Joseph Marmion SJ loomed large in our lives as boys at Belvedere in the 1970s. He was a big man, certainly, but an even bigger personality. As I wrote, many years after leaving school, he bestrode the place like “a priapic colossus”. He was a bully, a sadist and a predatory paedophile.
I ascribe to him my phobia of reading in public, and he did write a message in felt-tip on my bare chest in front of the class when I was 15. But I was one of the lucky ones. For a while he seemed vaguely to like me. As I got older, I recognised him for what he was: a bully to everyone and a very particular menace to many of the little boys who formed the “female” chorus in his annual Strauss operettas.
He would measure these unfortunate children, stark naked and alone with him in his room. Yes, he was big. His hands, of which he was very proud, were like hams, his head the size of a pumpkin. When you were in first grammar – first year in Jesuit parlance – he could block out the sun. Literally and metaphorically. His sexual assaults were perpetrated not just at Belvedere but on school trips to Vienna, at Clongowes and at Crescent College in Limerick.
Many years after I had left school and Marmion had been removed from teaching, in the early spring of 2021, my former Belvedere classmate, Donal Ballance, had finally persuaded the Jesuits to name Marmion as a predatory paedophile. Prompted by the trial of former rugby coach John McClean, which revealed sexual abuse at Terenure College, I wrote a newspaper article in which I revealed that Belvedere had had its own abuser in the 1970s. This was just before the Jesuits’ statement of March 2021.
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It was not the first time I had written about Marmion.
Seventeen years earlier, in 2004 I revealed in a book that Belvedere, in my time, was dominated by a predatory paedophile. I discovered, after the Jesuits admitted what Marmion had been, that this had not gone unnoticed in the Jesuit Provincialate, where a statement was prepared acknowledging Marmion’s abuse. This was to be issued if my revelation gained media traction.
In the event, it didn’t and Marmion’s victims had to wait almost two decades before his crimes were acknowledged. The support and redress that was offered to them in 2021 could have alleviated a great deal of suffering had it been made available in 2004. Some died in the meantime. Marmion damaged many lives and destroyed some. He was not the only one.
During the week, the order named 15 deceased Jesuits who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of children. After Marmion’s crimes were confirmed I was able to reveal that Paul Andrews SJ and Dermot Casey SJ were also the subject of credible accusations of child abuse, and they were subsequently acknowledged as such by the order.
So as 2021 dawned, no Jesuit had been named as a sexual abuser of children; now we have 18.
But there are more. According to the order, 44 Jesuits have been credibly accused since 1945. Leaving aside a couple who are still alive, and presumably cannot be named for legal reasons, that leaves 20 whom the order has decided not to name.
What sort of criteria were applied by the independent committee appointed by the Jesuits to decide who should be named? Was it the quality of the accusation? Or the quantity of accusations? And why should the Jesuits be the arbiters of who to name?
The Jesuit Provincial, Shane Daly SJ, told RTÉ that he expects others to be named in time. But why? Is there some number of victims who need to come forward?
The Jesuits have apologised for failing to deal adequately with those among them who abused children. Often they simply moved them about. There is a suggestion that such failures are in the distant past. But the most egregious failure was not acting in 2004.
When The Jesuit Response was published after Marmion had been named in March 2021, there were renewed apologies and a determination to find how such a person became a Jesuit and was allowed to abuse children for decades. What the order omitted to mention then was that they knew that Paul Andrews SJ, best friend of Marmion and rector of Belvedere when Marmion was finally confronted in 1977, has also been the subject of complaints of abuse. I revealed this in a Substack post in August 2023. I also reported that multiple complaints had been made against Dermot Casey SJ, of St Declan’s Special School in Ballsbridge.
Some Jesuits and some past pupils are too eager to congratulate the order on its handling of sexual abuse. There has long been a suggestion that the Society of Jesus is “a cut above” other orders and that the support and redress for victims underlines this superiority. One doesn’t need to be a cynic to reflect that the competition is not great.
It took Ballance years and the threat of going public before the Jesuits finally named Marmion. They have sat upon the 44 names of credibly accused Jesuits for more than a year after admitting to the number.
[ Former pupils at Jesuit schools speak of ‘panic, disgust’ at priest’s abuseOpens in new window ]
Naming is a good thing. It allows victims to realise “I was not alone”, to be acknowledged and to seek redress. But what of those whose abusers have not been named? Will they feel that their abuse has been weighed in the balance and found wanting?
A few months ago, I spoke with someone who was abused by one of those named during the week. At that stage there was no indication of when any abusers would be named.
“You know,” he said. “I sometimes wonder if they are just waiting for us all to die.”
Tom Doorley is a journalist and author. He has written extensively about Jesuit child abuse at tomdoorley.substack.com
