Fr. Martin Kelly, provincial of the Spiritans Congregation in Ireland, issued a statement today in relation to the rape and sexual abuse of children in the care of their order over a period of decades.
He said (source):
On behalf of the Spiritan Congregation in Ireland, I want to express my deepest and most sincere sorrow to every person who was abused by a member of the Spiritans, or by a staff member, in any of our schools. I sincerely apologise for this. What was done to you as innocent children was cruel and indefensible. We are deeply ashamed of these actions.
“Secondly, failure to act promptly resulted in children being abused who could have been protected had corrective action been taken earlier. I also acknowledge that failure on our part and apologise for it.
“I want to encourage anybody who was abused by a member of the Spiritans or a lay member of staff in our schools, at any time, to come forward and contact us. I want to go further; any notion that those who suffered were ‘weak’ in some way and share some element of blame for whatever happened to them is completely and utterly wrong.
“As the leader of the Spiritans in Ireland today I want to banish any such idea and promise all victims that the full process we’re announcing today wants to hear from you.”
“I would like to assure everyone that there are in place, and have been for many years, all the appropriate policies and procedures for the safeguarding of children in all Spiritan schools to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that such abuse will not happen again to children in our care. We would like to assure everybody that all our communities apply rigorous standards for child safeguarding as laid down by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), the Department of Education and Skills, the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the Congregation’s own policy.
“We always cooperate with the statutory authorities (An Garda Síochána and Tusla) in their investigation of any reports of abuse that we receive.”
What I find utterly amazing is the notion that the perpetrators of these crimes should be asking their victims to contact them and think that they should be involved in any investigation. How on earth could they even countenance the notion that they should be part of that process?
They knew about these accusations for decades and did nothing so to say that they are sorry and to issue apologies now shows a level of delusional hubris that is staggering.
What else to the RC Church have to do to show that they have no place, no role and no right to be involved in the education of children?
He said (source):
On behalf of the Spiritan Congregation in Ireland, I want to express my deepest and most sincere sorrow to every person who was abused by a member of the Spiritans, or by a staff member, in any of our schools. I sincerely apologise for this. What was done to you as innocent children was cruel and indefensible. We are deeply ashamed of these actions.
“Secondly, failure to act promptly resulted in children being abused who could have been protected had corrective action been taken earlier. I also acknowledge that failure on our part and apologise for it.
“I want to encourage anybody who was abused by a member of the Spiritans or a lay member of staff in our schools, at any time, to come forward and contact us. I want to go further; any notion that those who suffered were ‘weak’ in some way and share some element of blame for whatever happened to them is completely and utterly wrong.
“As the leader of the Spiritans in Ireland today I want to banish any such idea and promise all victims that the full process we’re announcing today wants to hear from you.”
“I would like to assure everyone that there are in place, and have been for many years, all the appropriate policies and procedures for the safeguarding of children in all Spiritan schools to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that such abuse will not happen again to children in our care. We would like to assure everybody that all our communities apply rigorous standards for child safeguarding as laid down by the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), the Department of Education and Skills, the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the Congregation’s own policy.
“We always cooperate with the statutory authorities (An Garda Síochána and Tusla) in their investigation of any reports of abuse that we receive.”
What I find utterly amazing is the notion that the perpetrators of these crimes should be asking their victims to contact them and think that they should be involved in any investigation. How on earth could they even countenance the notion that they should be part of that process?
They knew about these accusations for decades and did nothing so to say that they are sorry and to issue apologies now shows a level of delusional hubris that is staggering.
What else to the RC Church have to do to show that they have no place, no role and no right to be involved in the education of children?