Pope Francis prays in front of a candle in memory of victims of sexual abuse when he visited St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin last year. Photo: CNS Dear Editor, On March 15 the Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (Savia), presented a report at Stormont – What Survivors Want from Redress.
This document, compiled by survivors, with the help of local and international experts, is a vitally important statement addressed to both Church and State.
I was privileged to be invited to Stormont to stand with the victims and survivors of institutional abuse on that important occasion. I too am a survivor of child abuse as one of the victims of former priest, James Donaghy, a convicted paedophile and sexual predator.
Those represented on March 15 at Stormont suffered at the hands of both Church and State in the North of Ireland. Those present included victims of Termonbacca, Nazareth House, Rubane, Kincora and Rathgael, to name but some.
The anguish of those abused, in these Church- and State-run institutions, is similar. The devastation and ongoing trauma is the same. The continuous attempts, by the British establishment, to cover up the evil perpetrated on young residents of Kincora Boys’ Home, is shocking and must be persistently pursued, exposed and challenged, until truth and justice prevail.
As a priest, however, I must speak particularly about those children of ours who were brutally abused – sexually, physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically – in Catholic Church-run orphanages and other such institutions.
There can be no excuse, before God, for any withholding, by the Church, of any redress, whatsoever, that is needed and sought, by the victims and survivors of those establishments presided over by Catholic clergy and religious.
It is the very least that we can do for those so brutally betrayed by ravening wolves, who were facilitated and, afterwards protected, by a corrupt and dysfunctional ecclesiastical system.
Yours etc.,
Fr Patrick McCafferty,
Crossgar, Co. Down.