BERNARD from Swords was just six years old when he began to suffer
appalling abuse at the hands of paedophile priest, Fr James McNamee.
The
abuse was to continue for a horrifying four years and would leave
emotional scars that lay just beneath the surface to this day, more than
30 years later.
The Cloyne Report has been depressing for Bernard and
for other victims of abuse as it details just how little the Church has
learned from its past mistakes.
When the Murphy Report, which detailed
the offences of Fr McNamee, was published in late 2009, Bernard hoped
for some sense of closure but it is clear from Cloyne that there are
more victims out there and Bernard fears the kind of abuses that he
endured could just as easily befall another child today.
When the Swords
man recalled the dark days he experienced at the hands of Fr McNamee,
he told the Fingal Independent: ' I remember swimming around in the nude
and being touched by him, washed by him and dried by him. He was very
physical with us. ' He would make sure he would dry us off and the
drying wasn't normal – it was more intense.' Of the bishops and
archbishops who failed to address McNamee's and other's abuses, he said:
' Any bishop or archbishop who knew about priests who were abusing and
just moved them onto serial abuse somewhere else, should resign.
' I know people have asked them to look into their own conscience, but do they have a conscience?'
He said that the deference to the Church and its authorities must be
at an end now and warned: ' Going forward, all institutions dealing with
children have to know that if they are aware of a scandal they cannot
do nothing about it.'