact that Joe Quigley's actions had been known about but were not reported to the police at the time.

“Instead, as in so many other cases, he was moved off elsewhere. This all happened while Cardinal Nichols was Archbishop of Birmingham and highlights again his gross failings to deal with safeguarding in a transparent and appropriate way.

“It highlights how he has consistently sought to protect the reputation of the Church, even if that means that abusers are free to re-abuse. It shows again the urgent need for him to step down if the Church is ever to be a safe place for children and young people."

Quigley, of Staffordshire, denied four charges of sexual activity with a child, two of sexual assault, two of false imprisonment and one of cruelty.

Although some allegations emerged in 2012, the full facts only came out after the victim began to see a therapist in 2017 – and the therapist informed the police.

Jurors found that Quigley rubbed the boy’s inner thigh after making him wear a gym kit and take showers with the door open, as well as inflicting “sado-masochistic” punishments on him such as locking him in the church's crypt.

He also beat the boy with a hurling stick during his time at St Charles Borromeo RC church in Hampton-on-the-Hill near Warwick.

Mr Langdale said although the case involved one victim who was a teenager at the time Quigley was at St Charles Borromeo, there was another key witness who had also been abused by the priest.

That boy was aged 16-17 when he fell under the influence of Quigley – and there were a number of similarities between the abuse the two boys suffered.

Having targeted his victim, Quigley took advantage of him struggling at school to offer private tuition to get him alone.

“It will seem extraordinary that a person’s religious beliefs could make them blind to what was wrong, but this is why Father Joe, as he was known, was able to get away with the abuse for so long," Mr Langdale said.

“Despite there not being an investigation at the time, there was clearly another victim the church would have found if they had looked,” the prosecutor said.

Describing the priest as "a sexual sadist and voyeur", Judge Peter Cooke remanded him in custody while a report is prepared on him to assess the danger he poses in the future, adding that “a lengthy prison sentence is inevitable”.

A spokesman for the Cardinal said that the offences for which Quigley was tried and convicted pertain to allegations that were first made in 2012, after the Cardinals' time as Archbishop of Birmingham.

He added: "The complaint was considered by the Archdiocese of Birmingham’s Safeguarding Officer and Safeguarding Commission. Advice was sought from the police, in the person of a member of the Commission who was a serving officer. A serving probation officer was also a member of the Commission.

"The decision was made that the matter should be referred to the statutory Children’s Services manager who had responsibility for those in positions of trust.

"Joseph Quigley was removed from parish ministry and sent, in early 2009, for therapeutic intervention at the St Luke’s Centre in the USA, returning in the summer of 2009.

No charges were brought against Joseph Quigley in respect of this complaint."

 

 

 

 

 




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