Brendan Smyth victim recovered memory clergy abuse case

Brendan Smyth victim battles with US church Crime Correspondent Ali Bracken 1/31/10

Helen McGonigle (48) was just six years old when she was first assaulted by the late Irish priest. She was living in East Greenwich in Rhode Island with her family when he entered her life. The sexual abuse perpetrated against her continued for the next four years. McGonigle's family of Irish descent were members of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church and it was here that they came into contact with the convicted sexual abuser. A master manipulator, he infiltrated her family's daily life. He also sexually abused her elder sister Kathleen under the pretence of preparing her for the sacrament of penance. Kathleen and Helen's brother Gerard both died from fatal drug overdoses as a result of the abuse Smyth perpetrated against her family. Her mother also spent time in a mental institution before her death because of the actions of the paedophile priest.

Helen repressed the memory of the horrors Smyth inflicted upon her as a child. It only came to the surface five years ago when she began to look deeper into what caused her sister's fatal overdose from antidepressants in 2005. As she delved into their early life in Rhode Island, she soon learned her elder sister, and many other children, were also victims of Smyth....The McGonigle family moved from Rhode Island in 1973 but the damage wreaked by Smyth never left them. In 1994, the priest was convicted of 17 counts of sexual abuse in a Belfast court. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of child sexual abuse....His rampant abuse of children was known to his superiors in the Catholic church and helped bring down the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition in 1994.

In 2006, McGonigle notified the diocese of Providence of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Smyth in Rhode Island. She was informed that she was the sixth person to come forward but there was "no pastoral reason" for making this information public. "I have since located two other victims of Smyth from our parish. I know of a third, a neighbour and my sister's friend, and if I count my sister, that makes at least nine children. Smyth was caught molesting children at our parish in early 1968, sent to a mental hospital and allowed to return to reoffend. To my knowledge there are two major groupings of us. Those aged six and seven who were one-on-one with Smyth in preparation for taking the sacrament of penance, and those five years older preparing for confirmation."

Last week, the Boston archdiocese finally confirmed that Smyth at one time worked in Boston...."He destroyed my entire family. He was moved around four states in the US, from parish to parish within those states. http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/jan/31/brendan-smyth-victim-battles-with-uschurch/