Dear Bishop Pat,
I trust that all is well with you. I write because of my experiences with two troublesome priests.
I joined Buckfast Abbey as a postulant some years ago. Fr Xxxxx (now a priest of Liverpool) was a junior monk who had been voted out by the community prior to solemn vows was allowed to re-join the community in the same year I joined.
To keep it brief he was a sex pest who constantly entered my cell and sought me out whenever he could. Nothing ever happened because I was not interested and was able to push him away. Some years later when staying as a guest at Buckfast he entered my room and got into bed with me. He was dealt with, and I’ve never been back there since or had any further dealings with him. I believe he is now a priest in Liverpool. Should I report this or just forget about it?
FATHER JAMES COURTNEY
Fr James Courtney OSB was someone I thought of as a good friend who I visited from time to time when he fell out with Abbot David Charlesworth and was placed in more than one parish as punishment. His words not mine. The last time I stayed with James and the last ever time I saw him was whilst he was PP in Tiverton if my memory serves. James was gay and was never anything other than open about that, however I was deeply shocked and angered at the amount of gay porn littered around the presbytery and more so with the fact that he walked around the house naked for most of the morning upon my arrival. I left that same day and apart from one phone from him with regards the death of Br Joseph OSB in 2006 I had no more dealings with him either. James is dead now but again should I report this to Abbot David? I feel angry that so much has been said about what a good priest he was when he clearly wasn’t. I can’t have been the only victim of his attentions.
I’ve been married for nearly ten years, and I’ve discussed this with my wife on many occasions but it’s not something she is comfortable to talk about and I fully understand that. I have no belief in any form of god and despise the RCC and all it represents. Your opinion would be most valued, and I look forward to hearing from you at some point in the future.
Every best wish
COURTNEY WAS SAFEGUARDING OFFICER FOR BUCKFAST !!!
The scale of abuse now being uncovered at Buckfast Abbey is disturbing. Paul Crouch “Father Benedict” had already been jailed for ten years in 2007 for a string of offences with boys stretching over 20 years. One victim had been “so terrified that he hid in his locker” and had “complained to the school Matron in 1987”, After an internal investigation, Crouch was allowed to carry on teaching and the police were not alerted. Father William Manahan, called “Daddy Prior”, was jailed, also in 2007, for 15 months for abuse between 1971 and 1978. Revealingly, he had become Abbot in the meantime.
Doubts have since been raised about a (now deceased) monk, Father Edward Stewart who is alleged to have repeatedly abused a young boy over three years. Even worse is that it has become clear that Stewart was moved around parishes inBritainandScandinaviadespite (and of course because of) “frequent complaints about his behaviour”.
Buckfast Abbey’s current safeguarding co-ordinator Father James Courtney discovered a trunk of photographs of adolescent boys engaged in sexual activities belonging to Stewart but neither he nor the Abbot reported them to the police, and the incriminating material was destroyed.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/132702.html
IS KIRBY STILL IN SILVERSTREAM?
This is the latest offering on the DISGRACED SILVERSTREAM website
As you can see – no sign of the abuser KIRBY.
Maybe he was the one taking the photo?
I’m sure he is still there.
No one can even begin to take Silverstream seriously until Kirby goes.
God help the two new postulantts.
TOMORROWS GOSPEL
Gospel
Luke 6:39-45
Can the blind lead the blind?
Jesus told a parable to his disciples: ‘Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher; the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the splinter that is in your eye,” when you cannot see the plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter that is in your brother’s eye.
‘There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.’
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 