We got it wrong, says Bishop Walsh

SERIOUS mistakes were made and the Church got its own teachings wrong when dealing with allegations of clerical sexual abuse, Dr Eamonn Walsh has claimed.

In a follow-up to the Suing the Pope on BBC 2 tomorrow night, the temporary successor to Dr Brendan Comiskey in the Diocese of Ferns, who resigned over the issue, says the Church got its approach very wrong.

“Somewhere along the line, we treated our fellow priests as if they were special in the family. A lot of our energy went on treating them, not the people who were knocked down and shattered.

We got the application of our own teaching wrong,” Dr Walsh reveals in the documentary.

RTÉ screened the original programme just days after it went out on the BBC last March.

But a spokesperson for the station said yesterday that there were no plans to screen the follow-up, 40-minute programme which shows the fallout for the Church, the victims of clerical sexual abuse in the Diocese of Ferns as well as other abuse in other dioceses, particularly in the greater Dublin area.

BBC journalist and producer, Sarah McDonald, said the programme brought the issue of abuse to the fore and admitted she was among the many who was astounded by the impact it had here.

She warned a lot more had to be revealed in the diocese and much more will come to ight when the State investigation begins here within weeks.

The lives of the many who featured in the original Suing the Pope documentary last March have changed profoundly since its screening. Monica Fitzpatrick’s worst fears have been confirmed.

She suspected that her son, Peter, who shot himself may have been abused by the late Fr Sean Fortune, an unrepentant paedophile. Since the programme several people have confirmed her worst suspicions.

“People said they knew Peter was abused. The cover-ups have been destroying the Church. Unless they come clean, they will destroy the Church itself,” she says in the documentary.

But others have turned a corner since the last programme. Among those are two of the victims featured, Colm O’Gorman and Pat Jackman.

Mr O’Gorman received a People of the Year award “When I left Wexford, I ran, I had to go. I couldn’t have continued my life here and would have gone over a bridge It is extraordinary now I am coming back,” he says.

Pat Jackman says despite an initial low after the programme, his life has taken on new meaning. He has set up his own theatre group, resolved a lot of issues in his life and has fallen in love.

“I felt like a goldfish after the programme and was trying to deal with the impact the abuse had on me. I went downhill dramatically I’ve grown up in a very public way in the past few months,” he says.