IRELAND
National Survivor Advocates Coalition
[Mark Vincent Healy is a campaigning abuse survivor. Read his full report and response to the NSBCCCI audit into the Holy Ghost Fathers here.]
The Catholic Church should be actively looking for victims of abuse and offering support, writes survivor Mark Vincent Healy.
Mark Vincent Healy was abused while he was a student at St. Mary’s College, a Dublin school run by the Congregation of Spiritans (formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers). He has been campaigning for years for the Catholic Church to actively seek out more victims of abuse so the correct rescue response can be administered.
IT MAY SEEM obvious that in the aftermath of a serious accident or natural disaster, the necessary emergency and rescue services should respond. But strangely, that is not what has happened in the case of clerical child sexual abuse in Ireland.
Clerical child sex abuse can be compared to a crash – except there are thousands upon thousands of victims at the scene. Already, the Ryan Report published in May 2009 showed that 15,000 children came forward out of the estimated 120,000 to 130,000 children sent to the various Irish institutions examined by Justice Ryan.
The only figures on the numerous organisations of the Irish Missionary Union have now been published, representing even more victims. The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church have completed their audits on child protection for the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC), the Congregation of Dominicans and the Congregation of Spiritans.
There were 91 members in the three missionary congregations against whom allegations have been made between 1 January 1975 and the date of the review. The total number of abuse allegations raised was found to be 255. These figures only represent what is included in the files kept by the orders.
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