Clerical sex victims now more willing to act

The further jailing of Brendan Smyth may just be the end of the beginning where child sex abuse cases involving clergy in this country is concerned.

Mr Ted Lavery, solicitor for six of Smyth's victims, has initiated proceedings for compensation against the Catholic Primate, Dr Brady. Solicitors for the Primate are denying any liability.

Mr Lavery has described this as "a morally indefensible position". He compares the way the church in Ireland and the church in Dallas, Texas - which has been ordered to pay $120 million to victims of sex abuse by priests - have handled the abuse cases, drawing "fairly obvious parallels".

He highlights the fact that, whereas the Dallas case dealt with abuse over an 11-year period, the period involving Smyth's abuse while a priest covers at least 30 years. "They [the church authorities] knew prior to 1958," he maintains, "and the abuse continued until 1993."

He feels the Dallas case will mean "a very dramatic development in terms of the victims' outlook". He believes victims here have an even stronger case against the church than in the US.

One thing is apparent in Ireland, however, and that is the greater willingness among victims to act as a result of being abused.

According to Ms Olive Braiden, of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, they have had hundreds of victims of such abuse seek their help since opening in 1978.

So persistent have been the complaints that staff at the centre were not as shocked as the public when first reports of child sex abuse cases involving priests and brothers came to light.

"It was nothing new to us," said Ms Braiden.

However, she said the vast majority of the victims had felt unable to pursue the matter. Many were still practising Catholics and those that were not did not feel they could endure the trauma of a trial.

She said for such people events like those of the past week concerning Smyth's trial make for "a very, very hard time". It brought back what had happened to them and made them feel very isolated.

The centre receives more calls from victims when abuse is in the news. Research indicated that during October to December 1994, when publicity surrounding the Smyth case was at a height, there were 2,385 first-time callers to the centre about child sex abuse and rape.

Some 80 per cent of the callers were women, of whom 57 per cent rang concerning sex abuse as children. Where men were concerned, 80 per cent of the calls concerned their abuse sexually as children.

In 6 per cent of the cases concerning child sex abuse, the abuser was identified as a priest, teaching brother or clergyman.

Male victims of child sex abuse were much more likely to have been abused by a priest or cleric (16 per cent) than female victims (3 per cent).

Of those calls, just 4 per cent of child sex abuse victims had reported the matter to gardai.

Between 1983 and yesterday, 23 priests and religious (13 in the Republic) were convicted on child sex abuse charges in both jurisdictions. Most have been convicted during the past six years.

In 21 of these cases, the defendants pleaded guilty. Of the two who pleaded "not guilty" Father Edward Kilpatrick was acquitted and the other defendant was found guilty but has been released pending an appeal.

There are now a further 16 cases pending in the two jurisdictions.

As of 1994, the last year for which accurate figures are available, there were 22,055 religious in Ireland, North and South. That included 3,700 diocesan priests, 4,430 religious (order) priests, 12,900 nuns, and 1,025 religious brothers.

Mr Jim Cantwell, at the Catholic Press and Information Office, yesterday urged people who may have been abused by a priest, brother or nun to come forward.

"It would be the church's wish that they do so," he said, and assured such people of "prompt, sensitive, consideration" whoever they approached.

That was church policy, he said, and without ambiguity. The mechanisms were in place to deal with such complaints.

"With the benefit of hindsight," he said, "past procedures can now be seen to have been inadequate." Everybody's knowledge and understanding of abuse, including that of church people and those in the social sciences, "had increased enormously in recent years", he said. This was due to "adult survivors of abuse who broke the silence by speaking out about abuse".

They had given society a greater insight into the behaviour of offenders and the compulsive nature of the abuse and "we can now see that the options for the future in ministry of an offending priest or religious are extremely limited".

He added that, in accordance with the policy of Irish dioceses, Smyth cannot exercise his ministry while a prisoner. Last year, these functions were also withdrawn from him by the Norbertine Order, which has also initiated canonical disciplinary proceedings.