It is impossible to have any faith in an internal Catholic Church inquiry into child sexual abuse in Wexford and the State must take on that responsibility, writes Colm O'Gorman, one of the victims as a schoolboy of Father Sean Fortune
In March 1999, as I prepared to return to London following yet another delay to the then four-year process of taking criminal charges against Sean Fortune, I received a telephone call telling me that he had committed suicide.
I was devastated to hear how, in a final refusal to be forced to stand trial on the 66 charges he faced, he had killed himself with a cocktail of alcohol and drugs. I felt an extraordinary mix of emotions but principally I was distraught that this appalling saga had claimed yet another victim, Sean Fortune himself.
I was surprised to find those same feelings come to the surface on Monday as I heard the news of Bishop Brendan Comiskey's resignation. I again felt a deep sense of sadness that here now was another casualty of this whole cycle of abuse, neglect and failure, this time the career and reputation of Dr Comiskey.
Don't get me wrong, I by no means feel any sense of responsibility for either Sean Fortune's suicide or for Bishop Comiskey's resignation.
What is clear to me is that Bishop Comiskey and Father Fortune share one thing: they were both the clear architects of their own downfalls - Fortune by the choices he made and by the horrific abuse he perpetrated on dozens of young boys over 20-plus years, and Dr Comiskey by his abject failure to deal appropriately with allegations and detailed statements from Father Fortune's victims and their families.
I did not seek either Sean Fortune's destruction or Dr Comiskey's resignation: indeed both events have, I believe, been major setbacks to my quest for acknowledgement of past failures and the devastation caused by Fortune's abuse and the Catholic Church's inaction.
It is my hope that as a society we can now move beyond some of the scapegoating that we have seen in this case. Dr Comiskey alone is not responsible for what happened. The wider church had frequent complaints raised by victims of Father Fortune and there is evidence that these complaints reached the Vatican itself.
I feel a huge sense of disappointment that both Cardinal Connell and Archbishop Brady have distanced themselves from this case and asserted that they do not know enough to comment. If their statements are true, the two most senior figures in the Catholic Church in Ireland are the only people in the country who lack the knowledge to have an opinion. In this way they have also shown utter contempt for me and the many other victims who have reached out to them for acknowledgement, honesty and comfort following rape and sexual abuse perpetrated by men that they, in some cases knowingly, gave dominion over children and the communities in which the church placed them.
IT is no longer acceptable for any agency, let alone one that has been given a privileged position in Irish society under the Constitution, to behave with such arrogance and disregard for human suffering. What is equally clear to me is that, given the way the church has failed so completely to acknowledge past failures in a frank and open way it is now impossible to have any faith in any internal church inquiry. The State, and specifically the Minister for Health and Children, Micheál Martin, have responsibility for the protection of children and young people and it is the State that must institute any such inquiry.
What I and other victims need above all else is to be freed of the burden of having to pursue an institution as powerful as the Catholic Church in order to force them to live up to their moral and, I believe, legal responsibilities in these cases.
It is frankly beyond belief to hear that given these resources Bishop Comiskey, his predecessor in Ferns, Bishop Herlihy, and the entire church hierarchy, all the way up to the Vatican, could not prevent Father Fortune from using the position and authority they granted him to target, abuse, rape and devastate the lives of countless young boys who came into contact with him through their commitment to their faith and their involvement in the Catholic Church.
I again call upon my church to provide me with the love and compassion that I heard Christ so often speak of and to face their responsibilities in my own and many similar cases. It is time that the church began to minister to the horrific wounds of the victims of paedophile priests rather than simply to seek to protect their own position and authority.
Who knows, if the church was to act in a more Christian way I might even regain the faith that was so central to my life until I endured 2½ years of violent and sadistic rape and abuse by one of their priests.
Colm O'Gorman now lives in London where he is involved in running One in Four, a UK charity to help people who have been sexually abused.