Abused priest says victims need help

Abused priest says victims need help

30 March 2016

A CROSSGAR priest has spoken of the “devastating” clerical sexual abuse he suffered in a heartfelt appeal to church and state on behalf of other victims.

Fr Patrick McCafferty, abused as young seminarian by convicted paedophile priest James Donaghy, says there needs to be “urgent” redress for the survivors of institutional abuse here before it’s too late.

In a hard-hitting letter this week to the global readership of the Irish Catholic newspaper, he warned there could be no excuse to hold back redress for the “brutally betrayed” who had suffered in a “corrupt and dysfunctional ecclesiastical system”. Earlier this month he also joined the Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse group (SAVIA) when they presented a report – What Survivors Want from Redress — at Stormont.

Speaking from the parochial house in Crossgar yesterday, where he has been happily posted since 2014, Fr McCafferty said his concern was for victims who would die before the current Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) in Northern Ireland was over.

“I thought it was absolutely vitally important to stand side by side with people like SAVIA, in solidarity with them as a priest, and as someone who has suffered also,” he said.

“As bad as it was for me, I imagine it was 10 times worse for the children in those institutions.”

Having kept an eye on the ongoing HIA investigation being held in Banbridge — one of the UK’s largest inquiries into physical, sexual and emotional harm to children at homes run by the church, state and voluntary organisations — Fr McCafferty said he felt there had been an initial “dragging of feet” from the Catholic Church around the process.

He acknowledged the church would want to defend innocent individuals and bodies, but said they were “responsible for each other” and fighting for good over evil.

“The church has to ‘fess up’,” he said. “No pussy footing, prevaricating, obfuscating, no nonsense. 

“It is the least we could do. Our church is founded on the teaching that we are the Body of Christ.

“In the past there were too many ifs and buts.”

In February 2012, 53 year-old James Donaghy, from Lady Wallace Drive in Lisburn was jailed for 10 years for the abuse inflicted on Fr McCafferty and two teenage altar boys.

Fr McCafferty was 19 when he left Whiteabbey for the Wexford seminary in the early 1980s and was befriended by graduating student Donaghy, who pursued him to Belfast where he was abused. He said he had already been abused at the age of five by a babysitter, and believed he was a vulnerable target for the violent Donaghy, who was described as “ruthless” by a judge.

“I was a very young 19, I looked about 14,’ Fr McCafferty recalled. “I was very skinny and small.”

He recalled how Donaghy arrived at his mother’s house one day and said he was told by the bishop to look after him. But the person who appeared fun and friendly soon turned sinister and violent.

It was abuse Fr McCafferty has described as “brutal” and at times making him “physically sick”.

Despite such an ordeal, he said it didn’t deter him from wanting to be a priest.

“I was determined to be ordained, to be a good priest,” he said.

He said he previously “didn’t dare” complain when the abuse itself occurred, but later found courage.

“The catalyst for me was the ‘States of Fear’ series on RTE with Mary Rafferty in the late 1990s,” he said. “I thought, ‘My God, I know exactly’.

By then a serving priest, he made a complaint to church authorities, but felt in some instances he was being “huffed on” and that there were “subtle attempts” to thwart him.

“There were letters written to the Irish News anonymously, attacking me personally, trying to undermine me,” he said.

Having begun to write letters on the subject of the church and abuse, he particularly recalls one reply that sneered, wondering if he was “aiming to write more letters than St Paul”.

The opening up of old wounds, he admits, was traumatic and he is open about the impact it had on his mental health as further revelations about the church were forthcoming and he continued to express his concerns.

“I was a walking nervous breakdown,” he said.  “But I stuck to my guns.”

Given six months of leave, Fr McCafferty went to the US where he received therapy and worked at a parish in Massachusetts. 

He said he never stopped working a day because of his mental ill-health, but admits on one occasion this was only because they didn’t have a bed for him in hospital. In his darkest moments he had suicidal thoughts, and one particularly distressing time was when he was told he was being moved to a parish in Lisburn — Donaghy’s home town.

Fr McCafferty had been disappointed to find James Donaghy was still at large despite his complaint and said he knew he would need to pursue it himself with the police.

Relieved to hear Donaghy had stepped aside from the priesthood in 2004, Fr McCafferty explained that he wasn’t keen on having to go to court. Fear for a young man that Donaghy was keeping company with, however, spurred him on.

A lengthy legal process would ensue — from being told there initially wasn’t enough evidence, to other victims coming forward, and an initial trial collapsing.

His eventual three days in the witness box is an experience he describes as “savage”.

“It was horrific,” he said. “I had to go into the nitty-gritty of what Donaghy did to me, the violence and force he used, the awful detail that I had never discussed with even my closest friends and I had to do it in a public court in front of strangers, and be mocked by the defence. 

“How I got through it? I just stuck to my guns, I was telling the truth. I was also being supported by people’s prayers.

“My mum died in 2009. Dealing with her death was not as bad as my experience in that trial.”

“It was a battle with evil in the witness box. I had to cling on for dear life.”

He said the experience gave him an insight into the suffering people experience in the quest for justice on historical sexual abuse, as well as those who have no hope of justice.

“Not everybody gets their day in court,” he acknowledged.

Fr McCafferty had a brief early posting to Downpatrick but served mostly in the greater Belfast areas before becoming assistant priest in Crossgar. He says he has not tried to hide his experiences and has received lots of support from local people. It is a topic, however, that does not come into his everyday ministry.

“It is not an issue, but it does help with people who have suffered abuse, you know what they have been through,” he said.

Fr McCafferty wants to stress the “huge progress” that has been made in the church in terms of child protection, done locally under the Bishop of Down and Connor, Noel Treanor, and through Pope Francis who has been “fantastic”. He also has a word of praise for predecessor Pope Benedict “who does not get credit” in this area.

But for all the victims of institutional abuse, whether church-run or not, the question now for Fr McCafferty is urgency in redress. 

The HIA investigation into 20 institutions in Northern Ireland is not due to end until later this year, with a full report expected mid January 2017. In November last year, however, chairman Sir Anthony Hart recommended a compensation scheme for victims.

Fr McCafferty feels there is nothing to delay interim redress and said politicians also had a major role to play in ensuring a speedy response.

“A lot of these people do not have time on their side,” he said. “Their lives have been destroyed. It cries out to the heavens for redress. Some have had their lives totally impaired, they have not got a chance.

“There should be no dragging of heels. I think the church and state must respond in a fulsome manner.”

Victims campaigner Margaret McGuckin, of SAVIA, said “it meant everything” for someone in Fr McCafferty’s position to speak out so publicly in their support.

“He understands us,” she said. “I want to thank Fr Paddy McCafferty for his sincerity and strength of character, for supporting us openly and taking a stand in doing so.”

SAVIA have told MLAs that they want the next Northern Ireland Executive to set up a comprehensive redress system, to include financial compensation, counselling services, access to childhood records, family tracing and a full apology for the sexual, physical and emotional abuse suffered in children’s homes.

Ms McGuckin also feels there is nothing to delay interim compensation. She said she welcomed indications from the Catholic Church that they would follow the recommendations of the inquiry, and fulsome political support from “every party but the DUP”.

She claimed the DUP are worried about the potential state pay-out and are using the “excuse” of not wanting to pre-empt the outcome of the inquiry for failing to look into interim redress.

“Judge Hart has already ‘pre-empted’ it in his unprecedented statement of November 2015 that the HIA inquiry would be recommending compensation be paid out to victims of institutional abuse,” said Ms McGuckin.

“Our message to politicians is: do what is right by victims and survivors. We have already been failed once. Don’t fail us again.”

A DUP spokesman said: “We were instrumental in setting up the Inquiry and believe the right thing to do is to see the outcome of the final report from Sir Anthony Harte.”