Prayers for victims of abusive former priest

Prayers were said at Mass on Sunday for victims of former Catholic priest and paedophile Tony Walsh following the publication of Chapter 19 of the Murphy Report.

The previously censored chapter of the report described Walsh as the “most notorious” paedophile encountered by the Commission of Inquiry and estimated his victims to run into the hundreds.

The report also found that in spite of being a serious danger to children, the Vatican had wanted Walsh to serve 10 years in a monastery rather than force him out of the Catholic Church.

Although the Murphy Report was published in November 2009, chapter 19 was not published until last week because Walsh was being tried in the courts for abuse. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison earlier this month for abusing three boys.

Most of Walsh’s victims were from the Ballyfermot parish, where he worked from 1978 to 1985.

Responding to the publication of chapter 19, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the abuse by Walsh was “tragic and shocking”.

“In many aspects the Church in Ireland had allowed itself to drift into a position where its role in society had grown beyond what is legitimate,” he said.

“It acted as a world apart. It had often become self-centred and arrogant. It felt that it could be forgiving of abusers in a simplistic manner and rarely empathised with the hurt of children.

“The first step on the road to renewal is for our Church to recognise what went wrong, to honestly acknowledge with no ‘buts’ and no conditionally the gravity and the extent of what happened.”

Catholics gathered at Our Lady of Assumption Church in Ballyfermot, Dublin, to pray for Walsh’s victims and all those affected by the latest details from the Murphy Report.

According to the Irish Times, parish priest Fr Michael O’Kelly said people were shocked by the extent of the abuse.

“In the end of the day there is nothing we can say that will help; words can seem so empty,” he was quoted as saying.

“Our first thoughts are for the victims and what we’ve just heard. Their desire was to be heard and to be believed, that was the most important thing that they wanted from all of this.”