The audit of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) files was
suspended after a day last August when it emerged admissions of child
clerical abuse had not been reported to gardaí or health chiefs and that
the incoming Provincial was unaware of the case files.Records showed 17 alleged perpetrators were known to the society between the late 1940s and early 1990s, but that the number of victims continues to grow as new complaints are received.
Gardaí are said to be close to concluding their investigations.
The NBSCCC criticised practices within the society, which they found deeply flawed and contributed to one man’s death by suicide.
People in positions of leadership failed to protect vulnerable young people and had a culture of secrecy, which worked in favour of those who wanted to continue to prey on children, it disclosed.
Of nine members who admitted abuse, one has died and three have left the society. Five others who had not admitted abuse are dead and none of the accused currently minister as priests.
Only one has been convicted.
Another priest named a number of boys he had harmed, but the information was not given to gardai until August 2011.
Six members had worked within a secondary boarding school, where three werepart of the staff for several years.
And critical information about a priest who had admitted abuse in a school was not passed on to another church authority where he intended to work.
There was little evidence of any steps to prevent abuse and gaps in files as to why an MSC was removed from duty, but later returned.
“The suffering of victims has on occasions caused them to engage in self-harming,” the audit found. “There is a record of one young man who died by suicide where it is noted in the files that the abuse that he suffered was seen as a contributing factor if not the main cause of his death.”
The new Provincial, Fr Joseph McGee, unreservedly apologised to all who were abused by members of the society and for its failures in the past.
The MSC’s Irish Province extends to England, Russia, parts of the United States, Venezuela , South Africa and Namibia.