Paul Malpas

Clerical sex abuse of children is nothing new it has been going on since priests became priests and is a direct result of the abuse of power.

Up until the 4^th Century AD, the priests of the Church were just ordinary lay people from various levels of society, who took it upon themselves to preach to the people on this new religion of Christianity.  They were accepted for the fact that they were intelligent and had knowledge and could speak and explain this new concept which Emperor Constantine had recognised as the official  religion of the Roman Empire and they could  translate the complicated teaching so that the ordinary man could understand.

These priests eventually evolved into a distinct privileged class and the best of them became bishops running the various districts or dioceses of the new Church in charge of a  number of priests who showed them allegiance.  They still lived normal family lives, marrying and having children but from the 4^th Century onwards the leaders of the Church were starting to advocate for celibacy to become part of the priestly state, but it was not until 1139, 800 years later at the 2^nd Lateran Council was the mandate for celibacy passed.  Even then there were priests living open married lives into the middle of the17th Century and some even admit today the practice continues with some priests in the face of constant denials by the Church.  The ridiculous thing today is that the Church is accepting Anglican priests into the priesthood of the Catholic Church complete with wives, children and presumably girl friends, to work alongside Catholic priests living under the yoke of celibacy.

However before celibacy began priests had started to commit adultery with women met with in their priestly work and had sex with minors under their control.  There were no real laws or rules dealing with this problem but the bishops of the time could see this dilemma needed sorting out.

The Council of Elvira in Spain in 306AD was the first mention of this problem in Church history and what catches the eye is that the worst form of abuse thought of at this time was priests committing sodomy on young boys and it was decided at this Council that priests found to be committing these acts had to be deprived of Communion.

Over the next 500 years various synods, which were a gathering of bishops getting together and forming legislation, spoke out and legislated against illicit sexual activity by priests.  In 1140 Gratian, a monk, collected all this legislation into a book, The Gratian Decree, which although never official became the basis of Canon Law.  After the passing of the Medieval Period, the various popes became the source of most legislation in this matter.

The Church realised very early on that the Sacrament of Confession proved to be the source of much of this abuse.  People were laying bare their souls and problems to priests, some of whom were taking full advantage of these vulnerable people and helping themselves sexually with threatened blackmail and sexual bullying after the individual’s confession.

Confession had long been part of the Church’s ritual, but in the form of mass confessions.  Individual private confession originated in the Irish Church in the late 6^th Century and spread eventually to all areas of the Christian world.  It became obvious that priests needed guidance on how to conduct this sacrament and how to deal with the various sins confessed.

This manual for priests took the form of several books written by learned scholars and were called Penitentials.  Several of these Penetentials refer to the sexual crimes committed by clerics on young boys and girls,  The most important and apt is the Penitential of St Bede, in the 8^th Century.  The Venerable Bede, the famous English historian and religious intellectual from the north east of England, is the man St Bede’s College in Manchester is named after.

His Penitential advises that priests who commit sodomy with young boys be given increasingly severe penances commensurate with their role, bishops receiving harsher penalties than mere priests.  The regularity with which these types of sex crimes were mentioned in these Penitentials show that the problem was not isolated, was known about in the community and was treated much more harshly than the same crime committed by laymen.  These Penitentials were the main books of reference from the 6^th to the 12^th Century.

Although mandatory celibacy was only decreed from 1139 it was never fully accepted.   Clerics married, committed adultery, had casual sex, homosexual activity flourished and acts of sodomy with children were rampant throughout Medieval times.  Gratian, the year after the 2^nd Lateran Council, repeated Bede’s Penitential and said that clerics should be punished harder than laymen and advocated the old Roman Law of Stuprum Pueri: that sexual violation of young boys be punished with death.  Even then, a 1000 years ago, the leaders of thought in the Church could see the mental damage this practice had on young boys.

So do not ever be misled by the argument put out by the Church recently that these  acts of abuse by priests is as a result of Vatican 2.  It is a result of the abuse of power and has been in existence since priesthood began.  In those early days the whole congregation knew about it and the authorities tried  unsuccessfully to eradicate it.  Why this abuse is a surprise to us today is because the modern authorities in the form of the Pope and his bishops have tried to cover it all up.

I was reading this morning how Hubert Vaughan, Bishop of Salford and founder of St Bede’s College in the 1870s named the school after his brother, the Bishop of Sydney, who had the monastical name of Bede.  This is not the case, St.Bede’s was named directly after the Venerable Bede in the hope his name would protect the school from sexual abuse.  He could not have been more wrong with the type of men his successors put in charge of the College.  He should have called it Salome’s; we might have stood more of a chance,

As I explained in yesterday’s posting, that overwhelming depression that had descended on St Bede’s before my time and was throughout my stay and afterwards, according to my correspondents, tainting both student and teacher alike, never found its way to the sports field.  So as I hated my experiences at the school and pondered long and hard on the devastating effect it had on myself and others, I thought nothing of turning out for Old Bedian cricket and rugby teams.  There it was a different world into which the College never encroached and in fact the term was a slight misnomer in that at least 50% of the lads who played  sport at Old Bede’s had never attended the College

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For me the highlight of the sporting year was the annual cricket tour to the Wye Valley on which I went for four years from 1966 to 1969 until unfortunately work took over my life.  They really were magnificent days, setting off in a coach with a really decent set of lads, all older than me; lads I had revered at school for their prowess on the cricket team, lads who were playing at a high standard in league cricket and all treating me as an equal.

Lads like Joe Smith, a crazy left arm fast bowler from Unsworth, near Bury, who taught Classics at Stonyhurst College, that Jesuit pile in Lancashire.  He spoke with a broad Lancashire accent and I always wondered what Xenophon or Pliny would have sounded like, with its Lancastrian twist, to the privileged kids at that school.  To be any good as a fast bowler you have to be fairly crazy and Joe’s lunatic antics often used to get us into scrapes where we generally used to escape with honour.

Other lads on the tour who had been through the mincer that was the College were Dave McGarry, a very good footballer and batsman, who liked bowling leg breaks, and happened to be our in house chaplain and peacekeeper.  Chris O’Rourke, a top wicketkeeper/batsman who had trials for Lancashire and captained Stand in the Lancashire and Cheshire League and Len Whelan, a teacher and drinker, who had all the attributes of a good fast bowler but could not convert this God-given physique into cricketing ability but he made up for this fault with tremendous enthusiasm.  Len was married to a cousin of my future wife, Helen and went on to teach at Bede’s Prep many years later.  He died suddenly in the 1990s leaving his large family devastated.

The normal tour was a first stop at Shrewsbury or Ludlow, then onto Leominster, our usual headquarters followed by games at Bromyard in Worcestershire and at Hereford, playing the occasional game at Ross on Wye and always finishing off playing the Welsh Brigade army team at their permanent barracks at Crickhowell, near Abergavenny, having lunch in the Officer’s Mess and drinking out of silver goblets at the bar.  Crickhowell was a massive army camp and could always put out a very good team.

The second year we played them their team was captained by one aptly named Major Poncia, I tell no lie but he was actually a very good batsman who opened their innings.  We had taken three cheap wickets with Joe Smith bowling at his best when Corporal. Jones joined Major Poncia at the crease.  After an over or two settling in the Major drove a ball through the covers and shouted to Jones to run two.  Our cover fieldsman was a very able man and collected the ball at which Jones denied his captain and sent him back at the start of his second run.  The ball was returned swiftly to the bowling end justifying Corporal Jones’s fears. Major Poncia who had been embarrassed by his swift and ungainly retreat and enraged at this apparent insubordination, tucked his bat under his arm and marched down the pitch to the luckless Jones and demanded off the poor man that “when I say run, you’ll bloody well run Corporal”.  This bit of disciplinary action caused all us non-combatants to roll about the pitch laughing our heads off and this little piece of Army rebuke was repeated many times over by the northern bretheren and shortly afterwards the enraged and perplexed Major Poncia was bowled out to a completely un-Poncialike stroke.

The atmosphere became distinctly unfriendly from then on, we won the game easily and we had to fend for ourselves in the mess that night, we were not as welcome as we had been at lunchtime.  We did not know the ropes; we had no idea on protocol; we had never done National Service.  I bet Poncia wished us to be called up there and then.  We played one more game the following year but we had been demoted to the Sergeant’s Mess and no officers played and after that we became personae non grata alas.

Always these tours were carried out in blazing summer weather, playing teams who were genuinely talented and glad to see us.  They took time off work to play us midweek and gave us a welcome that is now rarely seen.

One year at Leominster, a most picturesque ground with a footpath running through it, whose users had right of way over the cricket and caused the game to be interrupted every now and then, we were chasing runs in the late afternoon when I went in and scored 50 off about 30 balls.  Even the footpath users stopped to admire the sport, we won and I was feted for hours afterwards .

Years later and Dave McGarry had just started his sermon one Sunday morning, I was late and found a seat at the back of  St Catherine’s church.  We had not met for a good few years but Dave spotted me and did a right turn with his prepared speech and dumbfounded the congregation with a ball by ball commentary on the closing overs of that day at Leominster.  I do not know if he was down on his collection that morning but at least he remembered an old mate.

The A49, which went through most of the towns we played at, was for me the best 100 miles of road in the country.  For many years afterwards I detoured and took it remembering the good times of youth and at the same time trying to blot out my wasted years at the school.

This Christmas whilst indulging in a bout of omphaloskepsis and at the same time suffering  great pain emanating from my nethers, I asked myself where it all went wrong and eventually after much gazing I narrowed it down to a day in February 1957 when I set out from Duncan Road, in Longsight, Manchester to catch a bus up Stockport Road to Ardwick Green and St Gregory’s School to take my 11+ examination.  In those days every child took this examination to see whether they were good enough to go to Grammar School, Technical School, or in fact remain insitu at their Primary School, to waste their time in the mundane until released at 15 or 16 to fill the unskilled jobs that the country was full of at that time.

So armed with pen and pencil, ruler and pencil sharpener all wrapped up in a little wooden pencil case, we sat in quaky  miserable silence in the grim classrooms of the aforementioned school whilst we were examined in the arts of Arithmetic, English and IQ.  I, unfortunately, was classed as very bright and St Bede’s College in Alexandra Park, Whalley Range was my lot.  This was a  school that gave all parents of the time a great buzz and advanced them up the local society pecking order a great deal and turned decent  working class folk into the yuppies of their day.

However for us guinea pigs thrust into the cauldron of early baby boomerism,  St Bede’s was not at all what it was supposed to be.  From the very first day or at least from the day that the gloss wore off, we were aware of a canker in the place.  Nobody was happy, nobody smiled.  Staff and pupil alike could be seen to not enjoy themselves.  This aura of gloom and misery descended from the top but we could not put our finger on it.  For all our years at the school and for many years afterwards, whilst we tried our best to forget the experience, we were bound up in totally negative thoughts of our time at Bede’s.  We now know what this gloom and misery was all about and we can put our hard times into perspective and try and remember the few decent things from those days, like Spike Martin’s classes and the sportsfield where this despondency never encroached.  I do not ever remember the authors of this wretched atmosphere walking down Alness Road and onto Brantingham Road where our playing fields were situated.  No, Messrs Duggan and Burke just sat in their studies and grimaced while they thought of the next best boy to abuse or the next stupid College rule to make.

I had six years there and on the cusp of third level education when Duggan decided my face did not fit and that I had to go.  He took his time about it and must have examined me closely from a distance before he decided I was for the chop.  He did not even inform my parents as any right man would have done.  For my part I was so badly damaged mentally by my experiences I was glad of a way out.  I had lost touch with reality.  I had become an automaton only able to turn up in the morning and go home at night, not able to soak in anything that the devastated and underqualified staff had to offer.

So at 17+ I left the school, thrown onto the midden that I had been told would not be there for us top 6%, with not an idea in my head as to what I wanted to do, with never a steer by anybody at the school about what was at all possible for a well qualified midden dweller.  Basically I was back with the lucky kids who failed their 11+ level, only they had had four or five years to sort out  where they were heading  and were  content with their lot.  In actual fact due to the sticky consistency of this middden it became intensely more difficult to escape from than the morass that those who had failed their 11+ and left school at 15 or 16 found themselves in  I have never ever got over that feeling of uselessness that I suffered at that time.  Six years spent in expensive and at times intellectual education and then wiped off the blackboard like chalk scores at the end of a game of darts.

The only saviour of this whole chapter was that I was back amongst my own, the uncomplaining, hard working underbelly of Manchester and because of them I had inherited this willingness to work and work hard, so I soon found myself a mattress, a job on a building site, where I could at least come to terms with my lot.  The only trouble was, my aquaintances and those of my age group had had two years more experience of this dilemma and had learnt  the angles and ways of humble life.  I had to learn fast and I did but I do not owe one iota of that cunning reflex to Bede’s.  I had reached the end of my six year vaccuum and I was starting again as if at 11 years of age to try and make something of what Bede’s did not give me.

How can a school with the reputation that St Bede’s had, waste so much of young people’s lives.  The very time when young boys need two strong and helpful arms to save them if they stumble,  all St Bede’s offered was a one way ticket to oblivion.  As I have explained in previous postings 20 – 30% of each years intake were unceremoniously discarded when all they needed was some help to get over whatever personal hump was blocking their path but all Burke wanted was a well oiled smooth running educational establishment regardless of personal hurdles.  I remember him coming into our class one day and saying ” B…… your father died at work this morning you will stay in school and go home at the normal time” then swept out of the room.  The boy was devastated but dare not move.  The teacher embarrassed beyond belief but too emotionally  immature to react.

Whereas we now know what Duggan wanted, a smooth young fragile boy, personally picked out of the many hundreds that came before him.  He seems to have had no interest in the school or the staff.  They were just there for his own personal and vicious ends.  These poor abused boys were discarded as soon as their use was over.

For my sins and as General Secretary of the Connaught Rangers Association, I help to put together The New Ranger, an annual magazine for the Association members.  The Association’s purpose is to build up a data base of soldiers who served in the Regiment, one of the proudest regiments ever to serve in the British Army and to remember those men who died fighting for what they thought was their country.  The Regiment was disbanded along with several other Irish regiments in 1922 when Ireland gained its independance from England after having 2500 of its soldiers killed in the First War.

Whilst carrying out these duties just prior to the last edition going to press a strange thing happened to me.  I was editing a piece by a chap called Jack Fallon about the opening of a monument in a churchyard in Killure, near Ahascragh, in East Galway.  This monument was to the 12 men of the parish who gave their lives in the First War.  I thought I would tag their names onto the bottom of Jack’s report.   The last man on the list was Pvt. Matthew Wilson No7010 of 2nd Battalion Connaught Rangers and on the programme for the day it said the date of his death was 25th, 1915. No month, not sinister but just probably a typing mistake.  So I resolved to find out the month of his death.  By 1915 the 1st and 2nd Battalions, after both receiving a massive mauling in late 1914 had been amalgamated into one Battalion, yet the programme said he was with 2nd Battalion in 1915.  I noticed that he was buried in Guise Communal Cemetery, which was behind German lines for most of that war.  I googled Guise Cemetery 1915 and up came the graves of soldiers and a magnificent memorial to 11 English soldiers  who it said had been shot by the Germans on the 25 February 1915, and there on the list was Matthew Wilson, our man from Killure.

This started me thinking and I rooted through all the reports coming through for inclusion in the magazine and there was the story of these 11 men sent in by Hedley Malloch, who lives in Lille, in Northern France.  I felt as though fate had taken a hand and that I had to tell the story.  So with apologies to Hedley I will give my cut down version.

The party of 11 soldiers consisted of  five men from 2nd Connaught Rangers, five men from 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers and one man from 15th (Kings) Hussars.  On and just after the 26 August during the long and chaotic retreat from Mons in the first week of the war these soldiers were 11 of  literally hundreds of men who were cut off from the main Expeditionary Force and were captured by the Germans or escaped back through to their own lines or escaped back to England through routes opened up by Nurse Edith Cavell and her friends in Brussels.  These 11 had not succeeded in escaping but had followed the line of the German advance knowing this was going to be a quick war and as the saying went, “would be over by Christmas”.  They were sheltered by the people of Iron, a small village about ten kilometres north of Guise, from about 15 October 1915, having existed for the first two months by scavenging and living off the country  in a land of valleys, woods and great forests, a great place to hide.

Eventually as the winter progressed,  Vincente Chalandre, who had a mill in the village, brought them inside where they remained for some time.  Unfortunately as with every small community that had been sworn to secrecy there was a weak link in the chain and in a cauldron of envy, love, fear, and jealousy, this link broke, when an old man called Batchelet informed on the soldiers who were arrested on the 22nd February 1915.  No German records exist of what happened but early in the morning of 25 February after a night of beatings and general cruelty, the 11 soldiers and Vincente Chalandre were led out into the grounds of the Chateau at Guise and shot by firing squad, their bodies allowed to fall into a prepared ditch and they were covered over.

To be fair to the Germans this might not have been over-reaction.  Amnesties had been declared at least three times in their six months on the run and they had plenty of time to give themselves up, but it was on the top end of harshness by the Germans, however the women who were involved were all spared and given prison sentences. Bachelet the informer was arrested after the war but died in custody before his case came to court and to the end he was calling them deserters.  So these six Irishmen, three Yorkshiremen, one from Birkenhead and one man of Kent met their end through no fault of their own, perhaps they are still muttering and moaning like all soldiers do and wondering what to do next.  At least the people of Guise and Iron still remember them and Matthew Wilson has the added bonus of being remembered by the people of Killure.  An outstanding thing in Ireland where only now after 90 odd years are these brave Irish dead getting their sacrifice honoured.

The 11 soldiers were:-

Pvt Denis Buckley No 6240  2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers.  Born Cork.  Age 25

Pvt Daniel Horgan No 9582  2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers.  Born Cork.  Age18

Pvt Fred Innocent No 7845  2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers.  Born Bradford Age 27

Pvt John Nash  No 10084   2nd  Royal Munster Fusiliers, Born Sneem, Kerry Age 21

L/c James Moffatt No 7925 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers Born Birkenhead Age not known

L/c John William Stent No 6943 15th(The King’s) Hussars Born Bromley, Kent Age 24

Pvt George Howard No 9381 2nd Connaught Rangers Born Sheffield.  Age 28

Pvt Terence Murphy No 8713 2nd Connaught Rangers Born Ballisodare, Co. Sligo Age 29

Pvt William Thompson No 9472 2nd Connaught Rangers Born Sheffield Age 24

Pvt John Walsh No 6594 2nd Connaught Rangers Born Tullamore, Co. Offaly Age 33

Pvt Matthew Wilson No 7010 2nd Connaught Rangers Born Ahascragh, Co. Galway Age 37

MAY THEY REST IN PEACE

Well fate definitely did take a hand, Hedley Malloch wanted to erect a monument to these forgotten men and worked tirelessly for a number of years with the townsfolk of Guise and the villagers of Iron and helped by donations from our Association and the Royal Munster Fusiliers Association, the stage was set. Land in the centre of Iron was granted and our own in house team of stonemasons Feelystone of Boyle designed, exported and erected this beautiful monument in time for the opening ceremony on Saturday 17^th September 2011

Twenty members of the association flew over for the ceremony and to a man/woman were moved/ amazed/shocked/delighted and flabbergasted at the kindness/generosity and welcome we received from the local French people.  Hedley Malloch had done everybody proud with the attention to detail and management of the whole day and the invitations he had prepared for all the right people.

We flew into France on the Thursday and visited the spot on the Marne River at La Ferte sous Jouarre about 40 miles from Paris where the German advance through France was stopped in September 1914.  On the banks of the river is a magnificent memorial to 3800 who died in those first few weeks of the war who have no known grave, including 50 Connaught Rangers.

The next day we were at Soupir on the River Aisne where the 2^nd Battalion got knocked about a bit when pushing the German Army back after their progress was arrested at the Marne but for every punch the Rangers took they gave ten blows back and the German casualties were a massive, 3000 plus.  It was here on 14th September 1914 that Acting Lieutenant Colonel Charles O’Sullivan, father of film star Maureen O’Sullivan, was badly injured and his brother in law Lieutenant John Irwin Fraser from Knockvicar, Boyle was killed.

Saturday was a lovely sunny autumn day when we assembled in the car park at Guise.  To our surprise three Scottish pipers in full  uniform jumped out of a car next to us, complete with bearskin hats, kilts and sporrans and started warming up there and then, the pibroch waking the town from its Friday night slumber.  It was as well that these pipers were not Scots but from Albert on the Somme and were big enough to fend off any shouts from the rudely awakened. Led by Hedley we marched to the bottom of the hill leading up to the Chateau where we were joined by the town’s brass band and about 100 townsfolk.  A quick hike up the hill with pipers and brass band taking it in turns to keep us in step brought us to the gates of the chateau where a contingent of Light Dragoons, which the King’s Hussars had morphed into and who were preparing themselves for Afghanistan after Christmas, were waiting with another 100 more townies.  Along with them were five Essex Regiment re-enactment men in 1914 uniform complete with standard issue Lee Enfield rifles and the standard bearers from 12 French military associations.

Though I say it myself, we made a fairly impressive sight as we marched through the gates of the chateau to the spot where the 11 soldiers and M.Chalandre were shot on that February morning in 1915.  It was from here that the remains of the soldiers and M. Chalandre were exhumed and reinterred in Guise Communal Cemetery in 1923.  There was a simple service and short speeches over a memorial stone, set in concrete and a last post was played by a member of the band.  We then marched off in true army style with pipers and brass band blowing their heads off, the French standards and ours carried by the indomitable Willie Beirne, fluttering in the Autumn breeze and about 250 people tripping along with true military precision at about 120 steps to the minute.  The music and the march were that impressive I felt like enlisting in some regiment there and then. Right down the main street of the town and through the well thronged market place with crowds cheering and clapping us all the way, we soon completed the mile march to the cemetery, where there were two more remembrances, one over M. Chalandre’s grave and one over the soldier’s tomb.

After the ceremonies, speeches and renditions of Les Marseillaise and Last Post, it was back to town in the same style and at the same pace, to L’Hotel de Ville, where the mayor and various civic dignitaries greeted us with a champagne reception and more speeches and exchanges of gifts.  It was an amazing and generous affair and it shows these people, whose families lives over several generations were ravaged by war, will not forget.  It was very emotional and I will always remember the streets of this little town, lined with people clapping and giving vent to loud hurrahs as we passed.  We really felt we were special people.

Then it was off to Iron, a little hamlet about five miles away, where the soldiers were protected and fed by the villagers and M. Chalandre for some months, before being captured by the Germans after a tip off from a cuckolded old man.  There was a similar array of talent with slightly more civilians than at the morning ceremony in Guise.  Assembly at the mill where the soldiers hid and then a sprightly march to the memorial in the centre of the village, past the site of M Chalandre’s house, which was burnt down as a German reprisal.  Many speeches and thank yous from various guests impressively translated by Hedley Malloch and then the memorial and a very impressive one at that erected personally by father and son Feeley, was unveiled by the very decent Barry Manilowe look alike, Mayor of  Iron.  Four rounds were fired over the monument as a mark of respect from the Essex Regiment and then into the village hall for another reception, this time with savoury pasties, local cider and pastis.  The villagers had got together a little museum of articles and photographs showing what the village was like under the German fist, all very interesting.  The highlight for us was meeting M. Chalandre’s grandson who was overcome with emotion to think that we, who had come so far, were remembering his grandfather.  The privilege was ours with the locals turning up in force to honour men of the Connaught Rangers.  They will never forget. Adieu a Guise et a Iron et les peuples de Picardie.

The following day we went to Verdun which is a story in itself and the trip finished with a quick trip around the Somme taking in Guillemont church where the Connaught Rangers are honoured for retaking the village and winning a Victoria Cross in the process and we finished off at Ronsoy Wood where the 6th Battalion were massacred on the 21^st March 1918 at the start of the Kaiserschlact, Germany’s last throw of the dice, which nearly succeeded except for the fact that they ran out of ammunition and then home to England, Ireland and Portugal after a very emotional and special experience.