CARDIFF (UNITED KINGDOM)
The Tablet [Market Harborough, England]
December 17, 2024
By Ruth Gledhill and Bess Twiston Davies
Children were repeatedly abused by a monk belonging to the Cistercian community at Caldey Abbey, south Wales over many years
The Archbishop of Cardiff-Menevia has responded to the publication of the Caldey Abbey Review into allegations of childhood sexual abuse within the monastic community of Caldey Abbey on Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire, saying he is “profoundly sorry” and pledging that the cries of the victims “are finally being heard”.
Arcbishop Mark O’Toole said, “This report is heart-breaking but that heartbreak is nothing compared to the pain, suffering and trauma experienced by the victims/survivors.
“To you, I say how profoundly sorry I am for the abuse you suffered, especially that this happened within the Church and that the Church failed you in its response over so many years. I hope that having this opportunity to share your story, and to have it recorded, even after all this time, helps you personally, and especially to know that your anguished cries are finally being heard.
“You are very much in my thoughts and prayers and I know you will be in the prayers of the Catholic Community, too.”
The review by consultant social worker Jan Pickles, and commissioned by the abbey, documents horrific abuse taking place from the late 1960s to 1992 of children, some living on the island and some visiting with their families. Many complained at the time about what had happened but were disbelieved, disregarded or the abuse was covered up.
Fr Thaddeus Kotik, born in Poland and who obtained British citizenship in 1959, died in 1992 without being called to account for any of his crimes.
“Victim testimonies from the 1970’s suggest TK to have been a serial and prolific abuser of children, often in ‘plain sight’ of others,” the report says. “The victims describe being taken by him to beaches, woods, gardens, an old container or building which had fallen into disrepair and waiting for them leaving school. Some describe being sexually abused several times a day in the summer months. A visitor to the Island described seeing TK making a ‘bee line’ for them as they arrived from the mainland and carrying a five year old girl around the island and being challenged by islanders to put the child down – this Reviewer has seen photographs of TK inappropriately holding the child concerned. TK’s interest in children was not hidden from view, and it appears to have been tolerated by adults on the Island.”
Meanwhile, a priest of East Anglia Diocese convicted of child sex abuse has been laicised. In March 2023, Dennis Finbow of Martlesham near Ipswich in Suffolk received a six-and-a-half year prison sentence for abusing a young girl in the 1980s, while serving a parish in Dogsthorpe, Peterborough.
And in Scotland, Daniel Doherty, a former priest based in Falkirk has been jailed for 16 months for sexually assaulting a man who had fallen asleep on a train. Once a priest of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Doherty claimed he was “affirming” the victim, after fellow passengers complained to staff on a service to Edinburgh Waverley station that they had witnessed the cleric indecently touching the man.