Victims Suffer Years of Self-Harm and Depression, Sydney Morning Herald, June 16, 2010

Victims Suffer Years of Self-Harm and Depression

Sydney Morning Herald
June 16, 2010

http://www.smh.com.au/national/victims-suffer-years-of-selfharm-and-depression-20100516-v6f6.html

The struggle to obtain recognition of their abuse has devastated these women, write Rafael Epstein and Nick McKenzie.

Before the nightmare began, Kellie Roche was a happy 11-year-old. "I remember always being loud but so naive. I was very protected."

But Roche's life was traumatically transformed in 1981 when she was abused by a man she had revered. He was a priest, Father Finian Egan, and the impact never left her.

"I have put up with a facade all my life … there is a wall between me and sex," she says.

Abuse by the Irish-born priest began when she was at St Gerard's in Carlingford in the 1980s. For the girl from a strict Catholic family, the guitar-playing priest was the centre of her world. At youth group meetings, she says, he would "arrange me on his lap and put my arm around his neck so my breasts were in his face". Then he would put his hand between her legs and, she says, "I would feel his erection".

\"There is a wall between me and sex\"...Kellie Roche, who says she has put up a facade all her life.
Photo by Ben Rushton

Since 1996 the Catholic community has been dealing with the fallout from abuse through a process called "Towards Healing". The Melbourne archdiocese uses a similar system called the "Melbourne Response". An independent assessor examines claims of clerical abuse, which helps guide church-paid compensation. Victims who submit to the process sign away any rights to sue.

For Father Egan's other known victim, "Kathy," the process has been devastating. "I believe in God, I just don't believe in the Catholic Church," she says.

In 2008, both women were told their complaints would be resolved within six months. But delays and an appeal meant it took more than two years until their complaints against Father Egan were completed. The compensation claims dragged on into this month.

For Kathy the delays were "like a sledgehammer … in the chest" and sent her into a spiral of depression. She'd already suffered many abusive relationships. "I don't feel worthy because with every guy there is just no trust. You just don't want to live."

She contemplated going to the police but was told that if she did the church process would stop and jeopardise chances of compensation.

In the 1980s, Melbourne woman "Lucy" was groped in her family home by a trusted Catholic priest, Father Paddy Maye, a colleague of her father. One night he clutched her thigh while he sat between Lucy and her father. He also groped her sister.

Her experience shows not only that the Towards Healing process is tough on the victim but that the church has little power or determination to enforce its punishments.

What Lucy did not know was that a woman complained that in the 1970s Father Maye had forced himself on her and, she says, had intercourse without consent. As a result of that complaint, Father Maye was forced to retire at the end of 2005 and the Archbishop, Denis Hart, removed Father Maye's right to act in public as a priest. It is the most serious punishment short of defrocking. But Father Maye repeatedly ignored this sanction.

In 2005 the church and the police were looking into Father Maye, yet he continued as parish priest at St Augustine's Primary School, in Melbourne's west.

"I was feeling sick about the thought of him possibly abusing kids there," says Lucy. She believes the church should have kept him away from the school as any "teacher would be" if they were under police investigation. Father Maye was one of the priests at the annual Mass for Melbourne's Irish community for the past two years.

In April, the Archbishop again wrote to the renegade priest, pointing out his conduct had brought great shame on himself and the church and caused significant harm to his victims.

The problem for the church is that few know Father Maye is an illegitimate priest. In February Father Maye was the surprise guest at an 80th birthday in Sydney for senior Sydney Bishop David Cremin. A notable attendee was the Irish ambassador.

Finian Egan was the senior celebrant at a service last year to honour his 50 years of service. The event was advertised in a handful of parishes and held only a few hundred metres from the office of the Bishop of Broken Bay, David Walker, the bishop charged with supervising Father Egan.

As a young girl Kathy received guitar lessons from Father Egan. She says he would slide his hand between her legs and fondle her - and "he always had a hard-on".

Kathy started harming herself about that time, slamming the shower door on her hand to ensure she could not play guitar. Still, the abuse continued.

For a girl who saw this priest as "God on earth" the result has been a process of continual self-harm and she has had "countless" abusive relationships.

After going through the Towards Healing process, Kathy says she fell into deep depression and did not get out of bed for weeks.

Finally in the middle of last year, Father Egan's appeal was rejected, but the mistreatment from the church continued. In July Kellie and "Kathy" received apologies but each received the letter addressed to the other woman. The error cemented their despair.

The church magazine Broken Bay News contains Bishop Walker's monthly editorial. In last November's issue, next to a photo of smiling priests, Father Egan is listed for his 50 years of service.

In the editorial, Bishop Walker writes: "Those who are called to be followers of Jesus are not always … the most outstanding in the eyes of the world."