David Lindsay
The Malta Independent online
Seven years of agonising court proceedings since a group of former abused orphans found the communal courage to come forward with their claims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy, justice has been a long time coming, and there is still no end in sight to their ordeal.
They had first come forward with their stories in 2003 and a group of ten orphans who have had their complaints of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy brought before the courts are still seeking the closure they so rightly deserve.
While the reporting of court hearings has been banned by the court, hearings, they say, would be farcical if the subject matter were not so serious. The case has so far been dragging on with little progress, with the defence being assisted by the country’s best criminal lawyers.
Much has been said of the case since their story made the media headlines once again since 2003 two Sundays ago in our sister paper. It started when Lawrence Grech wrote to the Vatican requesting a formal apology from the Pope when he visits Malta next weekend, and then went to leading Italian newspaper La Repubblica with his tale of seemingly endless court proceedings.
The ensuing coverage from all sections of the media in Malta and abroad apparently prompted the Bishops of Malta and Gozo to issue a general apology for abuses suffered and, following a press conference convened by the victims this week, a meeting with Archbishop Cremona was held on Tuesday.
The Malta Independent interviewed three of the abuse victims on the day of the bishops’ apology last week – a long meeting interspersed with tears and anger and even indignation at the content of and suspected motive behind the apology.
These three individuals – Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro and another who preferred to remain anonymous – have overcome a seemingly insurmountable challenge of somehow coming to grips with what happened to them.
They have done what very few have been able to muster the courage to do, mainly out of compassion for others who they suspect could still be enduring abuse at the hands of the very same priests.
What they want is justice to be done, for the priests responsible to be kept away from boys and, most of all from their perspective what, they are looking for is closure after a lifetime of suffering that is still continuing. They are also hoping that, through their actions, others will be encouraged to come forward with their own experiences and seek peace and closure for themselves as well.
Financial compensation, they insist, is not the motive behind their going public. Closure is what they are looking for.Some two decades since leaving the St Joseph orphanage in Sta Venera, their eyes still show the very real pain that resurfaces each time they think back to the abuse they endured in those dark days.
Others, they explain, have not been so lucky.
It started with a reunion
My first question is why, 13 years after having left the orphanage did they get together to institute court action against four members of the clergy they have accused of repeated and sustained sexual abuse.Mr Magro explains how in 2003 an ‘old boy’ opened a bar, an event that inspired a gathering of former St Joseph orphans.
“At that time Lawrence [Grech, who is acting as spokesperson for the group] had come from Australia and he was telling us how in Australia there had been some priests
accused of sexual abuse,” Mr Magro recalls.“Up to then I had not even told my wife anything about the abuse I had endured, and I was keeping everything to myself. And no one, especially in those days, believes you when it is your word against that of a priest.
“Lawrence began telling us about how he was abused by Fr Charles Pulis at the orphanage and I was shocked. I remember thinking to myself how it must not have been only me, that there were others too. I was there at the same time and I did not know it was happening to other boys as well.
“I was older than the others and I had not told the younger ones about what was happening to me. “
As we were speaking around the table, more and more former orphans said they had also been abused in the same ways and by the same people. There were a lot more there than the ten of us who eventually went to court, but they had not wanted to take the matter further.”
None of the abuse victims, it seems, knew that other boys were being abused. Fear of being derogatorily labelled by their peers seems to have kept them suffering in silence, their misery and shame in isolation from each others.
Mr Magro adds, “That night there was a minor who said the same priest was doing the same thing to him, a whole ten years after I had left the orphanage. And once we heard that he was still abusing others, we took a decision that something had to be done to protect others who came after us.
“That is why we are doing what we are doing.”
He says he had been abused every day of his last two years at the orphanage and that, at that time, the same clergy member had already been at the orphanage for 17 years. In his time the home housed some 30 orphans but in earlier days the number had been higher. He wonders how many others had suffered the same experiences in silence.
In his case, the abuse ranged from being awoken with deep kisses, biting and fondling. Some had it worse, and others worse still. Much of the graphic details of the alleged abuse, however, are not fit for print in these pages.
“You can never get it out of your mind, and I tried to hide everything from myself until that night,” he says through tears. But he says he is feeling better now after getting such long-suppressed feelings off his chest – after going to court and telling his wife about the abuse he had suffered at the hands of the very priest that married the couple just a handful of years after he left the orphanage.He has also given his testimony in court, something that lifted part of the burden he has been carrying since his youth.
“That,” he says, “has in part helped me a little. I said all I had to say – there is nothing to hide, we are telling the truth.”
A hollow apology
Lawrence Grech, who has spoken over the last two weeks on behalf of the group, says of last week’s statement from the bishops, “This apology is nothing. When they apologised to the Maltese child emigrants to Australia, they threw a big party with the minister and it was all over the news. What has upset me now is the way because the Pope is coming we are trying to make Malta looks spotless, fixing roads and planting flowers.
“The problem has not affected me as much as others. One of our group, for example, had been abused by four different priests and he was abused in worse ways than I was. One priest used to offer him chocolate and biscuits for all sorts of sexual favours.”Many of the former St Joseph orphans have had it far worse than those speaking with this newspaper last week. One, Gejtu Scerri, who ...
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