UTV (Ireland)
31 August 2011

A woman abused by a Catholic priest while attending confession as a child says she is “hurt” by the church’s response to plans by the Irish government to force priests to report child abusers who admit their crimes in the confession box.
Derry woman Kate Walmsley, 55, hit out after her parish priest, Father Paddy O’Kane, said he would rather go to jail than be break canon law and reveal the secrets of the confessional box.
Father O’Kane, who is parish priest at Holy Family parish in Derry’s Ballymagroarty estate, was speaking after the Irish government’s Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, said he intends to introduce legislation to force priests to break the confessional seal in the interests of child protection.
On Tuesday night an emotional Mrs Walmsley, who says she was abused by a priest in the confessional box while being cared for at Nazareth House in Derry as an 8-year-old, believes the catholic church has failed victims.
“He is putting the interests of the perpetrator first,” she said. “Most people believe he should tip off social workers or the police. I feel God didn’t make that rule, the church made it but it’s now 2011 and times have changed.”
Mrs Walmsley gave a harrowing account of her abuse while being cared for by the Sisters of Nazareth in Derry’s Bishop Street.
“Every Saturday a nun used to hand me over to a priest,” she said. “Even if I was in the middle of a group of children I used to be taken out of the queue and kept to last. The first time this happened, when I was eight, he was putting his hands down my top and down my pants.
“He then started bringing me to a room behind the altar and he would abuse me there.”
Mr Walmsley says she was initially angry at Fr O’Kane’s remarks.
“I was angry and I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
“My head was running. The people who go to confessions to confess these things will go back out into the community and think that all is forgiven and do it again.
“I think it’s the priests themselves that need to confess openly what they did to us when we were young.
“I suffered a lot of abuse, not just sexually, but emotionally. Then I was in a child’s mind and the abuse became a part of my life. It was going to happen every Saturday and I got used to that. But I’m an adult now and I’m reliving it and it’s more hurtful now. It’s ten times the hurt and I feel like running away somewhere.
“I just want priests and bishops to accept the facts, they should admit these things happened, come clean and examine their own conscience. I don’t think Fr O’Kane knows what he is talking about because he has never felt hurt the way I hurt.”
The Catholic Church has voiced its total opposition to the Irish government’s confession plan.
At the weekend Archbishop of Armagh Cardinal Sean Brady said any intrusion on the sacrament was “a challenge to the very basis of a free society”.
Fr O’Kane defended his remarks on Tuesday night.
“Would she expect me to renounce my priesthood?” he said.
“I could not continue to be a priest and I would be excommunicated. Is she calling for priests to abandon their vocation?
“This is not my law, this is the essence of being a priest.
“Do you agree with the right of a solicitor keeping the conversations confidential? It’s the same context.
“We are talking here about the rehabilitation of the offender, getting them to change their ways, offering them mercy and offering the person an opportunity to turn over new leaf.
“Quite often abusers have been abused themselves.”
I am writing this for my dad as he was in all of these places and can not read or spell good, he broke his silence a few years ago when he was in Nazareth house as a baby, when he was 4 or 5 years of age he was moved to Nazareth lodge, and when he reached 10 or 11 he was moved to ruban house known to many as kircubin.
I was looking through stories and looking this up to check it out and I couldn’t believe what I was reading I read a story and it sounded awful but it was something similar to what my dad had told me about his time in being in care in Nazareth lodge, he explained a story to me about priests make him undress and taken photo graphs of him, and beatings from the nuns I was almost crying as he was telling me his story it was horrific, he was in a group called St Joseph’s group he was telling me he had a bad stutter when he was younger he was put out of class as a distraction as other kids would laugh at him when he was trying to answer a question that he was asked by a teacher.
he was made to wash the nuns socks and underwear. or else polish floors are clean brass for the chapel.where he was later abused by older women. and he was running away one night my dad told me he escaped down a fire escape and he had to scale roofs of the building to get away heading for Killough as a 8 year old and taken back that night by police, and nuns thanking the police for his safe return. and was beating when they had left and was made to kneel on a cold floor in the attic while other children had slept and he was told to stay their untill they were ready to go to bed.
my dad sucked his thumb for comfort and curl his hair that was a comfort for him when the nuns caught him doing this they used to put jess fluid on his thumb and tie his hand with a dressing cord to the bed. at least he can do it now in comfort. I am now glad this is all coming out now as all use victims can get justice now.
James,
a world away, this is for your Dad, for you and all those victims who will never be heard. I too have been writing for my Dad , for Armand Gagnon and too many others I cannot name…I hope I can make a difference along with all those who will fight for the children….best regards to your Father. Be good to him. Your story is familiar and very touching, appropriate on this day.
….You inspired what I am posting on “Dialogue”; your Dad was “tortured”, no less.
He has all my respect and that of many others who read the above, I’m sure, along with a lot of tears…
jg
James, Your story brought tears to me. God bless you and your dad for telling the story. You have all my respect.
As for the story itself, I have to respond to this quote: “At the weekend Archbishop of Armagh Cardinal Sean Brady said any intrusion on the sacrament was “a challenge to the very basis of a free society”.” To the Bishop of Armagh, I say this: No. Actually, the ‘very basis of a free society’ is that citizens living in a republic are expected to abide by the civil laws of that society, and secondly, the democratic rule of law thus allows ALL citizens the freedom to live – freely, with dignity, and protected by the law. The secrecy of the confessional protects no one if it breaks the law, period. I am a regular church go-er, and I believe the priest has a greater duty to protect ‘the congregation’ by reporting crime to the police.