IRELAND
Irish Times
Freya McClements
A woman who was sexually abused by serial paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth in the United States has condemned the Catholic Church for its “disturbing” failure to change its ways.
“It’s all nothing more than window dressing to me. They haven’t taken real action. Release the files, prosecute the predators, and compensate the victims,” said Helen McGonigle, reacting to the latest Irish inquiry reports.
She was raped and sexually assaulted by Fr Smyth in the 1960s in Rhode Island in the US, in a school, a church basement and his car, when she was aged between six and nine-years-old. He also assaulted her mother after he was sent back to the Rhode Island parish following church-ordered treatment in hospital in Ireland.
A review of four institutions by the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children carried out in 2015/16 was published on Wednesday.
It found that in regard to the De La Salle Brothers, the Norbertines and the Nazareth Sisters “their performance in the recent past does not demonstrate any real change from their historical behaviour in terms of ensuring good safeguarding practice or putting in place effective pastoral responses to complainants who have made allegations of abuse”.
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