The Conference of Religious

Where do you go with a complaint based on a case of historic clerical child abuse?
Not to the somewhat weirdly named Conference of Religious if you want my opinion.
They've devoted much energy to devising their logo, pictured above, but not enough to dealing with the Catholic Church's biggest problem. See http://www.corew.org/aboutus.htm#ourlogo

Having emailed Declan Lang, Bishop of Clifton, back in April - see http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/letter-to-bishop-of-clifton.html - I was expecting some sort of official confirmation complete with case file number. Three months later, on 23 July 2010, following a bit of pestering from me I get a nice and apologetic email from Safeguarding Coordinator Eugene Gallagher at the Clifton Diocesan Safeguarding Office who explained that my letter should have been forwarded to the Conference of Religious where it would be handled by a Mike Denton. Another gently enquiring email from me was needed before I received a nice and apologetic response from Mr Denton.

He wrote me a perfectly appropriate letter of sympathy offering to contact the Christian Brothers but made no response to my request for confirmation that my complaint had been referenced with a case file number. As for my request that my letter should be passed to the statutory authorities Mike Denton told me that the police would not know what to do with my letter.

"The Conference of Religious seeks to be a dynamic and proactive presence of Church, particularly with those on the margins of society," reads the welcoming statement of this organisation's website at http://www.corew.org/ "It aims to unite its membership in collaborative initiatives translating gospel vision into reality, and to offer support to those in positions of leadership."

The COREW site lists safeguarding among its sections but this is not accessible without a password. Hardly encouraging for victims of abuse. The safeguarding section is clearly intended to guide clerics rather than to support their victims.

However sympathetic Mike Denton's response might have been, I felt it was unsatisfactory.

That feeling was confirmed by an email I received from a victim of clerical child abuse whose case has received wide publicity: "This is a classic example of the safeguarding officer trying to persuade you that he knows everything there is to know about safeguarding. Well he clearly does not. The stuff about the police is bollocks. I work closely with police on numerous child abuse cases and there is no case that they do not want to know about. All safeguarding officers, regardless of whom they are employed by, have a statutory duty to report to the police any information that suggests that a child may have been abused in the past, or may still be at risk. There are no exceptions to this. The fact that a witness might be deceased is irrelevant."

Judging by its postcode, the Conference of Religious is housed in premises which are close to St Benedict's School, Ealing. Ironically, at this time the school is the subject of an enquiry by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC into clerical child sexual abuse at this establishment, which is run by the religious order of Benedictines.

Click on http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/?gclid=CJDbqaSwv6QCFchH4wodQXhs_w where you will find that a sensible chap called Jonathan West is exasperated in the same way that I have been by the lack of transparency and general inefficiency of the Catholic Church in dealing with the messy business of sex abuse at one of its top UK school. His email address: jonathanwest22@gmail.com

8888888888888888888888888888888888

My response to Mike Denton was as follows:
To: Mr Mike Denton (by email, 5 October 2010)
Southern Area Safeguarding Co-ordinator for the Conference of Religious
3 Montpelier Avenue
Ealing
London W5 2XP

Dear Mr Denton

Physical and sexual abuse by Christian Brothers in the 1950s at Prior Park Preparatory School

Thank you for your lengthy email of 29 July 2010.

I appreciate many of the points that you made, including your explanation of the roles of the statutory authorities. While it is true that I am not intent on seeking legal redress I was curious to understand what steps the Catholic Church is prepared to take in order to convince the victims of clerical child abuse that it is doing all it can to make reparation. I was also interested in discovering how efficient the mechanism is for making complaints about such abuse.

Over the last six months I have made contact with former Christian Brothers' pupils from other schools in the UK. I have read and gathered enough material to convince me that Britain is no exception in providing examples of child abuse committed by certain members of the Congregation, although most of the cases highlighted by the media have occurred in Canada, the USA, Australia and of course Ireland.

There do seem to have been some procedural failings in dealing with my complaint, which was originally made on 3 April 2010 in an email to Archbishop Nichols. This was apparently misdirected by the Archbishop's office to the Clifton diocesan safeguarding officer rather than to your office at the Conference of Religious, as I was told it should have been.

It was only by chance that I discovered the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission's website where at http://ncsc.onlinebusiness.uk.com/contactus.htm I completed the details as required on that page and was promptly told that my submission had been verified successfully and that I had been given a case number 1442248.

I now believe that this is the organisation to which I should have been directed in the first place. I have since been in contact with Philip Dand, Chair of the North West Commission for Religious Orders. A copy of his letter to me dated 22 September 2010 is attached. The Commission has apparently advised that the Irish Christian Brothers make the circumstances of my case known to the police, and that the case be given a record number.

As regards your view that the police "would not know what to do" with my letter I would refer you to https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q133.htm where the issue of historic child abuse is dealt with and where I find the statement that "Any person reporting historic sexual abuse to the Police will be treated seriously and the matter will be investigated." You may also like to know that according to Jill Sewell of the Department for Education Public Communications Unit http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ "the police have a duty to investigate all allegations of child abuse thoroughly, and to undertake a complete investigation, even if the incidents happened a long time ago." (Correspondence between a Christian Brothers' former pupil and Secretary of State for Education Ed Balls, 29 June 2009).

There is therefore no need for you to contact the Christian Brothers. I look forward to corresponding with Bro Eamonn O’Brien, Safeguarding Representative for the Christian Brothers, regarding my case. I believe that it is important in the interests of transparency for this matter to be brought to light so that other victims of the Congregation will be encouraged to seek recognition of the wrongs that were done, however many years ago.

Yours sincerely

Michael Downes



Heather Cottage
9 Exmouth Road
Budleigh Salterton
Devon EX9 6AF
Tel: +44 (0)1395 446407

88888888888888888888888888888888888

I will say something about my correspondence with Philip Dand in my next post.

My first encounter with MACSAS

This afternoon, while listening the BBC's Radio 4 PM programme I heard for the first time about the Minister & Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS) organisation. MACSAS chair Anne Lawrence was being interviewed. As a victim of clerical abuse herself she spoke with authority and experience, and said exactly what I feel about how the Churches should respond to the issue of abuse by clergy, namely that they should come clean, answer the most searching questions and publish the results.

The website www.macsas.org.uk is well worth a look. It contains a survey for victims of abuse (which I completed) as well as information about plans for a book to be published based on testimony from abused individuals. The kick-off will be a MACSAS conference: 'We speak, you listen' in London - 11th September 2010. Survivors will speak and offer messages to Pope Benedict - their stories, hopes and dreams will be compiled and made into a book for presentation to His Holiness.

MACSAS demands are well set out in a press release of March 2010 aimed at the Church of England. It could equally well apply to the Catholic Church. http://www.macsas.org.uk/PDFs/News/MACSAS_PressRelease2march2010.pdf

So I didn't imagine the horrors of Cricklade...!

Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade

This Millstones site is a fairly quiet, low-key affair. You might call it 'old school' for its so very English and restrained approach... Not like the lively rants on a site such as http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/1-Million-People-against-Child-Abuse-in-the-Catholic-Church/104773239556947 which I browse from time to time just to see whether the number of followers will ever move from the low thousands to the million that the founder vainly hopes for.

Maybe we English still think of child abuse, especially where priests and monks are involved, as something like cancer: something you don't mention at the dinner table.

For me personally the memories, largely unmentioned until recently, have been so still that sometimes I think it was all a dream. Did I merely imagine Br A's gentle fondling of my private parts nearly 60 years ago at Prior Park College's all-boys prep school in Cricklade, Wiltshire? And that image of its headmaster, Brother - I can barely bring myself to write the word - Br B, the man in black, kicking and beating a naked boy in the shower room at Cricklade while we cowered behind our towels... was it just something I invented?

I haven't even mentioned this before because I can't remember the name of the ten-year-old victim.

Then out of the blue came the invitation, from a former pupil of Prior Park College in Bath who'd spent time at the prep school in Cricklade in the late 1950s, to read a memoir called Memories and Reflections Prior Park Preparatory School and Prior Park College 1958-1968. The document, emailed to me, was dated 27 June 2003.

Its background explanation is that around March 2002 certain ex-Prior Park College pupils from the class of '68 began to correspond and to compare notes with a view to organising their own, unofficial reunions.

Prior Park College today, shown above, is a thriving independent co-educational boarding and day school with 580 pupils. Judging by its website http://www.priorparkschools.co.uk/ it is a happy and fulfilling institution, as is its prep school at Cricklade http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/cricklade-today.html

The 2003 memoir, while giving due place to Cricklade, deals mainly with Prior Park College (PPC) and what are described as the horrors which characterised the place in the 1960s. And that was something that came as a shock to me. PPC had always seemed to me such a Paradise after the Hell of Cricklade. However I stayed there only a year before being sent to my father's old boarding school, the Oratory, at Woodcote in Oxfordshire.

I think that my snobbish father always felt that PPC was not quite 'top drawer' and resented my education at the hands of Irish Christian Brothers. He liked to consider himself as thoroughly English, but of course my grandmother, whose family originated from Co Mayo, was paying the fees and had a good Catholic's devout trust in the Brothers. Perhaps her initial reluctance to sever the link with them stemmed from her suspicion that The Oratory School had been responsible for nurturing her son's alcoholism. I'd heard it said in family circles that the school was noted for teaching its boys two things of value: good manners and drinking.

Above: The view from Prior Park College

Prior Park... that amazing 18th century building created by Ralph Allen; its Palladian bridge and fine vista over the city of Bath; crazy tobogganing on corrugated iron sheets as we younger boys hurtled down the snowy slope in front of our St Peter's boarding-house; the smell of wild garlic in the woods; a battle, which seemed to involve the whole school, against local kids, also in the woods...

Reading the Memories and Reflections written by boys who were at the school a few years after me revived many good memories. There was mention of a tame jackdaw which flew down to perch on pupil's shoulders when he called it. That was something I remember well: the jackdaw or its children had clearly been trained to accept a new boy-master in what had become a Prior Park tradition.

Brief though my stay at PPC was I always appreciated what were for me the school's positive points. Among the teachers, above all I remember 'Toffy' Palmer for his wonderfully enthusiastic art teaching and inspired coaching through musical pieces like the Fauré Requiem, performed in the Chapel and recorded in 1959 on an LP which I still have.

More than 50 years on I remember his words of praise for my childish painting of a farm scene but also the energetic way in which he seized the paintbrush to show me how more vigorous strokes would help to bring the work to life. It's still hanging in my daughter's bedroom.

How heart-warming it was therefore to read in the memoir that his impact was equally felt by later generations who recalled their PPC teachers.

For as far as the other PPC teachers were concerned I had no complaints at all. I do remember as a junior boy worrying about how I would cope in the next year with Chemistry, whose Mr Hunt was noted for the length of rubber tubing which he'd nicknamed Percy. The Memories and Reflections document confirmed that Percy was still painfully alive and kicking years after I left the school.

Even the bullying by other older boys which is given such prominence in the 2003 memoir is absent from my memories of PPC. The shockingly brutal yet picturesque description of 'flushing' by one of its victims was something that I never saw or suffered.

Nor did I stay long enough at PPC to experience the jolly japes involving cigarettes, drink and girls, and of course the camaraderie that accompanied all that bad behaviour. And the 2003 memoir does give the impression that the school in the mid-1960s was going through an anarchic phase, which made the subversive in me feel I'd missed out on something. "It was supposed to be a good level Catholic boarding school, yet we all basically behaved like a bunch of yobs!" acknowledges Tom Humphrys.

But I will focus on life at the prep school, since that's what I mainly shared with the writers of the 2003 memoir. Much of its content brought back positive memories as far as my four years at Cricklade were concerned. There's an attractive picture by one pupil of the Wiltshire countryside and indeed of some of the Brothers as the writer recalls those Sunday walks over the flat pastures. Even Brother Carmody's sadistic punishments were momentarily forgotten as the boys listened to his informative discourses on wildlife.

Old Chancel, Waterhay All Saints, Leigh. Photo by D & M Ball

I've always remembered, during one of those long walks, our discovery of what seemed to be an abandoned church in the Thames-side marshes, almost hidden by tall reeds. We ten-year-olds went crazy for a time in the ancient building, clambering in out and over the pulpit, and I seem to remember some of us pulling on the bell-ropes under what must have been the very indulgent gaze of the Brother or Brothers who were supposed to be in charge of us. Maybe because it was an Anglican church they were able to excuse our sacrilegious behaviour. Only recently have I found that the building may have been the Old Chancel of Waterhay All Saints in the nearby hamlet of Leigh, now in the care of the Churches' Conservation Trust. If so, it would certainly have been a good six-mile round trip on foot.

The Thames alongside the Northmeadow National Nature Reserve near Cricklade.

Photo credit: Jo Sayers

Swimming in the Thames is another memory that I shared with contributors to the 2003 memoir. A personal memory that I have is of a walk to the Thames which a Brother had allowed me to plan; events took an embarrassing turn when a small boy in our group began to sink on the muddy river bank crying out in panic that he was about to drown. I got a good ticking-off from the Brother for my poor navigation skills.

Shows in the gym where we were allowed to watch films like The Crimson Pirate were among other good memories from my time at Cricklade mentioned in the memoir, but sadly there was no mention of the wonderful Laurel and Hardy films that I loved.

No mention either of Clifford the Great Dane whose barking in the evening convinced me during many months of homesickness that my parents had returned to the school and were about to take me away. And I wondered whether members of the class of '68 were encouraged to grow flowers from seed in their own little garden plots, another out-of-class activity which I enjoyed. And whether any of them had the thrill of performing in a Shakespeare play, as we did when a Brother - I can't remember which one - told us we were going to stage a production of Julius Caesar. For many weeks it became the fashion to comb one's hair forward as we did our best to imitate what we thought were Ancient Romans.

Horse-riding on the other hand, was a school sport mentioned in the memoir which seemed to have been introduced after my time at Cricklade, and which I'd have chosen, going on as I did to join the local Pony Club during the school holidays.

Cricklade seemed to have changed very little from my time for the class of '68. There were sunlit aspects in their and my childish memories of the place, but depressingly the dark and brutal side was still there.

Left: Br B, a disturbed and sadistic man who should never have been allowed to run a school

The feared and hated headmaster Br B had gone off to die from spinal cancer and be eulogised by his fellow-Brothers as I've noted at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/whitewash-job-on-man-in-black-brother.htmlstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/whitewash-job-on-man-in-black-brother.html leaving many children from my era traumatised by the kickings, beatings and strappings that he employed to control us. But far from being mercifully released from his regime, the school seems according to Memories and Reflections to have sunk still further into brutishness.

For some, the dark side of Cricklade dominated their view of the place. For a new boy, with no previous experience of boarding, that initial impression of grimness would have been reinforced by first experiences at the school. The Christian Brothers' belief in wickedness and the need to beat it out of children was a twisted belief which became a major factor in the catastrophic collapse of the reputation of Edmund Rice's religious order, no matter how beatified its founder, a noted self-flagellant, may have been by the Catholic Church. Violence by the Christian Brothers against children characterised the way in which the Congregation ran its schools throughout the world, and Cricklade was no exception. Some treatments were idiosyncratic, such as the "invented" punishments by a Brother recalled by pupil Tom Humphrys: "in one case, rubbing your face against a partially grown beard until it bled" and/or deliberately hurting pupils by "lifting them up by their sideboards and twisting their noses between his knuckles."

Tom Humphrys goes on to describe other unpleasant aspects of the same Brother's conduct towards pupils: "The Top Dorm sticks in my memory because of the countdowns that X would have (when he was in one of his sadistic moods) at bedtime - anyone who wasn´t ready for bed by the time he reached Zero was beaten with a hairbrush by him and all the other boys in the dorm. (...) Once, when we went for a walk through the fields, he held me over the side of a bridge across the river - just for fun (his), but I was petrified and if anything had made him lose his grip I would at the least have been severely injured."

Strapping was certainly one of my first memories of Cricklade when I was punished by Br B, the headmaster, for not having a pencil with me in the dining room. We'd been told to assemble there for an exam, and as a seven-year-old newcomer to the school I had no idea what the word "exam" meant. The episode later had some value for me when I recounted it during my retirement speech at Oundle School, as proof of how education had changed for the better in my lifetime.

My contemporary at Cricklade, Ben Mitchell, recounts a similar experience: "I remember many times getting the strap for reasons that I could often not understand. One time I asked if I could go to the bathroom and was told to come to the front of the class, given the strap so I would have something else to think about then sent back to my desk. Of course one can only hang on for so long and the inevitable happened. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next."

The Memories and Reflections document is full of such stories told by the class of '68.
If anything, the beatings at Cricklade seem to have become more frequent in the early 1960s judging by their accounts in the memoir. Clearly the permanent threat of such violent punishment had a psychologically damaging effect on many children at the school, as at other Christian Brothers' schools.

There is mention of the Brothers' over-enthusiastic coaching on the games-field, which brought back for me personally the moment when Br Madigan decided that I was being a bit laggardly on the games-field and that a similar "warming-up" was the answer. Catching sight of this strap-wielding figure with cassock flying as he ran after me transformed me into an unexpected sprinter and somehow enhanced my reputation as an athlete, which of course I never was. I think it was shortly after that when to my surprise I was named as captain of one of the junior rugby games.

There was a comic element to that episode, which in fairness to Madigan he also recognised. And at that stage I think I was in my final year at Cricklade and less likely to be terrorised by the incident even though the strap was involved. The publicly staged punishments were a different matter.

Public hangings, stonings, amputations and mutilations may well have served as a form of entertainment for the mob in the past, and for all I know they may serve the same purpose in today's Iran or Afghanistan. But I will always remember the chill which came over us at Cricklade when the Brothers - sinister word - chose a victim to be punished at a whole school assembly. I'd always imagined that Br B was the sole instigator of these occasions, but reading the account of public strappings at Cricklade in Memories and Reflections filled me with disgust that the practice was continued in the years after his departure from the school.

I found this account valuable in one respect in that it corroborated in more detail what I told Archbishop Nichols at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/easter-letter-to-archbishop.html On that occasion, the victim was, as far as I can remember, forced to bend over a vaulting-horse while the strapping was given on his buttocks. His crime of soiling his underpants, probably due to some sort of faecal incontinence, inspired Br B to institute a regular ritual of underpants inspections which became another aspect of our terrorised lives.

A similar misfortune from which a Cricklade boy suffered resulted again in a public strapping of the victim where Br B's twisted imagination inspired him to create a truly humiliating spectacle. This time, a boy who suffered from bed-wetting was forced to dress in a sailor suit like the one above which Br B must have borrowed or hired and then paraded from classroom to classroom where we witnessed him being savagely beaten on the hand. Was it six of the best on one hand and then six on the other? All I can remember is the sight of his reddened hands and face streaked by tears of humilation, and the sound of successive strappings in our ears as he left our classroom and was taken to be punished in front of other classes in rooms along the corridor. He must have left the school shortly after the episode but I can't recall any edict of expulsion being announced. I just hope that his parents offered him some sort of comfort and support in later life. As far as I am concerned I would love to know that any compensation that he may have claimed has contributed to the Christian Brothers' financial woes following the avalanche of lawsuits which has hit them.

Above: The Ryan Report delivered a devastating verdict on the Catholic Church in Ireland for its longstanding toleration of sexual and physical child abuse

It's astonishing to learn that this reliance by the Brothers on corporal punishment had been criticised within the higher ranks of the Congregation more than 20 years previously. According to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) commonly known in Ireland as the Ryan Report, it was acknowledged by the Brothers that as long as corporal punishment was tolerated, the possibility of abuse existed and this was recognised by Br Noonan, Superior General, in 1930:

"The opinion amongst educators that corporal punishment should be altogether abolished in schools is hardening," he wrote. "While admitting its decline in our schools, the Committee felt, and the Higher Superiors are aware, that abuses have arisen; and they will recur, I fear, as long as our regulations give any authority for the infliction of corporal punishment. Let us aim at its complete abolition in our schools and anticipate legislation which would make its infliction illegal." (CICA report 6.217

"It is inexplicable, therefore, that Brothers who were in serious breach of the Congregation’s own rules were tolerated and protected by the Congregation," concludes the report (6.222). "Complaints by parents or lay-persons were discounted, even when these complaints reached the Provincial Leaders, notwithstanding the clear understanding the Congregation had of the danger posed by abuse of this rule."
http://www.childabusecommission.ie/rpt/pdfs/CICA-VOL1-06.PDF

Strapping, of course, was not the only punishment employed at Cricklade. Being made to eat unfinished food at one meal by having it mixed with the main dish at the next meal was a humiliation practised in my days at Cricklade by Br B and continued by his successors. Relatively minor in the scale of punishments, this forced eating encouraged phobias against certain foods which have lasted well into adulthood as testified in the memoir. My particular phobia was swede, especially when served with spam and glutinous brown gravy. And I remember with distaste Br B's lying and nonsensical refrain of "£70 a ton, £70 a ton" which was supposed to encourage us as we did our best to swallow dollops of lumpy and stringy mashed potato.

It was a matter of some satisfaction to me to find that my complaint against the other Christian Brother named in my emails to Archbishop Nichols and to Bishop Lang http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/letter-to-bishop-of-clifton.html was shared by an ex-Cricklade pupil writing in Memories and Reflections. Br A was already an ancient relic among the staff when I arrived at the school. In due course he would be known as "The Saint" by the boys and when he died at Cricklade the whole school was made to file past his coffin.

Br A, known as The Saint 

Small in stature, with tufts of white hair standing out against a face tanned from his years spent in India, he told us tales of life in the sub-continent, impressed my parents with accounts of his horsemanship and entertained generations of Cricklade boys with his records of Irish folk-songs played on a wind-up gramophone complete with big curly horn. But Br A "disguised unhealthy instincts in a cloud of sanctimoniousness" in pupil Tom Humphrys' words, with his unfortunate tendency to fondle little boys' private parts. As I told Archbishop Nichols and Bishop Lang, I still have more than half a century later, the strange sensation of his scaly fingers caressing my scrotum as he gathered us bare-legged boys in shorts around him in a public display of Brotherly affection.

Tom Humphrys, one of the class of '68, recalls "the 'saintly' Brother A sticking his hands down my pyjamas when I was coughing one night - he decided I needed a rub on my chest with something - however, it wasn´t my chest that he touched! At the time, I had no idea what he was doing and, when he apologised, I didn´t think much more about it. Luckily it was no more than that and only on the one occasion."

Shortly after the event, Br A arranged for the boy to be moved to the Top Dormitory. "No doubt because he was aware of his weakness and the temptation I posed for him," Tom Humphrys reflects. "In some ways, this could be seen as sensible and the right thing to do." But it seems that the Brother's resolve to resist temptation came at a cost to his victim. "After that he picked on me for any reason he could find (no doubt because I reminded him of his weakness."

A friend of Tom Humphrys told him that he had had a similar experience with Br A.

George Vincent is one of many former Cricklade pupils who has found these stories hard to accept. "I have to say that there were no incidents of sexual abuse to my knowledge at Cricklade during my time there between 1960-1964," he wrote to me in an email in July 2010.

"I mention this in particular relation to Brother A. I think it is X who infers something of sexual abuse by the aforesaid. X was with me at Cricklade but two years ahead.

X, I believe, is referring to Br A individually drying us boys with our towels after coming in from swimming. To my knowledge he only did this once (on the arrival of our new metal swimming pool) as he died the following winter. We all lined up, twenty or so of us in a line, and he ensured we were properly dry. There was no touching of private areas. It was all innocent but a bit surprising as we were not used to any kind of considerate care. I remember very clearly at the time that it all seemed odd but I rationalised that he was probably observing for any signs of puberty. This I had noticed the headmaster doing very occasionally in the showers; perhaps for reasons of pastoral care. Br A was a kind man and was mourned by us all as such."

I didn't think that I could accept that explanation. There's quite a difference between being rubbed up the wrong way in bed and properly drying someone after a swim, even if it's a ten-year-old boy in both cases. And it turned out that George Vincent, the former Cricklade pupil, who had initially sent me the Memories and Reflections document was unaware of the incident in bed described by Tom Humphrys. "If the incident was in the memoir I must have missed it or blanked it out as too much to confront," he admitted in a later email to me.

Certainly Br A may have been a man of delicate sensibilities in contrast to some of the other Brothers, and this would have gained him many friends amongst us boys. There was one occasion at lunch in the dining room when we discovered a large worm in the salad. No one would have dared to complain to Br A had he been there, but Br B was the only brother on duty. I think we felt that he would be our champion and would use the find to demand that the school's catering standards be improved. Fat hope of that. I still remember his uplifted hand and pained expression as he turned his face away: he simply didn't want to know.

I still find it difficult to describe as sexual assault the senile fumblings of the "saintly" Br A. Maybe he was fondling our private parts out of sheer innocent affection. The notion that he was checking up on us medically as part of his "pastoral care", as suggested by George Vincent, is too far-fetched for me. And, as I mentioned to the Archbishop, I do wonder how his particular affections made themselves felt in his dealings with young boys during his time in India.

So why did we not tell our parents, I've often been asked. I remember my own and my brother's regular floods of tears as term approached, but never managed to explain to my parents why I found school so intolerable. Perhaps our Catholic upbringing had trained us so well in the belief that life is a "vale of tears" and that suffering is good for the soul that we simply accepted school as a bad experience. In any case acceptance of corporal punishment at home by our own parents, as well as "not making a fuss" were things that we were supposed to take for granted in that era.

A further reason for not making a fuss, mentioned by one of the principal authors of the memoir, was precisely that Catholic upbringing which had rendered us fearful and vulnerable, faced with the worst aspects of the Christian Brothers.

The confessional booth: a dark place filled with sepulchral whisperings about imagined evils

This struck a chord in me. I similarly endured the horrors of Cricklade, coming from a background of Catholicism which kept most of us ten-year-olds cowed and obedient and trusting where the men in black were concerned. Up to the age of 14 at least, I believed in the Church with its litanies of venial sins, mortal sin, limbo, damnation, hell fire, purgatory, confession, contrition, penance and absolution. A belief deep enough for me to go to confession while on a French exchange with a devout Catholic family of course, and somehow summon up the courage and what little language skills I had at that stage to confess to the local priest that I'd been guilty of impure thoughts and actions.

In any case, if a fuss had been made, would parents have believed us? At least one pupil from the Class of '68, thinks not, and Ben Mitchell, a contemporary of mine at Cricklade, certainly found this to be the same situation with his own parents. "Your correspondence has brought back so many memories, everything you say is true," he wrote in a recent email. "Over the years Cricklade had faded in a distant memory. Sometimes I used to think that it was me being a bit of a wimp. I remember telling my parents about the various things that went on. (...) They of course believed none of it as they had been told that no physical punishment was EVER used. Maybe my mother was a little worried and must have mentioned it to one of the Brothers as I remember being chastised as being a little baby and needed to be taught a lesson."

Tragically this led to a rift with his father. "The worst thing that came of my stay at Cricklade was that my parents thought I was a liar and my father never really trusted me after that. This as you can imagine made life not as maybe it should have been. Some years ago I read an apology from the Christian Brothers in the Telegraph and was going to show my parents but decided against it. I thought let sleeping dogs lie. My father died over eight years ago, but I am pleased to say that we ended up putting the past behind us and being quite close. My mother is now ninety-three years old and in a nursing home. We get on well and I would never again mention what happened. I don't think she would understand but if she did she would be most upset."

In spite of the catalogue of unhappy incidents remembered by the Class of '68 in their Memories and Reflections the dominating tone of the memoir is certainly not of bitterness. At least one of the writers acknowledges his debt to the Christian Brothers.

Even at Cricklade I remember classes that I enjoyed, such as the first Chemistry lessons that the school introduced in a little wooden hut outside the main building. Watching phosphorous burn and seeing coal tar being distilled inspired me momentarily with the thought of becoming a chemist. Was it Br Rowe who was in charge? I feel sad that I no longer remember the names of the good teachers. Certainly it was Br Rowe who helped me discover choral music when, by chance, the solo that I was made to sing as a punishment for misbehaviour in the chapel unexpectedly revealed that I had quite a decent voice.

So it was a disappointment to me when I discovered that Br Finian Rowe was one of those complicit in producing the sickeningly dishonest obituary for Cricklade's headmaster with its laughable praise of Br B's "hearty, sociable character." http://www.stjosephsblackpool.com/obitdaly.htm

Yet I have to admit that the first French lesson that I gave as a teacher owed a lot to  Br B's pronunciation exercises which I'd remembered from 20 years earlier.

Some of the writers in Memories and Reflections have similarly positive memories of some of the Brothers. The strap-wielding Br Madigan, remembered by me as I was pursued round the games-field is recalled by Tom Humphrys. "Madigan is an interesting case - he could, indeed, be a bully and my first memory of Cricklade, about an hour after I arrived, was being terrified by seeing Madigan shouting at another boy while he cuffed him around the ears. However, he was always kind to me and, on one occasion when I had vomited at night after eating five apples that my parents had brought for me at half term, I went to tell him instead of telling "The Saint". He was very kind and cleared it all up for me, even though I had disturbed his sleep."

Even though Memories and Reflections is full of instances which reflect badly on the Christian Brothers, the overriding tone of the memoir is one of positive optimism and concludes on a note of forgiveness towards the Brothers which some might say is more deserving of the epithet Christian than Edmund Rice's Congregation ever was.

The Francis Hotel, Bath, venue for The Big Reunion of 2003 which brought together many of the contributors to the memoir
There are many other positive elements in this collection of schoolboy reminiscences which could so easily have been a bitter rant against the less appealing aspects of the Catholic Church. The collective effort by these victims of the Christian Brothers to face up to their childhood was indeed a traumatic event for many of them.

Sharing such views of their early education brought the Class of '68 together in a renewal of their friendship, another positive theme of Memories and Reflections. Tom Humphrys wrote how he shared this belief: "The way that many are prepared to bare their deepest thoughts to people they haven't seen for 35 years says a lot for the solidarity and camaraderie that existed between us - and clearly has survived through all the years since we were all together. This to me - sorry for the repetition - is the important thing and this is why it is so important for us to keep the impetus going from now on by reviving friendships and creating new ones with a group that by all accounts went through a unique experience together during the most formative years of their lives - for better or worse!!"

For me personally Memories and Reflections has an interesting sociological value, reflecting a sea-change in schools and in the wider society which saw the Class of '68 participating in an age of protest and revolution. I find it impossible not to see this generation of boarding-school pupils acting out their own quiet revolt against the Establishment, with devastatingly successful results. Tom Humphrys describes an incident which epitomises this. "When in the Lower Sixth, I remember a class being taken by Brother O´Brien, who asked one of us a question - when he didn´t know the answer, he pulled him out of his desk, cuffed him around the head and dragged him along the floor shouting 'you ignorant little bastard!' This was too much for us all, so we got up and walked out as a group into the corridor. O´Brien came after us saying in a quiet voice 'I'm sorry, boys, I'm sorry boys' - too late!"

Another writer boasts justifiably of his generation's part in the reform of boarding-school education as they themselves rather than the Christian Brothers outlawed ritual bullying, gauntlets and fagging at Prior Park College.

The If generation portrayed in Lindsay Anderson's film of 1968 had come of age.

Yes, these contributors to Memories and Reflections of Prior Park College and its prep school are clearly articulate and seem to have been successful in spite of or perhaps in some way because of their education. And I found their sense of having survived the ordeal of the Christian Brothers inspiring.

But of course they were the lucky ones.

The names of former pupils have been changed.

"We have to move on in life." Really?

The strap seemed to be an essential teaching aid for the Christian Brothers

The crack and the sting of a heavy leather strap as it hits your outstretched reddened fingers, the fear you feel as you watch one of your classmates being slapped around the head or beaten on the buttocks at a whole-school punishment assembly, the grotesque sensation of a teacher's gnarled old fingers caressing your scrotum... these are personal memories from nearly 60 years ago which have thankfully receded, especially on a beautiful day in June when I'm more preoccupied by the plight of my drought-stricken lawn or the blackspot on my roses.

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster

And of course some former pupils of the Christian Brothers have no such memories of their schooldays, either through luck or because they've managed successfully to blot them out. As the Archbishop of Westminster, Mgr Vincent Nichols told me, he has "no complaints" about the education he received in the 1950s at St Mary's College, Crosby, the Christian Brothers' Grammar School that he attended in Liverpool.
http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/blinkered-archbishop.html

The College was established as a boys' school in 1919 by the Christian Brothers and became a direct grant grammar school in 1946. When direct grants were abolished by the 1974-9 Labour Government the College became an independent school and is a member of the Headmasters' Conference. It began teaching girls in the sixth form in 1983 and became fully co-educational in 1989.

St Mary's College coat of arms

St Mary's College is now administered by laypersons and ceased to be one of the Christian Brothers' schools in January 2006 on becoming an independent charity. Although it is now run as an independent trust the school remains committed, as noted on its website, "to supporting the spiritual, educational and charitable principles of Edmund Rice, founder of the Christian Brothers movement." http://www.stmarys.ac/

Archbishop Nichols' words surprised me just a bit in view of what I've been reading about his old school in accounts by former pupils. Wikipedia may not be the ideal forum for establishing the truth about such matters, but at least some of its contributors are ready to testify in public by giving their names.

St Mary's College, Crosby

There's Eddie Hulme, for example, who believes in supporting "those who have documented what went on at this school so that no ever forgets." He points out that in today's society "if this behaviour was to take place those responsible would be in prison and for some be on the sex offenders register for life." He saw The Mount, the St Mary's prep school where he started in 1967, as "a grooming ground for what would occur at senior school."

"Try going home after a day at school and you can't pick anything up in your hands as they are still bruised and glowing from the strikes of a leather strap with a piece of metal inserted into it to make it harder and more painful," he recalls. "Thank God my parents let me leave in 1976 and didn't insist I stay." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:St_Mary%27s_College%2C_Crosby

Or Paddy Mckenna who attended St Mary's College from 1970 to 1974 "and hated every nano second," recalling a regime of "verbal taunting, physical pain, tears and the inevitable destruction of self esteem." He believes that "most pupils learned to be invisible or sycophantic, laughing at daily humiliations of their peers, thankful that they themselves were not on the receiving end of some pedant's 'wit' or violent outbust."

"To those that say that it wasn't that bad, I would reply that you were either very good at games, or academically brilliant or good at not getting noticed," states Paddy Mackenna. "Usually 'not getting noticed' meant making sure that someone else did, so shit stirring and the ability to drop someone else into the shit was a recognised survival skill." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:St_Mary%27s_College%2C_Crosby

Former pupil Tim Spooner, as I have noted elsewhere, has even set up St Mary's College Crosby Abuse Witness archive at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=110624368948881

Another internet site notes that although corporal punishment was outlawed in 1986 in State schools, some independent schools, such as St. Mary's, retained its use until as late as 1998. "Humiliation and physical punishment were the basis of discipline within the school," it alleges. http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/St_Mary%27s_College,_Crosby#Discipline

Better known, because it was published in mainstream media, is the account in The Guardian of 23 April 1998 by former World in Action editor Steve Boulton. Memorably recalling his Latin teacher Brother Brickley as "a black-clad threshing machine," who "flailed at his pupils to bang Latin into them," Boulton also dwells on the theme of sexual abuse by staff, "a sad and furtive business" as he calls it. http://www.nospank.net/n-b54.htm

John Birt's autobiography, The Harder Path, describes what he calls "a white-water ride of tumbles and excitements" which included his education at the hands of the Christian Brothers

And yet... and yet... St Mary's College is undoubtedly a successful school which has educated a formidably impressive list of ex-pupils. Not just the present Archbishop of Westminster, but Lord John Birt, Director-General of the BBC, the diplomat Sir Ivor Roberts, the poet Roger McGough... the list goes on and on.

So can't we moaners just 'get over it'? One former pupil who thinks that we should is outraged by the complaints made by what he calls "a small group of vociferous, angry and apparently traumatised Old Boys/Girls" who are apparently planning to record the history of the school.

"I was strapped at St. Mary's relentlessly in the first year by brothers and lay staff alike but learned my lesson," he writes. "We have to move on in life and look at our past as moulding or contributing to our present. So those that pathetically dwell on this "punishment" issue need to move on too and recognise the value, the service, the skills, the achievements the school and its teachers brought to many impecunious Catholic families in north Liverpool over several generations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:St_Mary%27s_College%2C_Crosby

Yes, I've no doubt that the horrors of my own education by the Christian Brothers contributed to making me a more resilient person. But they also contributed a bit of possibly too unhealthy mistrust of people, a slightly bewildered sense of betrayal by my parents and a personal scepticism about the Catholic Church's contribution to the world.

A former pupil who attended The Mount and then St Mary's College from 1979 to 1990 is currently in the process of making a complaint to the police about physical abuse at Saint Mary's College in that period. Strapping, including the use of Scottish tawses, punching, throwing and slapping are among the forms of assault on children which he remembers. He has mentioned one particular Christian Brother at The Mount who resorted to taking pupils to a basement for beatings as the crying was bothering other members of staff and disturbing lessons.

Clare McDonald at Sefton CID has asked that anyone who wishes to speak informally and confidentially about what they saw or experienced to contact her on 0151 709 6010

'Joe's Jailhouse' discovered

The coat of arms of St Joseph's College, Blackpool

This Millstones site started with the chance discovery shortly after Easter 2010 of the saccharine and lying obituary for Christian Brother B. I along with most of his pupils remember Br B as a disturbed sadist during his time as Superior of Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, Wiltshire.

Catholics and non-Catholics were already appalled by news of the shambles at the Vatican as the Holy Father's advisors shocked the world with their twists and turns over the issue of clerical child abuse.

Written by his Christian Brother colleagues, the so-called obituary appears on the website of the St Joseph's College (Blackpool) Association at http://www.stjosephsblackpool.com/obitdaly.htm

Frederick Keating, Archbishop of Liverpool, was responsible for inviting Christian Brothers from Ireland to run St Joseph's College
Bizarrely, St Joseph's College started life in 1860 as St Mary's School for girls, in Raikes Parade, Blackpool. The school grew rapidly and by 1880 was accepting boys. In 1900 the boys' section became a separate entity as St Joseph's College and in 1923 Archbishop Frederick Keating (1859-1928) invited the Irish Christian Brothers in Liverpool to take over its running. They were to remain at St Joseph's until they were forced to leave in 1975, when the school became co-educational. The Christian Brothers' constitution meant that the Congregation was unable to teach girls.

The St Joseph's College Association website at http://www.stjosephsblackpool.com/ is a useful gathering of material relating to the school. There are classified photographic archives, two chapters of a history of the school and loads of personal memories and tributes to both former pupils and staff. Among the latter there were by many accounts Christian Brothers who were respected as excellent teachers and genial characters.

For St Joseph's College enjoyed much success in the Blackpool area. Its well-known ex-pupils include George Carman QC (1929-2001), the American film and TV actor John Mahoney (b.1940), Tom McNally (b.1943), ennobled as Baron McNally and Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, the self-made businessman and former owner of Blackpool Football Club Owen Oyston (b. 1934), the business visionary and motivational speaker Paul Sloane (b. 1950) and Lawrence Whalley, Crombie Ross Professor of Mental Health at the University of Aberdeen.

Yet even the College's historian, a former pupil of the early 1960s, remarks on the "deterioration in moral values" at St Joseph's which characterised its decline in the later years. The school in his view was already "morally bankrupt" when Brother William Ignatius O'Carroll took over in 1958, determined to embark on a building programme which through his "ineptitude" and his desire for "eternal glory" made St Joseph's College "financially bankrupt" and brought about its downfall. http://www.stjosephsblackpool.com/chapter1.htm

Interestingly, Brother Ignatius's obituary, written by one of his fellow-Brothers paints a very different picture of the man, attributing just about every possible virtue to him and claiming that he "successfully" completed his full term of office at St Joseph's. http://www.stjosephsblackpool.com/obitcarroll.htm

The malign influence of the Christian Brothers at St Joseph's College is clearly stated by Professor Whalley, another 1960s former pupil who writes of "the many boys whose education was sullied not thrilled by the school." In his view the College by that time had become "an anachronism," with many of the senior pupils realising that "the Brothers’ near total ignorance of rapid social change in England – at least 20 years before Ireland’s – provided a poor preparation for our adult life in late 20th century Britain." http://www.stjosephsblackpool.com/whalleyL.htm

The biography of George Carman QC by his son Dominic did not paint a flattering picture of the Christian Brothers at St Joseph's College
Yet well before the 1960s, a former St Joseph's College pupil who became known as one of Britain's best known and most successful QCs would have testified to some of the unsavoury practices of the Christian Brothers. George Carman (1929-2001) was sent to St Joseph's at the age of eight at a time when it was apparently said of the school's food that "it was a question of eat or beat, often both." He ran away and was later sent to the Lancashire Diocesan Seminary near Wigan, returning to St Joseph's at the age of 16. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/george-carman-728729.html

Even his son Dominic had been unaware of what he describes as "the brutality and probable sexual abuse endured by young George at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers" in the biography of his father No Ordinary Man, published in 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/nov/16/featuresreviews.guardianreview38

Not surprisingly many memories recorded by the St Joseph's College Association website often reflect the darker side of school life from which pupils suffered in the past, leaving them often with considerable bitterness and unhappiness in their adult lives.

Some statistics were quoted to me by a former pupil of the College who has over the years been in contact with 400-500 ex-'Holy Joe's' inmates: 25% thought of it as a good school; 25% are neutral in their view of it; 50% "can't bear to think of it" and are "too traumatised to speak about it."

"The place was riddled with paedophiles," believes my informant, and I have no reason to doubt him.

A "fraternal initiative", but will it whitewash the Christian Brothers?

His Holiness Pope Benedict, presiding over a Church still in turmoil over the clerical child abuse crisis

Following his promise to Irish Catholics in March 2010 that an investigation would address chronic clerical child abuse in Ireland it's been reported that Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a panel of nine prelates to deal with the handling of abuse cases in Ireland. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/31/pope-irish-catholic-abuse-investigation_n_595541.html

The Pope invited "all the members of the Irish Catholic community to support this fraternal initiative." That's an appropriate way of describing it, since the Irish Christian Brothers were, more than any other Catholic organisation, responsible for the physical and sexual abuse of children.

The statue of Blessed Edmund Rice, founder of the Christian Brothers, in Callan, Ireland

The Congregation of Christian Brothers, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice, opened its first school at Waterford, Ireland, in 1802. Only recently have its victims begun to speak out to reveal shocking facts indicating that sadistic and paedophile tendencies were endemic in many institutions run by the Brothers.

The strap, a traditional teaching aid for Christian Brothers and an emblem of their reputation as child abusers

The missionary zeal of the founder and his fellow-Brothers over the last two centuries may have established the Congregation's reputation for effective teaching in schools all over the world, but many of its pupils paid a high price. Beatings, humiliating punishments and sexual assaults should not play a part in any school curriculum. They were a common feature in Christian Brothers' schools not just in Ireland, but in every country where the Congregation had a presence, including Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK.

So while the Pope's panel of prelates and other good Catholics will focus on abuses in Ireland, many of the Christian Brothers' victims believe that it should investigate in depth the activities of this most Irish of religious orders. In how many cases, for example, were brotherly abusers who had been caught out at schools in the UK discreetly transferred to 'safe houses' back in Ireland, often with the connivance of bishops?

The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, is the most senior Catholic cleric in England and Wales. He has no complaints about his own education by the Christian Brothers

How rigorous will this aspect of the panel's investigation be when one of its senior members is the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols?

This is the prelate who was reported in October 2003, following a BBC programme about clerical child abuse, as saying that there is "no evidence" to support the view that the Catholic Church's files on child sexual abuse should be "opened to independent scrutiny." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3196222.stm

This former Christian Brothers' pupil at St Mary's College, Crosby, has stated publicly that he has "no complaints about the education we received."

Either the Archbishop's memory is at fault or he was one of the lucky ones. In another UK Christian Brothers' school, not too far away from Crosby, I was told by a former pupil that as many as 50% of the children who had been taught by the Brothers at that institution said that their education had been a traumatic and damaging experience which had marked them for life.

Divine hacker at work?

We hear a lot about the power of prayer. I wonder whether a Christian Brother has seen my site and been on his knees looking heavenwards to make a special request to Blessed Edmund Rice, the 19th century founder of the Congregation. Or maybe someone working for Facebook is a Vatican secret agent.

It seems to be working ok now, but a week ago a small but strange thing happened to my Facebook site. The Christian Brothers' crest pictured above which I rather cheekily chose as a site logo suddenly disappeared, and there was no way I could put it back! I tried changing the picture, even tried to replace it with one of my cats, but no. The space seemed to be well and truly hexed.

Supernatural forces at work? The incident reminded me of a horror story told to us at school by a devout Christian Brother - I can't remember his name, so I'll call him Brother O'Muffin.

It was on these lines. A blacksmith who happened to be an atheist decided to test the doctrine of transubstantiation. Presenting himself at Communion, he took the consecrated wafer on his tongue but slyly, when the priest's back was turned, removed and hid it. Then it was back to his forge where the burly blacksmith took out the holy bread and placed it on his anvil.

"Now let's see what Christ's Body is made of!" he exclaimed, bringing down his hammer with all the force he could muster. "And do you know boys," said Brother O'Muffin to his hushed and horrified little group of ten-year-olds, "the holy wafer began to bleed, just like the drops of blood from the wounds they made on dear Jesus with the crown of thorns."

The story didn't stop there. We learnt that the drops of blood turned from a trickle to a flood, and that within minutes the terrified blacksmith was standing up to his knees in a gory red rising tide which had flooded every inch of his forge.

I can't remember how it ended. In medieval times, wandering friars told stories like this to credulous congregations, but generally with a gruesome ending: the blacksmith would have drowned in the holy blood while cursing and calling on the Devil to save him. Perhaps the gentle Brother O'Muffin told us simply that the blacksmith rushed to be baptised and confessed his horrible sin in the nearest church imploring the Blessed Virgin to save him.

The simple-minded friars who took advantage of the credulity of their peasant audiences were a regular target of Protestant Reformation leaders like John Calvin. I can't help thinking that the fantastic drivel which some Christian Brothers entertained us naive pupils with was in its way a kind of child abuse, even though it was hardly on the same level as the strapping and the groping that others indulged in.

We know about papal infallibility. What about papal responsibility?

Pope Benedict: how responsible is he?

With the Catholic Church in a ferment over child abuse allegations, and new victims coming forward worldwide, media headlines continue to make the subject a hot topic and are being seized on by websites like mine. I've no intention of suing the Catholic Church for millions, and I don't want to spend too much time scouring the press for suitable stories - too many gardening jobs to get on with. But the occasional headline has caught my eye, especially like the one below, written by one of my ex-pupils, and raised a question or two.

For example, does the Vatican bear the ultimate legal responsibility for the sins of its priests and bishops? Vatican lawyers are arguing that bishops cannot be regarded as employees and that therefore there are no grounds for lawsuits against the Pope.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7733921/Vatican-claims-bishops-arent-employees.html

Please sign the Downing Street petition!

If you feel strongly about the issue of child abuse, send a message to the UK's new Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street

Following on from my last post about the abuse case involving former Salesians' pupil Graham Wilmer http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/conspiracy-of-faith-graham-wilmers.html I noticed that Graham is a co-founder of something called The Lantern Project.

This is a registered charity, based in Wallasey, Merseyside. It was founded originally as Victims No Longer in October 2000. In April 2003, with the help of fellow survivor David Williams, the organisation was registered by the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and changed its name to The Lantern Project on 5 December 2003.

The Lantern Project currently has five trustees and over 800 registered members. The Project is also a member of the Survivors Trust, which lobbies government on child protection issues. For more information see http://www.lanternproject.org.uk/aboutus

The Lantern Project has launched a Downing Street petition asking the Prime Minister "to establish a commission for truth and reconciliation in the UK to enable victims of sexual abuse to disclose what happened to them and have their experiences acknowledged, and the subsequent harm they suffered recognised and resolved."

During the 2010 General Election campaign the e-petitions service was suspended, and apparently the new Liberal Democrat-Conservative administration is currently assessing how best to proceed with it.

Meanwhile it seems that the deadline to sign up to this important petition is
23 September 2010. So far there are only 25 signatures.

Many Catholics and non-Catholics still have doubts about how their Church has handled the historic problem of clerical child abuse.

They are looking for significant gestures and actions which prove that the Catholic Church is taking the issue seriously.

One action would be for Archbishop Nichols, its senior churchman in England and Wales, to ask clergy in every diocese to sign the petition.

To see the Downing Street petition, click on http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/sexabusevictims/

Conspiracy of Faith - Graham Wilmer's story

I've been looking at the website of Salesian School, in Chertsey, Surrey. The current Headteacher James Kibble describes it as "a thriving and active school with a long and well-established reputation." It is a now a Catholic co-educational comprehensive school for children of all abilities from 11-18 years.

The Salesian School's website at http://www.salesian.surrey.sch.uk/ states that the school is characterised by the philosophy of the Salesian founder, St John Bosco (1815-1888). "He stressed high educational standards and sound moral and religious education," it is claimed. "He insisted too on a friendly atmosphere in his schools where the idea of community could be fostered. We strive to ensure that every student personally experiences a happy atmosphere that will help them to leave the school with a high level of confidence in their own abilities, as well as excellent examination results. These goals are delivered through a strong pastoral system, excellent learning and teaching and an extensive range of sporting, cultural, physical and social extra-curricular activities."

I have no reason to doubt that Salesian School today is a happy place where I would be delighted to send my children. But 50 years ago I would have felt rather differently had I met former pupil Graham Wilmer.

Above: St John Bosco, founder of the Salesian Order

Salesian School's origins go back to 1921 when it was founded in 1921 as Salesian College at Highfield Road, Chertsey. Until 1971 it was a boarding school for boys, with the later Guildford Road establishment as a girls' school. In 1971 they merged to form one comprehensive school but maintained single-sex education on separate sites until 2008.

Making Graham Wilmer's acquaintance made me realise that it was not just Christian Brothers who made life hell for children at Catholic boarding schools in the UK. His book Conspiracy of Faith - Fighting for Justice after Child Abuse is an eye-opener which, depressingly for Catholics, alleges the alarming extent of corruption and deviancy at the heart of the Salesian Order, one of the Church's most respected teaching groups. For details of sexual abuse allegations against members of the Order see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_scandal_in_the_Salesian_order

Below: Graham Wilmer's book is reviewed by Francis Beckett at

http://newhumanist.org.uk/1576/secrets-and-lies

The author reveals the sexual abuse that he suffered in the 1960s from a teacher, Hugh Madley, while a pupil at the Salesian College in Chertsey. This was not just a case of abuse, but of deviousness and lying on the part of the headmaster Fr Edward Joseph O'Shea, and the Provincial Superior of the Salesian Order Fr George Williams who attempted a cover-up to protect the school's reputation and that of the Salesian Order.

The full story is told by Graham Wilmer (pictured below) in his book, and on his websites http://www.grahamwilmer.org.uk/ and http://www.manwiththelamp.org.uk/ There we learn, astonishingly, that since the publication of Conspiracy of Faith, allegations of sexual abuse emerged against Fr George Williams, spanning decades and involving pupils at Shrigley Hall, the former Salesian Missionary College in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Such was the evidence presented to the police that an investigation was launched in 2008 by Bolton Police.

The primary reason why the investigation did not result in a prosecution is that the victims who came forward, following the publication of Graham Wilmer's book Conspiracy of Faith telling how Fr Williams protected his abuser, Hugh Madley, were not willing to make a formal complaint to the police. "Such is the power of the Catholic Order on vulnerable children and vulnerable adults," concludes Graham Wilmer.

To his credit, in spite of the devious behaviour of these Catholic priests, Brothers, or whatever they want to call themselves, Graham Wilmer is, so he tells me, collaborating with Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, in a constructive manner to deal with the issue of clerical child abuse. He told me on 26 April 2010 that he would be seeing Bill Kilgallon, Chair of the National Safeguarding Commission in a couple of weeks.

Above: Logo of the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation for victims of sexual abuse in the United Kingdom

This was at the Archbishop's request to look at how the Catholic Church can support the national commission idea that Graham has proposed as The Commission for Truth and Reconciliation for victims of sexual abuse in the United Kingdom http://www.ctruk.org.uk/

Graham has joined my Millstones Facebook group.

Email: graham.wilmer@btinternet.com
http://www.grahamwilmer.org.uk/