Dolores Atwood was attracted to crucifixes even before she knew what they signified.As a 13-year-old Muslim in Nigeria, she was drawn to the cross hanging from a rosary around a friend’s neck.
Spending all her pocket money, she bought one and showed it off proudly at school, only to be told it wouldn’t work unless blessed by a priest.
And that is how, over lunch in her current hometown of Yarmouth, N.S., the warm and outgoing woman who is at the centre of the latest scandal rocking the Irish church remembers meeting Richard Burke.
The Irish cleric, two decades her senior, was friendly and willing to spend time introducing her to the Catholic faith. It became a growing fascination – one she had to hide from her family.
Only later, she said, did she see another side of Mr. Burke. As she sits in a quiet corner booth at a waterfront restaurant, greeted by a string of passersby (“You won’t have any trouble finding me,” she said when suggesting a place to meet), her cheery voice drops as she recounts their past.
Ms. Atwood, 40, says she was 14 years old and sick in a hospital bed with typhoid when Mr. Burke came to visit. After a few minutes, the area had one of its periodic blackouts.
“The power went out and he just walked over to where I was. He put his mouth on mine, mouth-to-mouth kissing, and rubbed my breasts,” she alleges. “Lights started coming flickering back on. He went back [to the other side of the room] and gave me a fake smile.”
Ms. Atwood further alleges that within weeks they were having penetrative sex.
Mr. Burke resigned last month as Archbishop of Benin City, Nigeria, three years after Ms. Atwood says she first raised her allegations with the St. Patrick's Missionary Society. He denied abusing her but did say he breached his vows of celibacy.
His resignation is the latest black eye for the Irish church. Government-ordered probes published in the last five years showed that thousands of Irish children suffered abuse at the hands of parish priests and staff at Catholic-run boarding schools and orphanages.
Church officials have been pilloried in recent months following the disclosure that several alleged victims were offered settlements contingent on never telling their stories publicly.
Last week, during a celebration at the Vatican marking the end of the Year of the Priest, Pope Benedict XVI pleaded for forgiveness and pledged the church would do “everything possible” to prevent further child abuse.
Mr. Burke has spoken out in his defence, saying “I have never, ever, in my life – in any way – sexually abused a child,” according to a statement released to the Catholic Times.
He noted that there was “no corroborating evidence” to support allegations of child sex abuse, but did acknowledge inappropriate relations with Ms. Atwood. He said it began in the latter part of 1989, when she was no longer a minor.
“In the last 20 years, Mrs. Atwood and I met on seven occasions. On three of those occasions our relationship was again expressed sexually. This was entirely inappropriate behaviour and it is something for which I am truly sorry.”
But Ms. Atwood alleges that it began when he brought her to his house after children’s mass, when she was 14. That was the start of what she now describes as years of sexual assault, including intercourse.
At the time of the alleged abuse, Ms. Atwood says, she didn’t think to complain to anyone. Her parents were splitting up and the priest was a cherished and comforting father figure. And as a new and surreptitious follower of Catholicism, she said his priestly garments and the crucifix on the wall lent authority to his actions.
“I didn’t know it was abuse, I didn’t understand,” she said.
The product of a sheltered home, Ms. Atwood said she was at Nigeria's Obafemi Awolowo University when she first heard the term “fornication.” Once she understood, she said she was embarrassed and kept quiet, abiding by a strict cultural code that forbids talking about such things.
It was years before she told anyone – including her husband.
She met Chris Atwood while he was in Nigeria with CUSO and she was studying international relations at university in the early 1990s. After a stint working in Thailand, the couple came to Nova Scotia and settled in Yarmouth, not far from his family. He continues to do development work and she, active in the community and the church, has thrown herself into politics.
(A natural campaigner, Ms. Atwood ran unsuccessfully as a Liberal in the 2006 provincial election and sought, but did not get, the Grit nomination in a current by-election.)
After starting over in Canada, it was having three young sons that forced her decision to go public. Speaking out might prevent other children being abused, she says.
“I realized I was being selfish, I knew what was going on and I wasn’t saying anything,” she said.
“There are things that happen to you, bad things that happen to you, that you don’t even want to think about. And it’s shameful to talk about it, for the kind of person I am it’s very embarrassing. But I couldn’t have peace, especially when I started having children. It became worse.”
Mr. Atwood says she hopes her willingness to speak out will give courage to Africans suffering abuse.
“I hope it will stop those children being taken advantage of,” she said. “They are poor, nobody is listening to them. … The most important thing is telling people what’s happening. The people of Nigeria are finally speaking about it.”
SIC: G&M