Nun abused schoolboy
A man, sexually abused as a child by a nun, kept his anguish secret for most of his life. Emily Spink talks to him about his quest for justice.
In a ‘‘very rare’’ ruling, the Catholic Church has found a nun guilty of sexually abusing a child in her care, it has emerged.
Following an inquiry, the Catholic Church has ruled Mother Lucia guilty of historic sexual and physical abuse against a Christchurch schoolboy ‘‘on the balance of probabilities’’. The prioress died in 1997, aged 90.
In November 2015, a West Coast man, who did not want to be named, brought complaints against the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions under the church’s Path to Healing protocol.
He attended the Addington Convent School, now called Sacred Heart School, from 1956 to 1963.
‘‘They stole my innocence as a child. They robbed me as a child. They robbed me of an education and they f ..... up my life completely,’’ he said.
The church’s National Professional Standards Response Committee (NPSRC) found that ‘‘on the basis of the evidence before it that on the balance of probabilities you were abused both physically and sexually by Mother Lucia’’, whose given name was Eileen Reilly.
The man’s second complaint relating to physical abuse by the late Sister Hilary, whose given name was Catherine Moriarty, was not upheld. ‘‘The committee did not find on the balance of probabilities that you were physically abused by Sister Hilary.’’
Three weeks ago, the man received an apology letter ‘‘out of the blue’’ from the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, alongside the ruling.
Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions province leader Carmel Cole offered to pay for counselling and meet with him, but the man said the ‘‘damage is done’’.
‘‘I don’t want to meet with them. It’s a bloody insult and I just don’t wish to see them ever again.’’
Cole refused to comment, and would not release records for Mother Lucia and Sister Hilary.
The man recalled the sexual abuse he was subjected to by Mother Lucia through tears, saying it started when he was 8 years old when she ordered him to remove his clothes so she could check for polio.
In a separate incident, she asked him if he had been circumcised, then ordered him to remove his shorts. He had an erection, after which she told him he was a ‘‘dirty little boy’’ and hit him.
Over a nine-month period, she fondled, hit and cuddled him.
The abuse continued until he refused to enter the classroom. He left the school soon after.
NPSRC New Zealand director Bill Kilgallon said he was not aware of any other complaints relating to the two nuns.
Cases where nuns were the perpetrators of sexual abuse ‘‘were very rare’’. ‘‘If you look at most of the research, sexual abuse in institutional settings is generally 90 per cent male.’’
Kilgallon said the department, established to oversee the response to complaints of abuse, averaged 22 complaints a year. ‘‘Organisations dealing with that, whether it’s the state or the church, have to really look very carefully at the way we look after children . . . and learn the lessons of the past.’’
Retired Christchurch-based policeman Paul Fitzharris had been contracted by the Catholic Church to investigate several separate complaints over the last five years, including the West Coast man’s.
He said it was not the first case alleging abuse by a nun that he had been asked to look into, but more often than not they involved allegations of physical abuse.
Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust manager Ken Clearwater said the church’s acceptance of the sexual abuse allegation came as a surprise.
‘‘The fact it came out like it did – even though it took a long time – it was a good decision.’’
He said the church needed to continue to acknowledge abuse committed by its members. ‘‘Religion is built on compassion . . . these people have harmed these children when they were supposed to be looking after them.’’
‘‘I don’t want to meet with them. It’s a bloody insult and I just don’t wish to see them ever again.’’
George* wishes he could have had more children but refused to, believing he could only keep one safe. ‘‘I always went on school camps. If [my son] he went to the pool, I did too. We were joined at the hip. I was never going to let anyone near him.’’
The 66-year-old, sexually abused when he was a Catholic school boy, explained how it affected his family: ‘‘We only had one child. That was it. No more because I couldn’t be in two places at once.’’
Earlier this month, the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions accepted he was physically and sexually abused by Mother Lucia, a prioress at his Addington Convent School.
‘‘I’m still gobsmacked they admitted it, especially the lady who was running it, and to find them guilty and give them a free rein still,’’ he said.
The man had kept his abuse secret nearly all his life until a dinner party with friends turned to a conversation about the Catholic Church. It brought out years of suppressed memories and he said he had a melt-down at the table.
Before then, no-one – not even his wife – knew about his childhood experience.
‘‘It haunts me,’’ he said.
‘‘They stole a child’s innocence, all under the name of God.’’
With the help of the Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust, he took a complaint to the church’s National Professional Standards Response Committee. Mother Lucia, who died in 1997, was found to have abused George. A second allegation of physical abuse by the late Sister Hilary was dismissed.
Independent investigator and former Christchurch-based policeman Paul Fitzharris was brought in by the Catholic Church for the inquiry. He is currently investigating two separate allegations of abuse.
George struggled to grasp how the committee had dismissed the beatings by Sister Hilary, which he said were so severe his mother once took him to the Addington police station.
‘‘The welts I got were the size of my finger, across my buttocks, blood across my back was drawn from it.’’
But he believes no record was made of the incident. ‘‘My mother was absolutely livid.’’
A police spokeswoman said she was unable to locate a record matching the historic allegation.
After the beating, George became
‘‘I’m still gobsmacked they admitted it, especially the lady who was running it, and to find them guilty and give them a free rein still.’’
rebellious in school.
He was moved into his older sister’s class. But then the sexual abuse, including fondling and cuddling, began from Mother Lucia.
‘‘You had no say in it. You did it or you got a hiding.’’
His mother was aware of the sexual and physical abuse but did not tell her husband because he had hit George previously when he complained about the Sisters.
‘‘For many weeks I felt dirty and used. I just bottled it up.’’
But by standard four he had had enough and refused to go back to the convent school.
He was sent to South Intermediate. ‘‘That’s when I knew, ‘man, this is school. Not the torture-house where I came from’.’’
By 15, he was out of school.
After jumping between numerous jobs, George met his wife while working as a security guard. He later joined the army and worked his way up to the rank of sergeant.
‘‘I’ve learnt in my own way how to battle through life but I could have been a bit better than what I was.’’
He continued to suffer mood swings and flashbacks, where he could ‘‘see this bloody nun in front of me’’.
Human Rights lawyer Sonja Cooper said it was the first case she was aware of, where sexual abuse by a nun had been accepted by the church through the Path to Healing Protocol.
‘‘There is this general societal view that women don’t abuse.’’
Abuse by women, however, extended beyond the church, said Cooper.
‘‘We’ve had a significant number of our male clients, who were in care and social welfare that have been sexually abused by female caregivers. It is very very difficult to get the Ministry of Social Development to accept that women are abusers.
‘‘There is just this attitude that women don’t abuse and ‘oh yes, they do’.’’ That can be extremely damaging and destructive and can distort the perceptions of the victims.’’
International research estimated one in six males were abused before the age of 18.
Cooper said she could understand George’s distress over the two differing decisions.
‘‘For us that never quite makes sense. If they’re credible in respect of one, why would they not be credible in respect of the other?
‘‘We would then say as lawyers, they know something about the one they’ve accepted.’’
National Office for Professional Standards of the Catholic Church in New Zealand director Bill Kilgallon said it was hard to come to a resolution in instances where people had died, but the Catholic Church took all complaints very seriously.
‘‘Obviously, if people are still alive, we encourage people that have still got complaints to take it to the police."
In his experience, survivors came forward for healing and justice, rather than for compensation. ‘‘Many people are driven by not wanting it to happen to other people.’’
It was what drove George to come forward, in what had been an emotionally upsetting inquiry.
Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse Trust manager Ken Clearwater said the resolution process was fair but traumatic for victims.
‘‘You’ve got to go over and over. It’s like you know what has happened and you’re telling it several times to people so in relation to that it’s a horrible process.
‘‘But in relation to having a process, you have to have some form of process. The sad part about it is that’s the only one we’ve got.’’
Start clinical practice manager Catherine Gallagher said because sexual abuse was something that happened in secrecy, organisations and institutions needed to acknowledge every aspect of abuse, to bring validation to victims.
‘‘To have survivors have a voice and to have that believed, and heard and validated, and someone taking responsibility, that can be really healing.’’
Gallagher said the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a big step in the right direction in terms of validating clergy abuse.
‘‘The day the institution steps forward and says ‘yes, we did wrong’ and not only acknowledge what has happened but also what they did to cover this up, I think that is still to come.
‘‘It’s about saying this is done to me, it was no fault of mine, it was done inherently to me by the person who did it to me, by a system that created this environment where people could do this to me and it wasn’t stopped.’’
*Not his real name.