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	Victory for Victim Who Once Sued the Vatican By Angela Levin Sydney Morning Herald May 22, 2009 http://www.smh.com.au/world/victory-for-victim-who-once-sued-the-vatican-20090521-bh87.html FEW men have made such an extraordinary personal journey. Raped and abused in his early teens by Father Sean Fortune, one of Ireland's most notorious pedophiles, Colm O'Gorman ran away from home when he was 17 and lived rough on the streets of Dublin. It was the 1970s, when both church and state were in denial that any priest could be guilty of sexually abusing a child, and O'Gorman felt only shame and fear. Yet he fought back, and in 2002 even tried to sue the Pope, arguing that by moving pedophile priests like Fortune to new parishes and concealing their actions from local authorities, the Vatican had failed to protect children like him. Thirty years since he was abused, O'Gorman's hour has finally come with the publication of a long-awaited inquiry into child abuse by Catholic priests. He believes the results of the inquiry will be "seismic". "It will show the state has an obligation of care … and can no longer declare that religion and politics don't mix, or that the abuse of children by Catholic priests was not a matter for the state." The report's release coincides with the publication of an autobiography in which O'Gorman charts founding a charity for victims of sexual abuse, making a documentary for the BBC called Suing the Pope, and being appointed Ireland's director of Amnesty International. O'Gorman was 14 when he met Fortune, who cynically groomed the former altar boy and his mother, Josie, now 72, flattering them both and asking O'Gorman to help him with a youth group in his parish. When O'Gorman agreed, Fortune drove him to his home and raped him. O'Gorman was too scared to tell anyone. "He made it seem as though it was my fault and I knew it would be my word against his," he says. He was ruthlessly abused for almost two years. The effect was devastating. O'Gorman ran away to Dublin. He had no money and for seven months allowed men to have sex with him in return for a night's sleep in a bed and a hot shower. Gradually he hauled himself up by working first as a waiter, and then fund-raising for a charity. It was only in 1995 that he found the courage to go to the police. Fortune's trial began in 1999, when he faced 66 charges of abusing children. Eleven days into the trial, he killed himself with whisky and prescription drugs. O'Gorman went on successfully to sue the Catholic Church and received a payment of ˆ300,000 and a historic public apology in court.
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