The revelations never end about priests and brothers, of monsignors and bishops with their secret sexual lives, masturbating, buggerizing, sodomizing and raping boys and girls – protected by an amoral hierarchy and a few corrupt members of the upper-echelons of various police forces.
When will the swelling tide inside the Church of hostile responses (of outrage and anger, of humiliation, betrayal, frustration and impotency) ever subside?
Read the findings of our Royal Commission, and weep – and the dirty secrets of the Catholic Church in Ireland as explored by a number of judicial enquiries. Horror stories from the United States, from Canada, France, Germany, Poland and beyond.
Watch Sarah Ferguson’s ABC three-part harrowing documentary entitled Revelations. Devastating and disturbing stuff. The story of His Eminence Cardinal Law and the unfolding story of criminality in his Boston diocese documented in Spotlight. Hundreds of offending priests protected by their superiors, by their brothers in the priesthood, and by the legal profession.
The culture, the crimes, the cover-ups, the clericalism, the corruption, the complicity – when will it ever end? The share price has fallen through the floor, yet the executives and members of the board (all males) keep their jobs.
Incompetent, complicit bishops and their grey parish priests, living in a parallel, supernatural universe are hoping that one day, soon, this whole mess will simply disappear, that people will get tired of hearing about sacerdotal penises and anuses, hearing stories of boys and girls being abused and traumatized – clerics, young and old, hoping that everything would eventually return to normal – whatever that is. The sooner the better – and then they can get on with saving the world again.
Hoping, praying the crisis will go away – well, I wish them all the best of British luck. But here’s the thing – it’s not going away. The clergy just keep giving. The horror and tragedy just goes on and on. And now, another heavy hitter has appeared on the scene – Suzanne Smith – with her compelling, disgusting story of sex and abuse among the clergy of the Maitland – Newcastle diocese, the bullying and persecution of one of their own (a man who could see the injustice of what was happening and was ready to give evidence), the savagery of his fellow clergy, and the protection racket that hid the offenders from view. The Altar Boys, like nothing since Spotlight, has zapped the wrinkly men of the institution right where it hurts – in their bezzubees.
In The Altar Boys, the reader will meet a whole variety of people – priestly and fraternal paedophiles and their wounded victims, prelates and monsignors who protected the offenders (some of them were offenders themselves), grieving mothers and a number of truly honourable police officers.
The 94-year-old mother of five Audrey Nash makes a number of appearances and as I was reading, I was hearing in the background the damning verdict she delivered towards the end of her long life. Audrey had been faithful and loyal, always a Catholic, respectful towards the clergy and one of their attentive housekeepers. Like other 12 and 13-year-old boys, her son had been sexually abused at school by one of the religious brothers and had hanged himself in shame. The story Smith narrates is one of shock and pathos.
As I was reading, I kept hearing what the old mother had said so matter-of-factly to Sarah Ferguson in her ABC documentary – slowly, too slowly, she had come to realise she had spent her long life as a believer in a corrupt, criminal organisation. What a painful discovery for any loyal Catholic! And it seems to have taken a woman to tell it as it was.
In addition to being a story of unimaginable evil, of horror and corruption, Smith also tells the story of courage and integrity, of grief and perseverance, of friendships and tender compassion. And at the centre of this unfolding drama are two outstanding heroes – Father Glen Walsh and his childhood friend and co-altar boy, Steven Alward.
Father Glen appears as a vulnerable, lonely, compassionate priest, full of simple religious ideals and missionary energy. He was bullied by his bishops and his brother priests for following his conscience and putting up his hand to give vital evidence against Archbishop Wilson. Sexually abused as a young man by a senior Marist Brother – his superior when he was in training to become a member of the order – abused and persecuted by many of his fellow clergy – defamed by priests and told by one of his bishops to “fuck off out of my diocese and never come back” – and as the impending court case approached, he was summoned to Rome (a visit, according to the cardinal’s own account, organised by the Eminence Grise of the Australian church), to front the Pope and give an account of himself. Not a little suspicion here of a heavy-handed attempt to interfere with the evidence to be given by a witness in a criminal process.
The other hero is Glen’s childhood friend, Steven, who turned out to be another victim – this time of the super-active and lover of fine wines Father John Denham – one of his 59 victims ranging in age from five to 17 years old.
In the end, like so many other victims of clergy abuse, the pain was too much to endure. Father Glen and his friend both ended the agony of their secret lives and gave up the struggle. The reader will find himself in what Steven Alward’s lifelong partner, Mark Wakely, described as a world where “the unimaginable is real”.
Surprises don’t come easy to an octogenarian ex-priest and ex-judge, but Suzie Smith has come up with a few startling scenarios.
I was shocked to read that Bishop Toohey, a prelate well known to me as a teenager in the seminary in the ’50s, according to a religious sister now in her advanced years, had indulged himself in her presence when she was a young nun en fleur. I imagine she too had reacted with some surprise, startled when she was suddenly confronted with an extended episcopal phallus in the flesh. The reality of the unimaginable!
Surprised too to read that Bishop Leo Clarke of Newcastle was sprung one night as a member of a suspicious group of clerics, 20 or more, some in their underpants, out of their clerical garb, in all states of undress, at a “priests’ party” (whatever that might be) in Sydney. Some were paedophiles, including John Denham and his friend Ron Picken (another of my contemporaries from the seminary – now dead like many of them) – and a 16-year-old Newcastle boy. Was this some type of liturgical orgy? What were these priests doing in their underpants? What did Leo the Shepherd think he was doing? Suzie just leaves us to guess.
Unfortunately, there are many pious delusionists in the Catholic Church who remain in a coma of denial, and talk among themselves about conspiracies and ingrained anti-Catholic bigotries. The facts are just too hard to face. The unimaginable reality calls for old believers to go to places that are out of their reach, to ask questions of their institution and hierarchy which they cannot bring themselves to articulate, to make changes that will dismantle the world they have always believed was created by God and which they have found comforting.
As members of the human species, we all have at least three separate lives to live. Each of us lives a life in the public arena, however small that world might be, and a private life in our home, with our family and intimate friends. Then there is our secret life – a hidden life, a spiritual life in our world of imagination, of desires and dreams, of spirits, angels and ghosts. This is a world many of us hesitate to explore – a life we are reluctant to share with anybody, even our closest friend and partner. It is a life of shadows.
And we now know that some priests and religious brothers (and others, of course), live in an unimaginably evil world and lead dark, murky secret lives of twisted desires, of pornographic nightmares that often involve many vulnerable, innocent children whom they torment, scandalize and traumatize for their depraved pleasure. And we know that many of those in charge, members of the hierarchy, senior priests and monsignors have lived a secret life of denial, dishonesty and obfuscation – middle managers with cloudy vision and wooden hearts, facilitating crimes and covering them up. In recent years these secret lives have been exposed in books and documentaries. They are there for all of us to see. In her new book, Suzanne Smith takes us by the hand and leads us through the back passages of a Hell where trained religious men torment children and poison their lives, where bishops cover for them, protect them, lie for them and become complicit in their base secret lives. It’s the mafia world of clericalism.
When will it end?
It will end when the old men who control the levers of power within the institution, the Pope in Rome and his episcopal henchmen, are ready to watch with open eyes an exposé such as Spotlight, or read with some level of acceptance Suzie Smith’s excoriation of their organization.
It will end when the old guard is prepared to join the modern world and share their power with the women in their visibly shrinking institution. Women are noticeably absent in the institution. In the eyes of ordinary citizens, Vatican City is peopled by a gaggle of senior men, all men, only men, in colourful drag. In contrast, apart from the wounded male heroes at the centre of Suzie’s book, her story rests on the integrity and sense of justice of female heroines – Audrey Nash, Patricia Feenan, Helen Keevers, Christie Faber, Helen Syme, Joanne McCarthy, Libby Davis – and of course the author herself. The leaders can’t see it yet, but if there is any hope their future rests with the women.
Well done, Suzanne Smith. Yours is a compelling, cautionary tale. A word of advice. Send a copy to the Pope.
Dr Chris Geraghty is a former priest of the archdiocese of Sydney, a retired judge of the District Court of NSW, and the author of a recent publication, Virgins and Jezebels – the Origins of Christian Misogyny.
Comments
22 responses to “Father Glen Walsh paid a heavy price”
Father Ron Picken was a popular priest from my parish. He was never accused of paedophilia. One of the judges associated with Denham claimed he knew of Denham’s offending.
One component to add to the mix is biological psychopathology (‘pathology’).
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QUOTE:
‘Men of the Flesh: The Evaluation and Treatment of Sexually Abusing Priests’ by Dr. Leslie M. Lothstein, in ‘Studies in Gender and Sexuality’ (journal) 5(2):l67-l95, 2004′
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QUOTE:
‘A Psychologist Steeped in Treatment of Sexually Active Priests’ by Mark Oppenheimer April 9, 2010
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Every organisation has the potential to succumb to infiltration by pathological individuals. This infiltration is a process. It begins with hypocrisy, which blinds people to slightly pathological individuals. Pathological thinking and behavior can be contagious and as it spreads then pathological individuals begin to seem normal. Eventually the organisation is centred round extremely low conscience pathological individuals. These individuals wear personal ‘masks’ as well as ‘ideological masks’. An ‘ideological mask’ is a set of political, religious, spiritual etc. beliefs that pathologicals hide behind. (From ‘Political Ponerology’ by A. Lobaczewsk)
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‘Political Ponerology’ by A. Lobaczewski
“The Catholic people, the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of the catholic faith & the Bishops were not. The governing elite of the Church came up short while the governed were pre-eminent in faith, zeal, courage and constancy.” Saint J H Newman.
Pretty awfull stuff. I am a non-catholic who lves in Newcastle and know or know of a number of the people mentioned in the book. It is truely creepy stuff, though I am not surprised rumours have circulated for years.
I have however met and know many very decent people who are (or were) regular Catholic church goers. In the old terminology they would be called “good Catholics”.
What I found remarkable about them was their utter obsequiousness when it came to interactions with a Priest or the Catholic heirachy. It was like otherwise intelligent people left their brains at the gate.
Another observation was how socially and economically inter-twined they all appeared to be. Same Catholic schools, aged care and hospitals, go to the catholic chemist, GP, solicitor, sockbroker, medical specilalist or they got a job at Hunter Water throught the catholic section head etc etc. As a friend said to me “the tykes are all very tight”.
These people were not an underprivelged or suppressed group. They were nearly all doing very well in life – good jobs (usually double incomes with at least one government job), nice houses and cars, holidays overseas and kids at university or aspiring to soon go there.
But their OUTLOOK was one of they were somehow a “put upon” or victimised group. Perhaps it was this view of the world and attendant “tribalism” meant they would not call out there own. They paid a huge price for this.
Belive me, there remains further truely gut wrenching first hand stories, like that of Mrs Nash that have not been publically told. These people (many decent people, I hasten to add), simply cannot face up to what has gone on under their noses. Question to be asked is, how do we prevent this societal tradgey from happening again?
Well MBSmith, I don’t think that the old-school tie or sectional interest groups connected to Churches is really anything new – we can see the influence Private School graduates have in mainstream political and economic spheres. In the Ballarat Diocese, it is certainly true that the cops routinely either did not take action against paedophiles or were able to side-line investigations by good policemen even to the point of ending their careers. The police hierarchy have revealed in recently years that the cover-ups were not just by police from Catholic backgrounds but also from non-Catholic backgrounds. Most of those in significant positions have either retired or died.
I could be wrong but I think Mrs Nash’s story has already been told by the ABC Sarah Ferguson’s Revelations and the perpetrators have already been jailed. One Brother (high up in a Teaching Order) who covered up offences is now facing sentencing for the cover up of crimes at that time.
Thank you for your comments gazza,
What I am trying to comes to grips with is why in Newcastle (and Ballarat also as you have pointed out) was there such a prevalence of this aberrant behaviour in the Catholic church.
Just what was going on in these Catholic groups that permitted this heinous behaviour to take place at all and go on for so long?
I have had a number of emails similar to yours. Along the lines of: “hey it was not just Catholics, this sort of stuff occurs in other places also”.
Well yes that is unquestionably true. However I suspect your (and other recent correspondence directed to me) distributing blame amongst other non-catholic parties in itself unwittingly very illustrative.
If something is wrong we need to honestly own up to it, full stop.
You have misinterpreted my comment in relation to Mrs Nash. What I am saying is there are other equally distressing stories of gross betrayal of trust similar to what occurred to the Nash family, that have never publicly been told.
M
Yes, M it was very prevalent in two places run by the Salvation Army but my point was about the cover-ups not the incidence which is a mystery for the pyschopathologists. The reason or reasons for the incidence of paedophilia in Maitland/Hamilton and Ballarat is something for you to work out. One of the problems is that while it was condemned by those affected in those decades as summarised by the Royal Commission, it wasn’t a felony or reportable (2014). The important thing is that it does not happen in the future. Towards Healing, The Melbourne Response and strict protocols within the Church and in schools that every member of staff has a working with children check and that situations where staff might be alone with a student are forbidden.Is there any evidence of offending since 1996 in Victoria?
On average it takes 33 years to disclose / you will find out in ten years or so
Chris – as. you recall – Bishop John Toohey was my Bishop. I know most of the characters named from the Maitland Diocese. My leaving the priesthood in 1968 was full of angst and pain, but now I feel a great feeling of relief and vindication that I drove off when I did. I knew the outfit was sick – but I had no idea what was going on, or how sick it was.
Rightly these disgusting criminal acts should be punished and the church’s structures reformed to reflect the teachings of Jesus, but the hysterical outpourings and hatred of the church contained in these comments below, dishonour the 95% of clerics and orders who have lived lives of fidelity, service and ordinary goodness. Bad argument to tar everyone with the same brush – we don’t do it with our classes nor with references to the different ethnic groups in our society. Pretz is on the right track in the search for justice but I am not so sure of Geraghty, the self appointed avenging angel – does he like some of the others have something to hide!
With respect I think your stats are wrong re the 95%, when put to the test most fall in line or are unwilling to rock the boat, that’s why it went on unchecked for so many years. I have spent a long, long time joining the dots with regard to Ballarat and Melbourne Paedophile ring. It becomes clearer every day, most priests fall into the gay category, nothing wrong with that (except within the Catholic context they’re effectively living a lie) but within that group another group of child abusers, controlling a Bishop through fear of exposing his homosexuality with ultimately devastating consequences. It is nothing but a sick cult, I’m sorry but these are the facts. A quote from one openly gay priests was “none of us should have been allowed to be Priests”
Great article, Chris. Love your passion, and where it comes from!! I haven’t read Suzanne’s book yet. Just finishing Peter Fox’s at the moment. Suzanne’s is next. Mind you, I feel I have read it, having been dealing with this shite for so long.
“But here’s the thing – it’s not going away. The clergy just keep giving. The horror and tragedy just goes on and on”.
It certainly hasn’t and won’t go away. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of clergy misconduct against adults, and its undeniable relationship to the cover up horrors which led/lead to new abuses – the very fallout of which we in Australia in particular seem to be witnessing. This cover up also involved the police and they should be held accountable in the reality that their inaction as well, led to the abuses of hundreds more children’s and their families’ lives being overturned so much, not to mention the many suicides they facilitated. Every suicide related to sex abuse should be tried as manslaughter, and everyone who covered it all up, accessories after the fact.
Surely it is time to lift the scales from our eyes. This Roman Catholic Church is an accident of history. It might have been the Jews, or Zoroaster, or Mithras, or the Manachaeists (among others). Without Constantine and his demand that the ‘Christians’ come together at the Council of Nicaea in 324 CE and settle their theological arguments and without Theodosius who ultimately confirmed Christianity as the official religion of Rome in 380 CE, this Jewish sect would likely have disappeared. Instead, with the patronage of a powerful Government, it developed a parallel structure of Roman governance still in place nearly 2000 years later and hopelessly past its use-by date. Still governed by men in frocks.
But for all the discussion about a church that has lost its way, I hear no discussion about the elephant that is not in the room. Where is this omnipotent, omniscient, beneficent, omnipresent, metaphysical ‘being’ that lives up there, among the stars, in the heavens, whose enormous power could bring the apocalypse with a wave of his hand but cannot save little children from sadistic sexual abuse from his own priestly representatives on this planet? The question has been asked countless times over the millennia and always the same answer. God works in mysterious ways. Rubbish!
This ancient religion requires reinvention, another Council of Nicaea, a Makkerata, a truth-telling to seek forgiveness, not from a God fashioned in our own image, but from the countless human beings whom it has let down over the centuries through its corrupt practices. Yes, it has done good works; but I am not certain the balance is at all positive. This corrupt abuse of young children and women by powerful agents of God throughout all its history is enough to tip the balance without adding eight crusades of slaughter, an Inquisition and Witch trials sponsored by the Vatican, centuries of support for slavery, the selling of indulgences to the poor for a ticket to Heaven, and the destruction of cultures through colonisation in the name of God, just to name a few.
“The unimaginable reality calls for old believers to go to places that are out of their reach, to ask questions of their institution and hierarchy which they cannot bring themselves to articulate, to make changes that will dismantle the world they have always believed was created by God and which they have found comforting.”
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen! But in time, we will put away the playthings of our childhood, the fairy tales we absorbed in wide-eyed ignorance, to understand that the meaning of, for, or to life is not to be with some mythical figure in an afterlife, but rather to know in a personal examination of “our secret life” (as Geraghty defines), the World is truly a better place for our having had the privilege of a life on this planet. Perhaps the life of the Catholic Church has already failed that test.
More of the same, unfortunately. ‘When will this end?’ Two suggestions; when the ‘faithful’ admit that the power they gave the clergy is the power that the clergy abused. And when society recognizes that the Vatican does not play by values of justice or charity. So don’t expect their appointees to fix the mess they are responsible for.
It will not end until indoctrination of young and impressionable minds is stopped.
It will not end until the already indoctrinated cease ostracising those for whom religions are fundamental evils which have inflicted themselves on humanity as a means of obtaining and maintaining wealth and power with which to control and bully the laity: Until the herd mentality of the greater part of society with its accompanying tribalism and ‘otherism’ is conquered by truth and rationality.
It will not happen in my lifetime: Of that I am quite certain.
Yes, Nigel, not in my lifetime either. But there is reason to hope. At the last Census in 2016, for the first time, more people marked ‘no religion’ than those who marked ‘Catholic’. That is a huge change, perhaps some reflecting multi-cultural Australia, but the pews are emptying.
There’s two answers.
The Church hopes it will end when all of the victims are dead.
The reality is that most of us survivors will continue to raise issues and concerns as long as we live, because the sad reality is that your Church is not your Church until you have some direct control in what happens within it. And that is not changing – not now – not ever. And your current administration at all levels is the most corrupt organisation the world knows – I should know I’ve fought the pathetic creatures for long enough and they are the high priests of only one thing – hypocrisy!
I am just half-way through this chapter and verse exposé (with maps and diagrams and lists of all the “characters”) book by Suzanne SMITH – and Dr Chris Geraghty addresses it with all the white-hot fury of the friend who recommended it to me just two days ago. I’ve read Louise MILLIGAN’s book, too – and I’m about to move on to former NSW policeman Peter FOX’s side of the Newcastle/Hunter region story of paedophile priests and brothers. I think the best way to clean up the mess would be to arrest and lock up all the bishops/archbishops/Pell again, too – and then sell off their cathedrals – prime real estate – proceeds to the survivors and/or their immediate families – parents/siblings spouses and children included – all have been wounded! And lock up those lawyers who worked for these criminals as well. A decent Jesus-loving Church would NOT require lawyers/barristers – secrets! This is not a church – it is a mafia!
Hear! Hear!
Jim, do you really think the various directors of public prosecution are going to arrest any of those groups that you mention? These directors are the officials who have charged Bernard C and Agent K, who tried Agent J in secret, and have charged David McBride. Much as I would dearly like to see it happens, it will be a miracle if it does. C’mon Mary Mackillop, one last miracle for us all.
with respect Jim Kable, you omitted locking up all the priests – and wouldn’t a “decent Jesus loving Church” forgive all those who have sinned????
This is an excellent summary of an important book. Notwithstanding the gravity of the disclosures, there are some “devout” Catholics who, even now, are joining the ranks of those who wish ill of the ABC for daring to expose these heinous activities.
As to when will it end, experience around the world shows that it won’t come from within the church. The time is overdue for the state to do its duty. Given the pattern of behaviour, weren’t the members of the hierarchy who facilitated the commission of the crimes described in the book accessories to their commission or guilty of a conspiracy to do so? Why have they not been charged?