Josephine says the stigma of divorce made her family vulnerable to sexual abuse by Catholic priests
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Josephine’s Catholic mum was a single parent with mixed-race children.
She believes this made their family a target for grooming and sexual abuse by predatory clergymen.
Josephine grew up in the 1960s. When she was very young her parents divorced – something she says was ‘not the done thing’ in the staunchly Catholic community her mother was part of.
Her father was from west Africa. Her English mother being a single parent ‘of the only brown kids in town’ made her family very different, and ‘easy pickings’ for abuse.
Josephine's mother was befriended by a charismatic Benedictine priest, Father Peter, who often came for dinner at their home. Afterwards, the children liked to turn out the lights and watch television all together.
Father Peter would sit Josephine on his lap, and in the darkness,he would adjust his cassock and put her hand on his naked penis. Josephine says until this happened, she saw him as a father figure.
Her mother had no idea what was going on, but her sibling did suspect something and would sometimes suddenly switch on the light, causing Father Peter to hurriedly rearrange his clothes.
Josephine says ‘I remember it was horrible, I didn’t like it ... but equally feeling I didn’t have a choice’. She was sure she would be told off if she spoke to her mother about it.
She also knew her mother felt vulnerable as a single mother and worried about social services taking the children away. ‘I felt that weight on me and I couldn’t say anything’ she says.
Josephine was six years old when the abuse began. It continued every week for about two years until Father Peter suddenly disappeared. Josephine thinks that other girls in the parish had made allegations about Father Peter. She later heard that the church had sent him overseas, but apparently did not carry out any investigation.
A few years later, the family were befriended by a Catholic monk, Brother James. Again, Josephine’s mother was grateful for the attention and interest of a clergyman and he became a regular weekly visitor, bringing the children sweets and pocket money.
Brother James would get Josephine to sit on his lap and would put his hand inside her underwear and touch her. She didn’t like what he was doing but says ‘I didn’t feel I could stop sitting on his knee because then questions would be asked’.
Occasionally Brother James took Josephine out in his car and bought her presents. He used these trips as opportunities to stop in laybys and sexually abuse her. She remembers one occasion the abuse went on for about 20 minutes, and how it was ‘excruciating … disgusting’.
As an adult, Josephine learned that other young girls made allegations of abuse against Brother James and he was investigated.
Josephine did not tell anyone about the abuse by either of the Catholic clergymen. Neither of them warned her not to, but she is certain they knew she would have been too scared to say anything. She doesn’t think she would have been believed if she had spoken up.
She feels that the abusers deliberately targeted and groomed her family because they were vulnerable. She says that her mother ‘believed in the Catholic church and she didn’t have any other support’. She is critical of the church for having no compassion for her mother because she was divorced.
Josephine’s father was violent towards her mother but that did not excuse the divorce in the eyes of the church. She thinks this meant the abusers judged that her mother would be too scared to do anything even if she did realise what was happening. ‘She was glad to be allowed to still go to church’ she says.
She is also angry that the Catholic church was complicit in covering up the abuse.
Josephine feels strongly that the church has a duty to investigate all concerns raised and to be completely transparent about allegations made. She hopes the church is more vigilant and proactive about dealing with abuse than it was when she was young, but she worries that it still has a long way to go.
For 50 years, Josephine has kept her experience to herself. She hopes that by sharing it now, she may help better protect children in the future.