Letter to Paddy Walsh last October, 2022, to which, yes, guess what? That’s right! Not a peep out of him in response!
October 18th, 2022 – Feast of St Luke, Evangelist.
Bishop Paddy,
It was ten years last February 10th, since the former priest of this diocese, James Donaghy was jailed for ten years for offences against me and two others.
He later received a two year ifession.
Since February of this year, my trauma has been reawakened and I began to relive Donaghy’s abuse of me when I was a young seminarian.
I have also had to revisit your involvement from the beginning, reviewing correspondence with you, and records of meetings I had with you. There are some things I now need to say to you.
On October 14th, 2003, I met you at Lisbreen in the afternoon and you read out to me a handwritten letter, dated October 13th, 2003.
In that letter you stated the following:
“I unreservedly accept the good faith in which your allegations against Fr Donaghy are made. Equally I have no reason to doubt the good faith of Fr Donaghy’s denials”.
You said you had no reason to doubt Donaghy’s denials. Really?
You sent the late Fr Malachy Murphy RIP to St Ann’s Parish, North Oxford, MA, USA, on July 7th, 2003, to “take evidence”. When he arrived, he said the following to me:
“Jim won’t survive this. There have been other problems with him”.
And yet you said you had “no reason to doubt the good faith of Fr Donaghy’s denials”.
In August, I had a long overdue meeting with “Victim B” – the lad I was so worried about in May 2001 – when I asked Fr Hugh Starkey RIP to tell you about what Donaghy did to me, when I was seminarian.
Victim B and I hadn’t seen each other since the conclusion of the trial. Victim B told me the following:
“Sometime in the late 90s, JD came to our house, and he was upset and crying when he arrived. My mother asked him what was wrong, and he said, “I’ve been accused of sexual abuse”. I asked him, straight out, “did you do it?” My mother angrily shouted at me, “how dare you ask Fr Jim such a question! Of course he didn’t do it!”.
Bear in mind, Victim B was being sexually abused at this time, by JD, who was later found guilty of his crimes against this boy, myself and another young lad, on December 14th, 2011. Victim B was 14 years old, an altar boy in Whitehouse Parish, when Donaghy first began to sexually abuse him.
Malachy’s comment in MA, USA, and this confirmation by Victim B, proves that you had previous knowledge of Donaghy’s deviancy and sexual predation.
So you were lying and disingenuous when you said you had “no reason to doubt the good faith of Fr Donaghy’s denials”.
You had EVERY reason to doubt his denials but you chose not to doubt the so-called “good faith” of a man who was guilty as sin.
When you stepped Donaghy aside from ministry, in March 2004, it was on the “other problems” that you already had on file – not mine or Victim B’s complaints.
Your underhandedness, your duplicity, your selfishness, dishonesty and lack of morality, even now, is staggering to me.
I want you to look at the enclosed photograph. That was me back then. That’s the young man at the heart of all this, who was subjected to brutal rapes and serious sexual assaults on numerous occasions 1983 – 1986, when he was home, in the diocese, on holiday from the seminary.
That’s the kid you would later betray, with your lies and cover up, your wicked and malicious conniving, with Gemma Loughran.
It wasn’t “horseplay” as you said in your letter to me of October 13th, 2003. It was the worst form of physical and sexual abuse of an innocent, good, pure, trusting and deeply devout young seminarian.
The kid in that picture is me when Donaghy was abusing me. It was taken for a student card. That is me as a young seminarian, who was held down by him and overpowered, stripped of my clothes, and horrendously violated by Donaghy, on numerous occasions.
In your letter of October 13th, 2003, you minimised the many crimes committed against me. It wasn’t “horseplay”. I didn’t “share a bed” with him. It was rape, Paddy!
It happened in St Michael’s Presbytery, Finaghy Rd Nth and in Corpus Christi, the old presbytery now demolished.
He would come to my house in Whiteabbey and take over. He would say to me, “you’re coming with me”. I was terrified and knew what was coming.
He would be rude to my father in our own home. He told my mother’s cousin, Lena, that I was “his student”, that the bishop (Cahal Daly) had “given me to him”. That “every priest is given a student by the bishop and Paddy is mine”.
You know what some of the media have dubbed Donaghy? “Fr Filth”. It fits him very well. I really had nowhere to turn. He was a priest and I wasn’t. I would have been the one in trouble. Who would have believed me?
Fr Filth, naked and with his penis erect, would come to the bed I was in, pull down the covers and get in on top of me. I would be pretending to sleep but it made no difference to Donaghy.
He would turn me over onto my stomach, pull down my pyjamas bottoms and trunks, stick his DICK against me and hump me like a piece of meat until he ejaculated.
The lad that I was fought back, as best I could, but I was about 8 stone and Donaghy was twice my size.
There are incidents though my mind can’t access. What I can access is horrendous enough. I now know that trauma shuts down the mind. The mind short circuits itself to protect you from sheer horror.
With “Fr Filth” on top of me, I couldn’t breath and thought I was suffocating. When Fr Filth had gratified himself, he would roll over and go to sleep beside an absolutely terrified and horrified young man. I went into deep shock and I suffered for years and years.
The man who did these things to me, who did the same things to others, who was found guilty of these crimes and sentenced to 10 years in jail, is the man you promoted in the diocese, entrusting him with important tasks like the Jubilee 2000 events. He was nicknamed “Jubilee Jim”.
Not a very good judge of character, are you, Paddy? And you had “no reason to doubt his “clear and emphatic denials”? You betrayed me horribly, as a priest of the diocese injured by this pervert, and you lied to me left, right and centre.
There is another related matter. You were also lying to me when you said to me, on April 1st, 2003, that Hugh Starkey hadn’t told you about Donaghy abusing me when I asked Hugh to do so, in May 2001.
I wrote to you on February 17th, 2003, when I was down in Wexford, off sick on the orders of my doctor. I wrote a long and detailed handwritten letter, sent by registered post, which you received on February 19th, 2003.
In that letter, I clearly told you that I had been sexually abused as a child and that I “also need healing from sexual abuse perpetrated against me by Fr James Donaghy when I was a young seminarian”.
I added, “I asked Hugh Starkey to tell you about this in May 2001, so I presume you know what I’m talking about”. So, even if Hugh Starkey hadn’t told you two years previously, I was telling you then, on February 17th, 2003.
What did you do? Nothing. You didn’t even acknowledge my letter. You rang me one day after you would have received my 17th February letter. I needed “permission” to go to Massachusetts to work with Dr George Bilotta.
You made me feel like a beggar because Dr George Bilotta’s fees were $10,500 a month.
You said to me, in a most condescending way, “it’s frightfully expensive, Pat”.
A leopard and it’s spots and all that. So sad. What a pathetic creature you are, Paddy Walsh.
Yours sincerely,
You already had complaints, apart from my “allegations”, when you wrote that self-serving lie, in that letter written by your solicitor in 2003, which you read to me nervously, your hands shaking, because, deep down, you knew you were lying, that you were in connivance with, and covering up, evil.
My “allegations” were later believed by a jury in a court of law and your friend, “Fr Filth” Donaghy, was sentenced to 10 years for his crimes, including the offences about which you already knew, long before 2001.
With this letter, I return to you all your horrible and poisonous junk all down through the years.
I visit Sr X, Fr X and Fr X in Nazareth Care Village. I was there last week. I saw you in the distance and I thought about doing this face to face. I decided it would be kinder, to us both, to do it by letter.
I don’t really need anything from you anymore, although, in relation to these matters, you, for once, being truthful, honest and asking for my forgiveness, might save your own immortal soul. But that’s all down to you, Paddy.
By the way, Paddy, see wee Sr X? You leave her alone. She doesn’t want you in her room. You are bullying, intimidating, frightening and upsetting her. Leave her alone and stop harassing her.
You haven’t changed. Terrorising a very frail and saintly little Carmelite sister, just like you did teenage boys years ago, in St Malachy’s College.
You embarrassed me and you made me feel that I should be very grateful to you for “allowing” me to go to the USA and for the diocese’s funding.
How dare you. It was my due. It was owed big time, and more besides, to the kid I was, who was raped and traumatised by Fr Filth Donaghy. How dare you make me feel like a beggar or in any way beholden to you.
When you were on the phone, making me feel “cap in hand” to your “generosity”, I was stunned that you never mentioned my letter of February 17th and Donaghy’s abuse.
You never mentioned it at all until I finally forced the issue because, I thought, “there’s something here that the bishop isn’t getting”.
So in the early hours of April 1st, 2003, I emailed you the letter of confrontation that I had sent to Donaghy, so that you would finally “get the picture”.
That’s the letter you were holding when you walked into the 17:45 meeting, on April 1st, 2003, lying through your teeth that you “knew nothing about all this”, that it was all “news” to you, and that Hugh Starkey hadn’t told you.
I know that Hugh Starkey told you, in May 2001, about my abuse by Donaghy and that Hugh took the blame for your inaction and your ignoring of my plight and suffering. I am certain that he told you.
Even if Hugh hadn’t told you, you had already known, since mid February 2003, about Donaghy. It was now 1stApril. What had you done? NOTHING.
Can you not just tell the truth, Paddy, before you leave this earth to stand before the Great and Terrible Judge?
The Detective Inspector (DI) dealing with the Donaghy case, in the run up to the trial, rang Hugh Starkey (HS). Here is the verbatim account she relayed to me afterwards:
DI – “Fr Starkey, did Fr Paddy McCafferty tell you that he had been sexually abused by James Donaghy when he was a young seminarian?”
HS – “yes, Paddy told me that”.
DI – “did Paddy ask you to tell Bishop Walsh?”
HS – “yes, Paddy told me to tell Bishop Walsh”.
DI – “Did you tell the Bishop”
HS – “Yes, I told the Bishop”
DI – “so how come I have a letter here, from you to Paddy in 2004, asking him to forgive you for not telling the Bishop?”
HS – “Oh no, that’s right, I didn’t tell the Bishop”.
DI – “Fr Starkey, which is it? Did you tell the Bishop or not?
HS – “I told the Bishop but the Bishop forgot that I told him”.
The bishop forgot that I told him? You don’t forget stuff like that, Paddy. You were clearly lying, therefore, when you said to me, when we met in Lisbreen, at 17:45, on April 1st, 2003, “I knew nothing about all this. This is all news to me”.
I knew you were lying. Hugh told me that he had told you. Hugh is not a liar; but you are. Hugh was a true and good priest.
Your cruel abuse of the boys at St Malachy’s College should have precluded you from becoming a bishop. Today, anyone acting as you did back then (1970 – 1983) would be taken away in handcuffs.
I faced you with your own behaviour in St Malachy’s College in a separate document in 2003. You were in denial then and you are in denial now, despite the fact that there would be a queue, from Nazareth Care Village to St Malachy’s College on the Antrim Road, of those willing to testify to your viciousness, cruelty and brutality.
Hugh told me that he told you. He said, “the bishop said you’re not to worry, you did the right thing. It puts him in a bit of an awkward position with Fr Jim, but you are not to worry. It will all be looked into”.
Hugh said all that to me straight off. He didn’t hesitate the way someone would do if they had to make something up on the spot. You did nothing and you persuaded Hugh to take the blame for your negligence, in April, 2003.
You gave James Donaghy a very high profile among the priests of this diocese. You wanted to protect him at all costs. This predator, to whom you gave “preferment”, raped and sexually assaulted young lads like me.
He violated a seven year old boy during his First Confession, whose Grandfather had just died – a bereaved child – whom he told, “I will get your Granda into Heaven and out of Purgatory if you let me do this”.
Furthermore, in view of all of this, you sent me to Lisburn, in the clerical changes of summer 2002. This was, on your part towards me, a deliberately cruel, malicious and vindictive act, knowing full well that it was Donaghy’s hometown and that his family all lived there. I was raped by him there twice in 1983, on the night before his ordination and a few weeks later.
You sent me to Lisburn to “punish” me for speaking out about child sexual abuse in the Church and you thought your friend would be able to “clip my wings” and keep me in check.
You were wrong. X did not manage to keep me quiet and your sending me to Lisburn massively backfired on you. It was a spectacular own goal.
The first thing X said to me was, “maybe you will knock all this child abuse stuff on the head and give us all a rest”. I didn’t answer him but I thought, “Just you watch me, X”.
It didn’t work. Your sending me to Lisburn, your deliberate cruelty to me, came down on your own head and it leads to this letter I am writing to you now.
It was while in Lisburn that I called for Cardinal Connell’s resignation in the wake of Cardinal Law’s resignation in Boston ( 13th December, 2002) and the rest, Paddy, as they say, is history.
I have all our correspondence and I have read over it all. You are a serpentine and inveterate liar. You are a manipulator and twister of the truth. You are a sociopath and a narcissist, a deeply ingrained self-serving and selfish man. Dealing with you was horrendous.
Your close personal friend, Gemma Loughran, attempted to influence the outcome of a criminal trial and pervert the course of justice, by failing to declare a conflict of interest, in trying to sit in judgement on Donaghy’s original trial (January 24th– 31st, 2011).
You were the conflict of interest. What she did was shocking. The arrogance and denseness she displayed in the court. The transcript is available on the internet. Her behaviour was appalling.
She was at her work but she was exposed and she had to recuse herself. She probably did this as a “favour” to you and “the Church”. You and her are both enemies of the Church, with your attempts to cover up, for perverts and degenerates, like Donaghy.
See that young lad in the photograph? His heart was broken. For years and years, his sufferings were unbearable. He wanted to die. He cut himself. He threw up almost everything he ate. He couldn’t sleep. He had panic attacks and night terrors. He suffered serious depression and anxiety and was on medication for same since his late 20s.
I was diagnosed with PTSD after Donaghy was jailed. I had that condition for years and years. The lad in the photo, I’m speaking on his behalf. That good and innocent young seminarian is saying to you, “tell the truth, Paddy Walsh, and shame the devil”.
The Gospel this weekend was about the corrupt judge (Luke 18:1-9). Gemma Loughran tried, unsuccessfully, to pervert the course of justice. She was rumbled.
Just to sum up: you had “no reason to doubt Fr Donaghy’s clear denials”? You are a lying rat. How do you live with yourself?
But you know something else, Paddy? He never missed a beat as a priest of Down and Connor and he is greatly loved and he loves greatly. He kept going.
The kid that I was, being brutally sexually assaulted and raped, by “Jubilee Jim”, was a very brave lad and I am super proud of him, and the man and priest he became, and is today.
WALSH CURRENTLY BULLYING SICK NUN IN HIS NURSING HOME.
By the way, Paddy, see wee Sr X? You leave her alone. She doesn’t want you in her room. You are bullying, intimidating, frightening and upsetting her. Leave her alone and stop harassing her.
By the way, Paddy, see wee Sr X? You leave her alone. She doesn’t want you in her room. You are bullying, intimidating, frightening and upsetting her. Leave her alone and stop harassing her.
You haven’t changed. Terrorising a very frail and saintly little Carmelite sister, just like you did teenage boys years ago, in St Malachy’s College.
A leopard and it’s spots and all that. So sad. What a pathetic creature you are, Paddy Walsh.
Fr Paddy McCafferty.
PAT SAYS
Paddy Mc Cafferty is a VERY HURT and VERY ANGRY man.
I think his anger is a JUSTIFIED ANGER.
I think his HURT runs very deep and has damaged and is damaging him very greatly.
His letter to Walsh shows the depth of his pain.
And let’s not beat around the Bush. Walsh was and is one evil bastard.
Why is NAZARETH HOUSE CARE VILLAGE allowing Walsh to abuse the poor old retired Carmelite nun?
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 