‘Bond of trust was broken so young I couldn’t trust anyone’
MARIA was repeatedly raped by a priest in the diocese of Cloyne from the age of 13 to 18. Her life has been derailed ever since she says — even though on the outside she looks like a normal, middle-class woman in her 40s. “I see what happened to me as being like dealing with a disease. You manage it from day to day but it’s hell. I am so disillusioned with everything. Can you believe it, they didn’t even have the decency, the Church or the commission, to send me a copy of the report? I was told that I would get all this support and I didn’t. I have yet to see the report properly myself,” she said at 6.30pm last night.
Among all the victims last night, there was anger that no one saw fit to courier copies of the report to Co Cork. While journalists and victim support groups had copies of the report, victims were still completely unaware of the commission’s findings. They were told late on Tuesday that they could have travelled to the Department of Justice yesterday but it was too late.
