Credit where it is due?

Do the Jesuits deserve a pat on the back?

I have not written about the Jesuits and the child abusers who have served in their ranks, for some time. This is largely because there are so many more edifying subjects to consider and, also, to be perfectly frank, because I was suffering from Jesuit Fatigue (JF).

However, I’m prompted to return to the subject by a recent encounter with a friend of mine who left Belvedere some ten years after I did. He said how at a recent gathering of his contemporaries there was much praise for the Irish province of the Society of Jesus, their frankness about Joseph Marmion and the redress scheme they initiated for the vile creature’s victims.

Separately, I was talking to an old friend who tells me that many Irish Jesuits have come to the conclusion that Leonard Moloney SJ, the former Provincial, is something of a hero for naming Marmion as the sexual abuser of children that he was.

Let’s be clear. Moloney named Marmion because a classmate of mine had given him an ultimatum. If Moloney didn’t come clean about Marmion, he was going to. This was after several years of refusal and then prevarication. There seems to be no doubt that Moloney, or any subsequent Provincial, would never have voluntarily admitted the truth about Joseph Marmion.

But, yes, a scintilla of credit is due to Leonard Moloney for being the Provincial who did the deed. I have no doubt there were powerful voices within the Order urging him not to do so and it can’t have been an easy time for him. But let us also remember that he initially refused to admit the truth about Marmion because, he said, some of the victims had expressly asked him not to do so. He later admitted that this was not true.

Jesuits being economical with the truth? Having mental reservations? Well, some might expect better of them but, frankly, their record in such matters speaks for itself.

The Old Belvederians who, never having known Marmion and no doubt having a lot less interest in what I shall broadly call The Marmion Affair than some of us, were happy to applaud the Jesuits. Well, to borrow a phrase from the late Ken Tyan, I can hear only the sound of one hand clapping. Sure, the redress scheme has gone some way to expiate their guilt – which started with the decision to keep someone so clearly unsuited to the religious life in the Order – but it’s merely the decent thing to do.

The fact that the Spiritans – who used to be called the Holy Ghost Fathers before their ludicrous rebrand – have been dragging their feet over redress should not be used to paint the Jesuits in a better light. Nor the fact that the incongruously named Christian Brothers run away from the Order’s crimes at every turn. (I won’t quote James Joyce OB’s father on de brudders).

Regular readers will remember that the Jesuits commissioned an independent expert group to examine the files of those members of the Order who have been accused of child sexual abuse. Their task was to consider the credibility of those accusations and to advise if any Jesuit should be named. This committee decided to name 15 and the Provincial has said that others (of a total of 37 or thereabouts) may be named in due course.

Several things strike me. There is something worrying about an insistence on quantity of accusations rather than quality. Will others be named if sufficient accusations are subsequently made? No doubt there are men who may feel that their inappropriate encounter with a Jesuit was a once-off event or that they may even have misinterpreted an action; if such a person were to hear that there is even one accusation against the same priest or brother, he will surely be more likely to come forward.

You can read about the 15 here – but little is revealed apart from a bald curriculum vitae. There are no details of what they actually did in order to be accused of sexual abuse.

I see that the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Farrell, has congratulated the Jesuits on their “courage” in naming the 15. Why courage? Surely there is a responsibility to clear out their Augean stables?

Courage has been sorely lacking. The Jesuit Response, compiled after the naming of Marmion, studiously avoiding mentioning what the Jesuits knew about Paul Andrews SJ, namely that he was a paedophile and Rector of Belvedere when Marmion was finally confronted. How could that not be relevant. They only admitted as much after I had revealed it here. Likewise, they only acknowledged that Dermot Casey SJ, principal of St Declan’s Special School, preyed on little children to satisfy his perverse lust, after I wrote about his crimes here.

So, no. They don’t deserve credit for admitting what they were forced to admit.

I met another Old Belvederian recently who concluded, glumly, of the Jesuits, that “they have won.” I’m not so sure. They have been forced to do things that they otherwise would not have done. They have been made to face up to some very uncomfortable facts. But yes, by dragging everything out - and continuing to do so - they weary us.

I have no doubt that there are some very good men in the Jesuits. I was taught by some of them. But these days I believe they should be kept well away from schools and children. The thoughts of a 12 year old boy being sent to Clongowes makes me feel physically sick. I understand that Clongowes made a very substantial out-of-court settlement for a case of bullying in recent years.

I rest my case.