Church must face the unpalatable truth as list of offences grows
At least a dozen Catholic dioceses have now been affected by criminal proceedings against their priests for child sex abuse

By Andy Pollak
Irish Times
September 30, 1995

In the past three years there have been court cases involving priests or religious brothers charged with child sex abuse or related offences from at least 12 of Ireland's 26 Catholic dioceses.

At least seven dioceses have been affected since the Norbertine priest Brendan Smyth was convicted last year by a Belfast court of a 20 year litany of offences against children.

Ironically, Dr Comiskey's diocese of Ferns is not one of them - although one of his curates was convicted of indecent assault as long ago as 1990. This may change charges are expected to be laid against the curate who was the subject of such widespread rumour and speculation in the local and national press last week.

The worst affected dioceses are the two biggest Northern ones, Down and Connor which includes the greater Belfast area and Derry.

Following Smyth's conviction in June 1994, RUC detectives went through the rolls of every Catholic children's home and orphanage in Northern Ireland known to have been visited by him.

In these inquiries the RUC uncovered allegations of physical and sexual abuse by priests and brothers in the Down and Connor diocese. The allegations are believed to concern offences which took place over a 40 year period and to involve up to 10 priests and brothers.

The Primate, Cardinal Cahal Daly, said in June that several Northern bishops were co operating with the RUC in child sex abuse inquiries involving "a small number of individual priests".

The cardinal made that statement as he expressed his distress and horror at the conviction of a Co Down priest, Daniel Curran, who was jailed after pleading guilty to 13 charges of attempted buggery, indecent assault and gross indecency against young teenage boys from west Belfast.

• Earlier this month two De la Salle brothers appeared at a Co Down court on charges of sexually abusing young boys at an order home in the late 1970s.

• A week ago Brendan Smyth pleaded guilty at Belfast Crown Court to 26 more charges of indecently assaulting nine girls and four boys between 1969 and 1988.

• Last Monday two priests appeared at Derry Magistrates Court in separate cases involving alleged indecent assaults on young girls. One of the cases involved offences allegedly committed in the late 1980s, the other offences are alleged to have happened in the early 1960s when the defendant was a student priest.

• In June a writ for damages was issued in the Belfast High Court against a senior Catholic priest in the Derry diocese on behalf of a woman who alleges that he sexually abused her for 10 years. The priest has not been charged.

• South of the Border, priests and brothers charged with sexual offences have been before the courts regularly over the past year. Last December a religious brother from Co Monaghan was jailed by the Central Criminal Court for seven years for having intercourse with a girl.

• In June a Dublin priest was jailed for sexually assaulting a boy in a pub toilet on the day of his grandfather's funeral.

• In early July, in Tuam, a priest of the diocese was returned for trial at Galway Circuit Court next month to face 15 charges of indecently assaulting a boy. Later that month another Dublin priest appeared in court charged with five counts of indecent assault.

• Earlier this month a former Kilkenny parish priest was returned for trial in November on five charges, including buggery, attempted buggery and indecent assault. This case is believed to have involved the biggest ever Garda investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse against a priest.

It is believed that over the past three years 30 to 40 priests and brothers have either appeared before the courts or been under active investigation by the Gardai or RUC in connection with such offences.

Other dioceses where members of the Catholic clergy have been convicted during that time have been Armagh, Clonfert, Cork, Galway and Elphin. These offences have ranged from relatively minor cases of indecent assault to cases such as that of a teaching brother from Elphin who was jailed for 12 years for raping and buggering schoolboys and of an Ottawa based Cork priest who received eight years for what the judge called a "brutal sexual attack" on a 17 year old boy.

In the diocese of Kilmore the priests at Kilnacrott Abbey in Cavan are bracing themselves for another rash of charges against Brendan Smyth, this time in the Republic.

As one senior priest said last week with reference to Bishop Comiskey's departure for the US: "if every bishop with a sex abuse case pending against one of his priests were to flee the country, there wouldn't be much of a Hierarchy left."

There are two particularly notable elements in the extraordinary upsurge of child sex abuse cases involving priests. First, the numbers are growing rapidly in the wake of the publicity given to the Smyth and other cases. Last summer, more cases involving priests came to the Irish courts than ever before.

The second key element is that many of the offences or alleged offences go back many years. Smyth's crimes against children went back to the 1950s. Alleged offences before the courts this week date from the 1960s. One thing is certain: the Catholic Church is going to have to prepare itself for the unpalatable fact that this is only the tip of the iceberg, with many more painful and damaging cases waiting to be uncovered.