Don Lydon (Fianna Fail)

I congratulate the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Brian Lenihan, on his contribution last week on the Ferns Report. He obviously understands the problem and knows the actions that need to be taken.

Many people who read the report said they had feelings of anger and I can understand that. When I read the report I had feelings of profound sadness because of the abuse the children suffered. One must think of abuse in terms of the physical abuse that accompanies sexual abuse. One cannot abuse a child without being physically abusive as well. Most of all I am sad when I think of the violation of innocence. I feel sad also when I think of the priests who conducted this abuse and that the only way they could find sexual gratification was through the abuse of little children. It is said that 3.6% of sexual abuse is conducted by clergy and that the other 96% is conducted by other people but 1% is too much.

There was a very good article by Vincent Browne in The Sunday Business Post on 6 November 2005 in which he wrote:

The statistics of sex child abuse are absolutely shocking... These figures are extrapolated from Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI), published in 2002. The survey was conducted by the Royal College of Surgeons, and funded by the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. . . .

About 150,000 adults were shown pornographic material when they were children.

Around 40,000 were stripped naked and made to pose in sexually suggestive ways.

Around 450,000 people, while children, were exposed to someone displaying their sexual organs.

About 160,000 saw a man masturbate in front of them while they were children.

Around 350,000 were touched sexually by adults.

Around 100,000 were subjected as children to attempted sexual intercourse.

About 40,000 actually had sexual intercourse.

About 25,000 were forced to have oral sex.

More than 50,000 were subjected to anal sex.

More than 60,000 women had objects inserted into their vagina while they were children.

These are facts from the Ireland of today.

I only mention these appalling statistics to show that not just priests and members of the clergy abuse children but also teenage boys, parents and, based on my experience shortly before I resigned from the job I had, increasingly mothers. Relating some of the stories I have heard could make one physically ill. I hope the Seanad returns to this important debate soon.

The figure of 1% is too high. The abuse by priests was so shocking because they have a special place of trust. We go to priests to confess and open our souls by telling them everything. These are the people who seemed to abuse this trust. Many of the men who did this would never dream of breaking the seal of confession. They were compassionate at funerals. They cared for people when they were distressed. They did everything else a priest should do. However, when it came to sex they abused children. The terrible image of the priest who abused the little girls and had them between his legs on the altar steps in front of the blessed sacrament and in front of other little girls whom he told to close their eyes will live with me for many a day. It is a horrific image of abuse.

Why did it happen? As stated in the report, with the benefit of hindsight it is possible to see that the church authorities, the medical profession and society in general failed to appreciate the horrendous damage caused by the sexual abuse of children. Some of the views at the time were peculiar. If a priest erred and confessed he was told not to do it again and forgiven. However, forgiveness requires not just that the person make a firm promise of amendment, but also that he make reparation. No reparation was ever made until these cases were highlighted and now reparation has been made. Reparation in hindsight is not much good.

I can speak with some slight authority on these matters in that I was professionally involved with some of the people mentioned in the report. I wonder why some of the psychological reports and psychiatric reports available at the time never came into the hands of the inquiry. For the past 30 years I have conducted psychological assessments of candidates for religious life for both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Ireland. In the early 1970s, Professor Feichin O'Doherty, professor of psychology in UCD, established a group called The Group for Religious Psychology. One of our objectives was to conduct these assessments. We went to England to dioceses, congregations and orders. We went to Ascot, Birmingham and other places. The group included Des McQuaid who went on to become principal psychologist at the Mater Hospital, the Reverend Don McClatchie, who was living in the Church of Ireland establishment in Suffolk Street, Dr. Eithne Swan from the department of education in UCD and others.

In the early days some of the hierarchy would not listen to us when we produced our reports. They believed that it was God's will that if a person applied to enter the priesthood he should be allowed to do so regardless of the circumstances. Gradually they learned that we were right and they were not. A very good psychologist, Dr. Patrick Randles, whom I know, is quoted as stating that the church is now taking a more comprehensive view. The report states that there is no definitive test to assess a person's suitability for priesthood. However, I certainly know what would make a bad one. I have never been wrong in a diagnosis in 30 years.

Many of the beliefs that prevailed at the time beggar belief. For example, I met priests who believed that they would not break their vow of celibacy if they had sex with a male. When I used to visit one particular order to carry out psychological assessments if I was accompanied by a male assistant psychologist it was fine. However, a female assistant psychologist was not permitted to carry out a one-to-one interview with a young man because she would give him bad thoughts. I used to work with another order that took on people who could not be recommended under any circumstances in the hope that over a long formation they would get psychotherapy which would make them good people and then good priests, as if being a priest was not a hard enough life in the first place. Thankfully, nowadays the heads of orders, congregations and the hierarchy take the advice offered to them.

Paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which there is a preferential attraction to pre-pubescent children whereas ephebophilia is a preferential attraction to post-pubescent minors. Therefore, despite what is said, thank God there are very few paedophiles, either in the priesthood or in society at large. The unconfirmed figure is 0.4%. We should be very careful about labelling people.

Reference is made on page 32 of the report to Dr. Conrad Baars, a psychiatrist with many years experience in treating priests, who presented a research paper at the 1971 synod of bishops in Rome in which he identified emotional psychosexual immaturity which manifested itself in heterosexual or homosexual activity as a serious problem for ordained priests. This was also brought forward by Fr. Eugene Kennedy at the national conference of Catholic bishops.

I can confirm this from experience. The men I met at this time had no experience whatsoever of maturing, normal sexuality. They never had a girlfriend, or indeed a boyfriend. They never took a girl for a walk around the back of a dance hall. They never had any of the normal experimentation of a teenager growing up and had no idea of sexuality. They believed masturbation was a mortal sin. I do not care whether it is or not, but just point out the attitude they had towards these matters. In some cases their attitudes were exacerbated by alcoholism and, in some cases, psychopathic personalities. They began to use a child as an adult substitute. Therefore, it is not accurate to say that abuse is all due to celibacy. There are too many reasons and other factors involved.

Professor Patricia Casey says more or less the same, namely, that in light of the limited information about the pattern of child molestation by priests, the assertion in the Ferns Report that celibacy contributes to the problem must be viewed with extreme scepticism.

We cannot change the past, but can hope to change the future by being effective in the here and now. What must be done? Despite the protestations of Mrs. Carson about throwing the whole lot out in one go, there is much that can be done. As I said earlier, we must be careful about labelling people and calling them paedophiles when that may not be the case. We all have heterosexual and homosexual friends who never abused children. There are paedophiles and psychopaths, but many of the priests who abused children were sexually immature to a degree that one could not possibly imagine unless one met them.

One could not imagine the fact that they never had any experience of normal sexual maturing. They could speak Latin, Greek and French, do mathematics and play Gaelic, but when it came to relating to another adult on a sexually mature level, whether a homosexual or a heterosexual person, they did not have any experience and could not do it. I am not necessarily referring to them having sex but relating to another person on a one-to-one basis.

If we are to prevent something like this recurring the following must happen. The hierarchy must own up, admit to and acknowledge whatever happened, however harrowing this may be. The current practice put into place by Bishop Eamonn Walsh in Ferns must be installed in every diocese in Ireland. Every candidate for religious life must undergo a comprehensive, psychological assessment. Most important, during formation due emphasis must be given to the development of a mature adult approach to sexuality. Finally, the thousands of fine decent priests must be supported, affirmed and acknowledged for the lives they have dedicated to doing God's work in the way it should be done.

There is no way to totally prevent abuse happening, but we can go a long way towards preventing it by putting these steps in place. I hope and trust the hierarchy is listening this time, because there will not be another time.