‘Suffer the little children.’ How the Vatican’s good old boys protected Ireland’s most notorious pedophile priest, Father Tony Walsh.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
We have been accustomed for years now to the steady
drip, drip, drip of stories of pedophile priests — known,
protected, unrelenting, sickening. The drill goes something
like this:
First, the abuse.
Then the denial.
Then the acknowledgement.
Then the settlement.
Then the cash payments.
Then the (ordinarily too weak) promises
of new oversight and reform.
Surely, there could be nothing new under this cloud.
Think again…. for now you will meet (then Father)
Tony Walsh… a priest with a penchant for impersonating
Elvis… and a rapacious sexual appetite rivaling Don
Giovanni. But this is not so much a story about Tony Walsh
as it is the tale of how the Vatican, knowing much and
fearing more, winked for nearly 20 years at  a man known
to many as Ireland’s most predatory pedophile priest.
This is the Rosetta Stone of pedophile priest stories…
for understanding this, reveals all.
The joy boy of Ballyfermot
Ballyfermot is part of Dublin. It is grim, poor, but
fertile for those seeking the very young and winsome,
for they are omnipresent and without voice or influence,
the choicest morsels, available, helpless.
These were tailor-made for Father Tony  Walsh. As such, he
lost no time making good use of them when
he took up this parish in 1978. He molested his first
boy there just two days after he started. It was simple
and oh so easy. He knew he was on to a very good thing.
Father Tony honed his approach and his solicitation
skills. He toured as Elvis in a traveling Catholic song-and-dance
production. He ran the Boy Scouts (de rigueur for pedophile
priests) and brought boys to the Dublin seminary,
Clonliffe College. Through such means, an embarrass
du choix, he kept a steady flow of what he desired while
keeping up appearances so that those who would not see
would have no grounds for suspicion. It was all very well
organized, cynical, loathsome.
Bit by bit, the story of Father Tony seeped out.  Ballyfermot
was rife with noisome rumors. So much incessant seduction
spurred an avalanche of saucy tales, which lost nothing in the
telling, not least because they were true.
This went on for 19 years, between 1975-2004 by which
time the matter was widely known, conspicuous, flagrant.
Yet Father Tony continued to work his cynical magic
with the boys of Ballyfermot. He had a system that worked,
and he enjoyed it accordingly while his superiors discussed,
dithered, procrastinated… then postponed, delayed, and discussed
some more. It was the Catholic version of Dickens’ Circumlocution
Office… and, of course, was perfectly created for Father Tony
Walsh. He was one of the boys, he was inside the charmed
circle… he had protection, tolerance, cover, right up to
and including his eminence Cardinal Desmond Connell, Archbishop
of Dublin, Primate of All Ireland.
What did his eminence do?
Over time, stories like those of Father Tony and his ilk
became general knowledge; so general that even the Primate
of All Ireland was forced to pay attention. But he moved too
little too late so that reformers, despairing of Church-lead
reform, turned to the Irish government instead. The findings of the
state-ordered investigation shocked the nation and raised profound
questions about how so much abuse could have occurred
with so little and so ineffective response.
Item: Church officials knew of widespread abuse.
Item: Church officials shielded the perpetrators and
ensured that abuse cases be treated internally,
which meant they were not treated at all.
Item: No abuse cases or sexual crimes were reported by
the Church until the mid-1990′s. Not a single one.
And what of blissful Father Tony Walsh?
Investigators focused their attention on 46 priestly abuse
cases occurring between 1975-2004. Of these cases,
all heinous, the most flagrant of all was Father Tony Walsh,
who in his Elvis impersonations gave a whole new meaning
to “Love Me Tender…”
He was, the investigators concluded, “probably the most
notorious child sexual abuser” of all… a man who knew the
system well, knew that he was shielded from repercussions,
and took full advantage of his superiors’ penchant for
shuffling, disregarding, and willingness to tolerate any
abuse, no matter how young the victim or revolting the
act. The man, the abuser, was a priest, elect of God,
and that was enough. It was a passport to mayhem.
But the luck of Father Tony Walsh was even now not
exhausted. In the report of the state-ordered investigation
the chapter on Father Tony was excluded. Why? Because
his criminal case was then before the courts and his
rights must be protected. Indeed.
However, at long last, the case of Father Tony was heard
in all its lurid, sordid, riveting detail. The nation watched, angry,
sorrowful, wondering how so many could have done so
wrong for so long. How parents and teachers, how priests
and cardinals could have known so much and done so
little… creating the fetid environment in which Father Tony
et al had flourished. How could this have happened in Ireland,
to all its good people? How?
Tony Walsh, no longer a priest, was convicted and convicted
yet again. First he was convicted of a May, 1994 assault on
a boy in a pub restroom following the funeral of the boy’s
grandfather. Then, later, he was convicted of sexually
assaulting several more boys, receiving a further 10-year
sentence.
In its wisdom the court saw fit to reduce this sentence,
giving Tony Walsh instead a term of just 6 years. Just
six years, after a lifetime of abuse and assault.
And what of the victims, all young, all innocent susceptibility?
Who is to reduce their term by 40 percent, or by any
number? Who can eradicate Father Tony Walsh from
their minds and lives by even a moment? Who will be
there for them when devastating memories surface and
terrorize in depth of night? For they who needed the most help,
got the least… to the shame of all Ireland and all its holy clerics and
princely potentates who are hereby sentenced to remember and
regret.