Friday 21 October 2016

FERNS DIOCESE

Colm Tobin




Colm Tóibín



SHORTENED VERSION OF ARTICLE IN LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

The new dean, Dr Ledwith, was young and friendly and open and very good-looking. He was also reputed to be really smart. One of my friends knew him from home so he often stopped to talk to us. He was a new breed of priest; he had studied in Europe and America. Many of the teaching priests spent their summers in parishes in America so they were full of new ideas. Everything was open for discussion, or almost everything. I went to a brilliant lecture by Dr Ledwith on ideas of paradox within Catholic doctrine. It was whispered that he would one day be a great prince of the Church.
I got to know some of the other priests and realised that for some students – there were three hundred boarders – being friends with a priest meant that you could go up to his room and hang out, make phone calls, listen to music, watch TV. I became friends with a few of the priests, but in my last year became especially friendly with a physics teacher, Father Collins, because my best mate was one of his brightest students.
All of the teaching priests, except Father Collins, had rooms off a corridor in a modern extension. Father Collins’s rooms were in an older building. It was easy to go up and down to his room without being noticed, as the two other priests in his part of the building were often away. His stereo system was amazing. I listened to Tommy there and Jesus Christ Superstar. He always had a box of sweets. I could ring home on his telephone. On Saturday nights after lights out, with his full connivance, we could break all the rules and sneak up to his room and watch The Late Late Show, a controversial chat show on Irish television. We were often there until after midnight.
FATHER COLLINS

I knew that Father Collins took a very dim view of homosexuality because he had deeply disapproved when I told a joke about Oscar Wilde at the debating society. And when a friend, who looked slightly effeminate in any case, began to part his hair in the middle, he was told by Father Collins that it was better to part it at the side; a middle parting, he said, was a sign of homosexuality. Nonetheless, there were often vague whisperings about Father Collins. I knew that he liked my friend, but I never allowed myself to think too much about the implications of that. Nothing ever happened.

The dormitory was overseen by a seminarian whom I liked and respected. He was fair-minded and decent. Through him, I got to know another seminarian called James Doyle. He would stop and talk if we met in the corridor, even though fraternisation between seminarians and lay students was frowned on. He had many opinions and enjoyed gossip and had a habit of winding me up so I could never quite tell whether he was serious or not. I liked him.
In the second half of the 1990s these three men – Michael Ledwith, Donal Collins and James Doyle – became part of the pantheon of Irish priests whose names were often mentioned on the news. In 1990 James Doyle pleaded guilty to indecent assault and common assault on a young man and was given a three-month suspended sentence. Five years later, Dr Ledwith resigned suddenly as president of Maynooth College, Ireland’s main seminary, and went to America. He had been secretary to three synods of world bishops in Rome and had served three full terms on the International Theological Commission, the group of 30 theologians who advise the pope. He had made a private settlement with a young man after allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour. He is no longer involved with the Catholic Church. In 1998 Father Collins was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, after pleading guilty to four charges of indecent assault and one charge of gross indecency at St Peter’s College between 1972 and 1984.
These men and others like them became public enemies; they were often filmed leaving courthouses with anoraks over their heads (although it should be emphasised that Dr Ledwith never faced any charges in court). Part of the reason Doyle was given a suspended sentence was that he promised to leave the Republic of Ireland. He went to England. The country wanted rid of these priests.

BISHOP HERLIHY

According to the Ferns Report, the bishop ‘believed that the problem had been solved’ by sending Father Collins to England for two years and that it ‘would be unfair and vindictive to pursue the matter further’. The bishop is reported to have said to his secretary: ‘Hadn’t he done his penance?’ In 1968, Herlihy ordered Collins back to teaching. This time, however, the bishop instructed that the erring priest should have his lodgings in the old building, at a distance from the dormitories, so that he would not be so easily tempted when night fell.
What is interesting about all of this is that no one at any point considered calling the police. The Catholic Church in Ireland in those years was above the law; it had its own laws. 
Also, the report states that ‘at least six priests’ working in the college at the time knew why Father Collins had been sent to England in 1966. The bishop’s vicar-general said in a statement to police in 1995 that ‘it was generally believed that Father Collins had a problem with abusing young boys in 1966 and that Bishop Herlihy had sent him away because of it.’ I presume that he meant the priests only when he said ‘it was generally believed’, because it was not, in my opinion, generally believed by the students, despite the evidence given to the Ferns Report by past pupils; it lay instead in the realm of innuendo, rumour and nudges. It was not generally believed, in my opinion, by the young boys getting swimming lessons or being taught to develop photographs, with the exception of the very few picked on for abuse, most of whom told nobody what was happening until many years later, or by parents, or by the police.
Father Collins began to abuse at St Peter’s again in the early 1970s, according to the report. Once more, he measured penises, but this was only for starters. Over a four-year period one boy was masturbated four to six times a year by Collins. In the 1990s, ten boys made allegations against him, including that he ‘forced’ one of them ‘to engage in mutual masturbation and oral sex’ and that he on one occasion attempted anal sex. All of this occurred between 1972 and 1984. In court in 1995, some of his victims spoke about the detrimental effect the abuse has had on their lives.
Collins knew no fear. In 1988 he took time off from his many extra-curricular activities to apply to become principal of the school. By this time Bishop Herlihy had gone to his reward, and there was a new bishop, Brendan Comiskey, an outgoing, friendly man who paid serious attention to the press and to public relations. He appointed Donal Collins as principal, despite being warned against doing so, according to the Ferns Report, by two priests.
BISHOP COMISKEY

The first allegation of sexual abuse since 1966 came in 1989, within seven months of Father Collins’s appointment as principal. In 1991, as more allegations were made, Collins removed himself to Florida, where he sought help and worked in a parish. Bishop Comiskey did not tell the parish in Florida of his history. Although Collins admitted ‘the broad truth’ of the allegations against him to the bishop in 1993, the bishop told the police in 1995 that the priest was continuing to deny the charges.
The first allegations against James Doyle were made to my old friend Dr Sherwood in 1972. Sherwood’s response was, according to the report, ‘questioning and dismissive’. When the president of the college heard the allegations in 1972, however, he suggested that Doyle should join a religious order and not become a diocesan priest. This president was replaced the following year by a president who allowed Doyle to be ordained. When Bishop Herlihy heard a complaint against Father Doyle in 1982 he sent him to a psychologist who wrote that it would ‘seem desirable that he should have a change of role, away from working with young people’. When a new priest, in whose parish James Doyle was a curate, was appointed in 1985, no one informed him of this report. Five years later, Doyle pleaded guilty to indecent assault and received a suspended sentence.
His case is interesting because it was the first prosecution in the courts of a Ferns priest. It is not hard to imagine how much the people of the diocese could have hated James Doyle. Surely he would have been pelted with turnips, which grow plentifully in the area, as he left the court? Instead, people blamed the local newspapers for printing the story, provoking, the Ferns Report says, ‘a considerable backlash’ against one local paper in the Wexford area ‘as it was felt that Father Doyle had been badly treated by the publicity his case had attracted. As the media had already given enough information to disclose the identity of the complainant, this backlash was also directed towards him and his family.’ Thus in 1990 it was made clear that complaining about these priests to the civil authorities would take considerable courage. Bishop Comiskey told the Ferns Inquiry that ‘prior to 1990, the question of reporting child abuse complaints or allegations to the Garda authorities never arose.’
FATHER FORTUNE

An old priest rubbing his face and mouth around your jaw is bad enough, but many of the cases in the Ferns Report are much more severe. The year after I left St Peter’s, Sean Fortune arrived in the seminary. It was alleged to the Ferns Inquiry that he started almost immediately to abuse. He began by fondling boys and masturbating. On one car journey, for example, he asked a boy about a scar on his face and then began masturbating. When he ejaculated, he smeared his sperm on the boy’s face, telling him that it would heal his scar. Within a few years the allegations included oral sex, and then he began to rape his victims anally, leaving one 16-year-old boy ‘in a mess on the floor, bleeding heavily’. He befriended families so he could meet their sons, picking on students and altar boys. One of his alleged victims committed suicide in the late 1980s. Father Fortune himself committed suicide, while facing multiple charges, in 1999, 26 years after he began his career as an abuser.
No one was safe from them. One woman who had had an operation on her lower abdomen was visited by a Ferns priest. ‘He fondled her’ and she ‘could feel his fingers moving around the vaginal area. She said that she attempted to get up when Father Gamma’ – he could not be named by the report – ‘pushed the elbow of his arm into her stomach to restrain any movement’. Another priest, whom the report calls Father Delta, was visited by a young man about to get married seeking a Letter of Freedom. The priest asked the young man to unbutton his trousers to check that ‘everything down there was in working order.’ The priest fondled his private parts for approximately ten minutes. Another young man approached a priest to report that Father Fortune had abused him. The priest asked the young man to demonstrate what Fortune had done, which included touching his penis, thus beginning to abuse him all over again.
Some of the abuse was from a bad S&M porn movie. In the mid-1960s at St Peter’s, a priest told a boy that there was a researcher from America investigating the development of boys and that he ‘would be an ideal candidate in terms of age and height’. He was told to report to a room where, eventually, he was ‘blindfolded, stripped and caned. His penis was measured and he thinks, but cannot be certain, that he was masturbated.’ He is 99 per cent certain that all this was carried out by the original priest.
PAT SAYS:

The Church likes to think that situations like Ferns and St Peter's are "IN THE PAST".

But St Peter's is still open and operates as a 700 pupil secondary school and as part of the Carlow Institute of Technology. Young people and children go there every day.

A number of people committed suicide because of their abuse in Ferns. Their families must remember them when they have to pass that building?

There are still many living victims of Ferns abuse. They do have to pass that building and indeed the Bishops House where it was covered up.

There are victims in Ferns who have never spoken out. How many? We do not know.

There are priests in Ferns who know a lot more than we do about the whole affair and have kept silent.

Many Ferns priests were trained in St Peters and must have been affected by the carry on there.

St Peters and the Bishops House are almost stone and brick reminders of the darkest of the dark.

Ferns Diocese may never recover from its dark history. 

A Dark Cloud hangs over the whole place. 

Its an Irish Auschwitz. 




"For all the truth about us will be brought out in
the law courts of Christ;
And each of us will get what we deserve
For the things we did in the body;
Both good and bad" 
(Cor 5)
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47 comments:

  1. An interesting read, even if a little historical in content these are things that we ought never forget. Indeed there must be a shadow over Ferns - but there is no doubt that there are good priests there today trying to to the right thing. They ought to be allowed space to be good priests.

    The lessons of Ferns however are things to hold close to ministry, lest we forget. The question though is did the leadership learn? Did the bishops ignore any complaints recently? Perhaps not complaints of child abuse but any other serious complaints? Any complaints of risky sexual activity? Any complaints of clerical activity that would go against the Church's teachings? Any complaints of clerical activity that would bring the church into disrepute?

    Oh wait, they did. There's a positive answer to all those questions - except the one that asked, Did the leadership learn.

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    1. Gaynooth shows the leadership still have a lot to learn.

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    2. "He who forgets the mistakes of the past is destined to repeat them in the future".

      Church abuse of seminarians, women and men is connected to abuses of the past and will be the scandals of the near future.

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  2. I agree with most of what you say and do Pat and applaud you for doing so but to compare Ferns to Auschwitz is disgraceful and unforgivable .

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    1. I beg to differ - and I been to Auschwitz.

      A brutal cynical regime.

      Helpless captives.

      Degrading treatment.

      Hopeless victims.

      Secret atrocities.

      Denial of human rights.

      Etc.

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    2. Both systems of control were predicated upon the essential belief that the humanity of the humans who suffered was superfluous.

      Auschwitz and Ferns, indeed Auschwitz and any system of abuse will be different in extent and effect - but more often than not the thinking of the abuser follows the same basis.

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    3. Get a grip Pat ."helpless captives". St Peters was a college with open doors.Colm Toibin seems to have emerged unscathed in spite of the evil going on there.

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    4. Which of the boys were free to walk out in the middle of the night when FATHER was measuring their penises?

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    5. Did colm Tobin ever write about th goingson ther?

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    6. For whatever reason we don't always hear what is being said to us but we really should listen carefully to our friends. Generally they do share our aims and have our best interests at heart.

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    7. When it come to today, a lot of people are still stuck in the past and think that the system in Maynooth is abusive in the way it was in the 1960s. At that time, given the power of the Church, it was not a simple matter to walk away, report abuse etc. Many seminarians came from very simple, unsophisticated backgrounds. Today this is not the case because of the impact of the internet among other things. So while there may indeed be deep unfairness in the Maynooth system, and while there is an injustice in that good men cannot proceed to become priests because of the system and are badly treated, it is not comparable to seminaries in the past because people can simply walk away. Unfair it might be, but no one today is suffering abuse if we are to understand the term as meaning the same thing as it did in 1963.

      If any seminarian today is a vulnerable adult, they are not vulnerable because they are in the seminary, but are vulnerable for other external reasons. In which case they should not be in the seminary. If someone today claims that they are vulnerable because of their seminary experience, I would really have to wonder what sort of upbringing they have had.

      I think it is important to understand the impact that societal changes have had on the mindset of men entering seminary. It is simply different today.

      Though I still think Maynooth should be shut down....

      TRS

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    8. Any yet people can become vulnerable. Take the example of a person bullied by a dean, the man who reports to the seminarian's bishop as to his suitability for priesthood. The dean's choice is to take full advantage of his position of power. The seminarian's choice is to be bullied and take his chances or speak up and get thrown out. If a man truly believes he has a vocation it is not that easy to walk away.

      Take the effect on the seminarian who found two deacons in bed. He reported it and was bullied by the system and thrown out. Having a genuine belief in his vocation and being forced away from it in such murky circumstances would he not have been made vulnerable when he spoke up?

      Your understanding of vulnerable takes no account of power relationships. People now grow up in an inherently flat social structure. Maynooth has an inherently hierarchical social structure where priests have the benefits of hierarchy, but where responsibility is dished out according to a flat social structure. This leaves seminarians holding responsibility for situations that they could not control due to their position in the hierarchy.

      An example is that they can be abused by their dean and if they try to defend themselves they are seen as not respecting their dean's position of authority. The seminarian is accountable for his reaction to defend himself but the dean is not held accountable despite his inherent position of power which he took full advantage of. This is a form of psychological abuse caused by the system not the person's upbringing.

      Moreover, TRS, your ability to dismiss any question of vulnerability is disappointing. Like the bishops/Trustees you have failed to acknowledge that each case needs to be examined on its merits. Bishops blanket dismiss allegations against Maynooth; today you blanket dismiss the contention that a seminarian can be vulnerable. Anybody can be vulnerable - even husbands can be beaten by wives. Let us not dismiss an allegation before we objectively hear it out.



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    9. No one that I saw who was harassed by the Maynooth authorities, including those excluded from the seminary without due cause, was in any way a vulnerable adult and each had a very clear sense of their own identity in Christ. They suffered injustice and unfair treatment, they were the subjects of power games, and it was hurtful but did it make them vulnerable? No. They were unfairly treated, but they did not, and do not, consider themselves as victims.

      Now, if you were talking about men who were in seminary in the 1960s, then I would defer to your understanding. But that is not my experience.

      I think too many people are viewing events in Maynooth through the prism of a different Ireland and a different religious atmosphere than that which prevails today.

      If indeed there are men who are in seminary who find themselves genuinely vulnerable, then that is indeed a pity and you are right that they need to be heard. I am not saying that they do not exist. But I am saying that their vulnerability was inherent before entering and was triggered by events in Maynooth (as it might equally be triggered by a demanding secular workplace). I am not convinced that a psychologically healthy man entering seminary today will become a vulnerable adult as a result of his experiences there.

      The faults and defects of Maynooth are many. But framing the problem in psychological terms will do nothing to help the situation change. In fact, the undue emphasis placed on psychology by formators today (at the expense of a spiritual understanding of priesthood with an emphasis on transforming grace) is one of the key factors undermining priestly identity.

      TRS

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    10. Speaking from the point of view of someone who recently was in maynooth I agree that there is undue emphasis on psychology, as you pointed out. That is because all formators in Maynooth study psychology for 1 year in order to qualify as a formators. I think it to be a rubbish course based on what I saw.

      But it is precisely this emphasis on pseudo-psychology that allows formators play with peoples minds. The process is designed to break people down and form them mentally into priests. The problem is the formators all too often break seminarians down and then don't know how to put them back together.

      Whether we call that making people vulnerable, damaging people or breaking people is irrelevant. It is simply wrong because of the harm it does on the human level and the neglect to the spiritual formation.

      Maynooth of yesterday and maynooth of today both damage people in their respective ways. Neither generation has a right to disregard the harm done to the other.

      And I will agree, there is no spiritual formation in Maynooth. None.

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    11. I suppose from my point of view the point is relevant, because are we (A) dealing with an institution which abuses vulnerable adults or (B) dealing with an institution that is devoid of natural justice? In my view it is closer to (B) and that is important because to reform or replace something, we need to identify correctly the issues. If we think we are dealing with institutions the like of which were identified in the Ferns report etc, then we will be wasting valuable time on matters which are today no longer at issue (of course those particular historical issues need to be addressed, but that is a separate topic). This is not in any way to minimise or disrespect the damage done to men in times gone by, but simply to say that to move forward today, we need to have a clear sighted understanding of the problems of today.

      I do agree, however, that from a spiritual and human point of view, the system in Maynooth is profoundly damaging. It goes back to this mistaken understanding of 'formation'. The idea that a priest goes to a seminary to 'be formed' is wrong in my opinion. I see seminary more as a place where a man goes to be equipped for mission. 'Formed' in the sense that his intellectual understanding of God is deepened, his personal relationship with the Lord deepened - yes. But 'formed' in Maynooth means a transplantation of character rather than allowing grace to build on nature. And the character that the formators wish to impose is wanting, to say the least. This, as you say, is where the pseudo-psychology is so deeply damaging both to the men who are unable to resist it, and to the priesthood generally.

      Seminarians going in today need to equip themselves with outside spiritual direction, strong networks of sound Christians to back them up and give spiritual support and friendship, and mentors formed in the doctrine of the faith to guide them through the mess that is Maynooth. With prayer, I believe that the seminary can be closed, but for now, that is what seminarians must do. And as our Lord said, to be as wise as serpents.

      TRS

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    12. Agreed. I would be of the opinion that seminarians are essentially vulnerable in the sense that they are dependant totally on the good will of the bishops and formators. Seminarians are powerless; trustees and formators hold an absolute hegemony; injustice is all too often the product. I use the word 'vulnerable' in its literal sense, without intent to imply the legal terminology 'vulnerable person'.

      I remember on Christmas a class gave a formators a book as a present. He opened it before everybody in Pugin Hall. The book was called 'Psychology for Dummies'.

      CR

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  3. We know how D&C men who trained in Wexford were affected. On the other hand the young Colm Toibin who was surely at risk and had both the inclination and the intelligence to be alert to such goings-on emerged in every way intact.

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  4. Why do some abused men or women find it so hard to walk from bad relationships. The doors that hold abused can be more than physical

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    1. Stockholm syndrome.

      Catholic Ireland has been sited in some articles as the world's greatest example of Stockholm syndrome. Victims relate to priests first and foremost with the pastoral image of the priest and prayer life. The priest is seen as a holy man. When the priest turns into an abuser the effect on the victim is mind blowing as they struggle to comprehend why the pastor is committing abuse. The victim quite literally struggles to mentally accept that the person who should be a positive influence in their life is quite the opposite.

      Same can be applied to a variety of fiduciary relationships gone wrong - such as abusive spouses, abusive parents, abusive bosses etc.

      Of course there is also the stigma element, which historically would have been much stronger. Go back 25 years and you would have had to be a brave person to speak up about an abusive priest/spouse etc because you would have been seen as causing unrest to the holy priest or hard working husband.

      CR

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    2. Stockholm syndrome....... I have come to same conclusion.

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    3. Thank you for the insight C R I stand informed

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    4. Maybe Collins just didn't "fancy" Tobin and so he was safe from danger and attack?

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    5. I would like to read more CR, can you give us some references to some of these articles please.

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    6. 18.43
      Maybe Tobin got inspiration For some of his books from what he gleaned

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    7. Bill.... Google is full of references
      relating to the Stockholm
      syndrome

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  5. I'm quite sure that if I had my penis measured when a teen...I would never ever forget
    It would haunt me all my life
    I'm not a man,

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  6. Some strange folk in positions of trust they can't handle (not just a pun)

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  7. Irish catholic church truely is a horror story. Utterly stunned.

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  8. And only our Pat trying to keep us reminded
    Sean why don't you write articles for publication too
    Tried to read you other bloggers here but not allowed

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    1. I find content on here stimulating and I prefer to respond in short spurts. Paid work does not give me the time to research and compile my own blog. Thank you for the suggestion though. I also find the diversity of content here stimulating. Even the "idiots" and those I do not necessarily agree with

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  9. If someone today claims that they are vulnerable because of their seminary experience, I would really have to wonder what sort of upbringing they have had.
    <<<<<>>>>>>
    Can believe that a real person wrote that....wondering about how some young fella is brought up, you definitely not a parent.no parent would write that.
    So a modern day student shouldn't be bothered about 2 men in bed, or another being brought on holiday by a nancy man.

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    1. You appear to be unable to distinguish between underlying psychological issues (which are the result of, among other things, upbringing) and the moral issues that the Maynooth situation presents. My point is that in today's world, most psychological issues that clerical students have are issues which have arisen prior to entering the seminary. If seeing two men in bed or being aware of irregular holidays causes a man to become a vulnerable adult, then yes indeed his upbringing needs to be looked into because a mature man (as every seminarian is striving to be) ought to be capable of being aware of such issues without having a psychological collapse. As the question is one of psychology, there is no clear-cut answer so people can legitimately have different views on the issue.

      I really have no idea what relevance being a parent or not has to do with that analysis.

      Self-evidently, a seminarian ought to be bothered about sexual impropriety. He ought to object to irregular holidays. In my view, these are profoundly wrong behaviours for seminarians, yet that is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether a seminary experience today causes a person to become psychologically vulnerable.

      I note your use of the term "nancy man" and I find it deeply objectionable. The particular situation described is objectively wrong, but labelling a gay man as a "nancy man" is a form of behaviour that is unChristian. The Church teaches that Catholics (and others) who are same-sex attracted are to be treated with respect, and you have failed to accord that respect to those people, regardless of the particular situation you are discussing.

      TRS

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    2. 18 12 It's all to do with context and accountability. Seminarians sign up to be Celibate. I don't agree with mandatory celibacy but all are called to be appropriate and accountable. Student life is not just booze sex and rock n roll. Particularly if clergy are meant to live what they profess

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  10. I see that there is no free speech on this blog, in spite of what you so often repeat that this is a forum for debate and discussion. You have not posted by comment about your disgraceful equating of the Holocaust of the Jewish People in Auschwitz / Birkenhau. That says it all really.

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    1. Thank God 18.22 someone agrees with me about the Auschwitz statement. I already commented on it at 12.18 and 12.35 but got no satisfaction.I was amazed that no-one else had picked it up.It really shocked me.

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    2. I had posted a much more explicit condemnation of the equation of the Holocaust of the Jews with the antics at St Peters, but for reasons known only to himself Pat refused to post it. A really shameful thing to do Pat. To equate the mass murder of millions of men, women and children by the Nazis with the sexual shenanigans in a seminary in Ireland.

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    3. 21.11 so you are trying to make light of all the vile deeds
      '' sexual shenanigans'
      Tut tut

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    4. Not at all, I am making the point that to equate the Holocaust of the Jews, whereby millions of innocent people were murdered in the greatest act of human depravity the world has ever witnessed, is as absurd as it is monstrous. I see that Pat had still not addressed why he did this, still less apologise for this obscene comparison.

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  11. Profoundly saddened by the vile, evil, disgraceful and criminal activities described in these and earlier contributions.
    Nevertheless, my faith and trust in God and in the priest in charge of my Parish are unshakeable.
    There is - I hope - some hope of restoring confidence to those who are - rightly - shocked at the scandals revealed here!
    God is still in charge - trust Him - and the many good priests who serve Him faithfully.
    Been a while since I have contributed anything.
    Have to admit that my two budgies, Chip, my dog and indeed, myself are suffering from exponential fits of depression at all the negativity described.
    We, all four of us, - are recovering! Christus vincit!!!
    Pip

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  12. I think caution should be exercised in the use of the term 'vulnerable adult'; in recent years this phrase has been given a statutory definition and relates to persons whose vulnerability arises from disability, age or illness; and is or may be unable to take care of themselves or unable to protect themselves against significant harm or exploitation.

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    1. Quite true Bill but seminary/religious relationships can sometimes compromise people. C R mentioned the Stockholm Syndrome above i

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  13. Pat, in your commentary you point out that St Peter's college still functions as a secondary school and that Carlow IT operates a campus on site. To be fair to both of these institutions I'm sure you would want to point out that the previous 'regime' no longer operates there.

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    1. Is the school notstill a catholic / diocesan institution?

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    2. Re/St Peter's College,Wexford--yes, it is still a Catholic/Diocesan institution but I think the poster at 19.28 was inferring that many of the previous problematic Staff were no longer there. This is to a large extent correct. The present lay Principal is Mr O'Callaghan and there is also a lay Vice Principal.

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    3. Thank you for that clarification.

      But the same "regime" is in control - the Catholic diocese of Ferns.

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  14. The Church needs to be taken to task for it's violation of human rights.

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