IRELAND
The Journal
To give the survivors of horrific childhood abuse the support and care they need, we must properly understand the threat that suicide poses to victims, writes Mark Vincent Healy.
PERHAPS THERE CAN be no darker subjects than suicide and clerical child sexual abuse. When they are combined, where there is strong evidence in countless surveys and reports to suggest there is a direct link between them, one is perhaps doubly horrified by such issues. It’s a topic which can refer all too often to a horrific beginning to one’s life as it does a most tragic end.
I felt moved to do something about the combined suffering of suicide and clerical child sexual abuse and attended the launch of the World Suicide Prevention Week on Thursday 5 September 2013 at the Department of Health, Hawkins House.
As a campaign survivor of child sexual abuse by members of the Spiritans or Holy Ghost Fathers, I am mindful of the failures of this congregation to address my needs and those of others survivors and their distraught families with whom I am in contact. I have been told by the Acting CEO, Ms Teresa Devlin of the National Board for Safeguarding Children that she has received update reports from second tranche participants which once processed will be published later this month.
There is a connection between these events and their subjects and it’s a very tragic and important one.
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