Religions and all creeds have so much good to offer this world. There are so many religious who are living their religious beliefs in a very practical way, bring hope and assistance to those who need it. Alas, religion can bring much harm, and religious ministers and members of religious orders can do untold damage, as I have found out.

At the age of 13 I was sent to the local diocesan school, St Patrick’s College. This is an institution which has always set great store on ability in Gaelic sports, so I was never going to shine. I was a nervous youth, who could hardly ever see the blackboard. I got on very well with my fellow students, some of whom are still very good friends. The teachers were also sympathetic. One in particular, Hugh O’Brien, imparted his love of spoken languages to me, a love which will never leave me. One other teacher I will never, never forget, for all the most negative reasons.

Sister Rosarii was assigned to teach my class Irish. She had something of a reputation, to which she was determined to live up. Other teachers sometimes used corporal punishment with pupils (though never on me). Sister Rosy was determined to do far more damage with her acid-stained outbursts. I love the Irish language, but in those days I was far from any good at it. I was eager to learn though.

I am not paranoiac, but it often seemed as if Rosy only had eyes for me. My work would be sought out before any other and held up for ridicule and withering sarcasm, which sometimes left me in tears. I could never do anything right. On one occasion I was given a very low score for a piece of work. This was announced to the class of course, followed by the question: "When are you going to start working?", to which I replied with blissful honesty: "I am working already". On another occasion the class was told that I had received "the grand total of náid" (a disreputable form of linguistic hybridization she must have picked up from her episcopal mentor). Exercises were written by her on the blackboard, but before I could decipher them or note them down they were swept away by her to be replaced by another indecipherable tapestry.

Rosy’s dislike of me was noticed by everyone in the class, none of whom could stand her. One of my class-mates, to whom I wasn’t particularly close, commented to someone: "Isn’t it awful the way Rosy treats Ciaran?" But what had I done to earn such disdain?

My mother approached her, in an effort to persuade her to change her stance towards me or clear up any difficulties she might have with me. My mother was castigated by the nun for "having me stuck out there at the front of the class like a sore thumb." When it was brought to her attention that I sat there in an attempt to see the blackboard Rosy replied that in future she would ignore me. She was true to her word. Even if my hand was the only one raised in answer to a question I was ignored. My work was still demanded but was returned unmarked. Fergus Coulter was a good buddy of mine in those days. He has since qualified as an accountant and is possibly now earning a disgusting amount of money. He was a classmate then and used to copy down for me the material Rosy scrawled on the blackboard. However, if Rosy caught him doing this or passing the notes to me he was castigated and the notes confiscated.

The situation was becoming grotesque. I was a pupil in this nun’s class, who had unilaterally decided that she wasn’t going to teach me. It soon became clear that what she was a power to herself. Not even the college president had any sway over her. Why? Because she was allegedly a nominee of the bishop, Dr McKiernan, who had been brought from Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, upon his elevation.

I hated being in a situation where I was being deliberately ignored. The atmosphere in her classes was stressful and disturbing. My family withdrew me from the class, but when I tried to re-enter it after Rosy’s departure I was met by the College President Fr Hurley, who asked me what I was doing – he had been informed by letter as to what was going to happen – and when I explained I was told that I would stay in that class until he gave me permission to leave.

Events came to a head. I did not want to stay anywhere near Rosy, but I did not wish to leave the school where all my friends were. However it was quite clear that the authorities of St Pat’s were not going to budge, even when they had been made aware of medical advice that I should not be left in the dear nun’s class.

What were the alternatives? As my family were not rich a private school was out of the question. Then a family friend, who at that time was a serving government minister, asked: "Why not the Royal?" The Royal School is an institution which, since the early 17^th century, has been catering for the educational needs of Cavan’s non Catholics. I went there for an interview with this kindly old gentleman, the Reverend John Anderson, also known to generations of pupils as "The Boss", and was immediately accepted. And to use a dog-eared cliché, the rest is history. This was definitely one of my cleverer moves.

The response of the local Catholic Church to my defection was amazing. My family were visited in person by the parish administrator, Fr O’Dowd urging them to reconsider their decision, and attempting to convince me that Rosy’s behaviour towards me was probably deserved and would be character-forming. His solicitude for my educational welfare was touching but in vain.

Sister Rosarii had a host of issues in her baggage, But U was not the cause, but I was the unwitting victim. Rather than seeking to resolve her problems she was protected by a religious cordon sanitaire. She was a nun, a religious, and nothing derogatory could be said about her. The Catholic Church was preaching a gospel of love, but through its inaction, was allowing one of its members to cause harm. She had major psychological problems, but no one was going to make her face up to them. That would have been to "let the side down", to allow the mask of infallibility to slip. It would have ushered in the "appalling vista" that priests and religious were not perfect specimens of humanity.

There was a type of collective mutual defence mechanism. The clergy were told to feel that they were religious and we could do whatever they liked. If one of them were attacked the whole Church would rally round as one to their defense. As clergy they were also a "cut above" everyone else: socially, economically and morally. Indeed the worst sin committed by the religious was less important than the least misdemeanor of a lay person. Indeed, they weren’t even on the same level. This was, and in some places still is the attitude of the church and more worryingly the declining number of faithful.

I was fortunate. I escaped. Others had to suffer, and I mean suffer in silence. I saw how the Catholic Church condoned wickedness, but I was fortunate enough to be able to distinguish between organised "bricks-and-mortar" religion, and what I term the true religion of the heart, which does not have to rely on structures, hierarchies and lies. I learned many lessons, but the greatest was that the Catholic Church in Ireland was interested only in power and control. Their dominance of education served the latter purpose.

I still recall with an element of pain, the way in which local priests would make a point of asking: "Where are you now?" (meaning which school was I attending). I would answer with pride that I was now attending the Royal School. The priest would invariably repeat this, as if it were a "bad word", not to be uttered in polite company. Now the priests who did this knew well where I was going to school, and the act of asking was a sick attempt on their part to try to embarrass me. This was all the stranger as at this time I attended mass regularly, but I suppose that because I was not donning the Catholic Full Metal Jacket I was what they liked to call an "A la Carte Catholic".

This seemed to be a problem with a small section of the clergy. I have been back to St Pat’s on many occasions. I once had to sit a music examination there, where I met once again with Fr Hurley. I sensed no hostility towards me on his part; there certainly was none on mine. The current president of the College, Fr Gerry Olwill, is a good friend, I have written of the warm mutual regard between me and the late and much missed Fr Dan Gallogly.

Time heals most things, but it became apparent how much a tiny, yet influential section of the local Catholic Church still harboured a grudge against me and my family. In 1992 my sister Anita was taken ill, an illness from which she did not recover. She was briefly treated in Cavan General Hospital, before transferal to Dublin. On one occasion while we were with her the Catholic hospital chaplain paid a visit. (I will not mention his name). Rather than ask my sister about how she felt he turned to me and asked: "Were you at St Pats?" I said, for the sake of brevity, that I had not been. "And where were you then?" he asked in a tone not unlike a police officer. When I volunteered the information the word was repeated with the same barely concealed contempt as of old. My mind and that of the rest of my family were devoted to the welfare of my ailing sister, who was still lucid enough to know what was going on and to understand this priest’s nasty little game. I know that Anita would have been pleased that in her final moments she was not attended by any of these Satanic antichrists but by a humble Capuchin friar, a man who embraced poverty as a sister, because it brought the truest form of wealth in this world, someone who stood at the polar opposite of the nice, comfortable, conceited lifestyle of the parochial clergy.

I used to attend mass in the nearby Cathedral in Cavan. However both of us are now unable to walk any distance. The local church’s response is to ignore us completely, except when sending the envelopes for financial contributions. The local clergy do not visit, nor do they bring around the communion host for those wishing to receive. However some have been spotted visiting the home of a retired county manager. The present administrator is called by some "Father Snob". I cannot understand how the son of a policeman can adopt such supercilious airs, but he is alleged to be close to the former bishop, and is also rumoured to be very close to a certain ultra-traditionalist Catholic lay group who meet by night.

As none of us can attend Mass, we either listen to or view the broadcasts from RTE Irish television. An idea was mooted to the parochial administrator that Mass from the Cathedral could be broadcast and distributed using a local cable television network, but this received the thumbs down from the priest. Such a move would conflict with religious broadcasts from the local radio station, of which he is a director. So, if you cannot get to Mass in person and you don’t want to be an "a la carte Catholic" you must listen to Northern Sound. If you are hard of hearing … well tough. In the Gospel of St Matthew (18,13) Our Lord says:

"If a man had a hundred sheep and one of them strays, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountaintops to go out and search for the stray one. And if he manages to find it, I assure you he is happier over that one than over the ninety-nine that did not stray." But the local clergy apparently find joy in other ways. They minister only to the self-righteous. To quote from Scripture again, Our Lord said that he did not come to teach the righteous, but the sinners.

The lack of ministry by the local clergy towards my family can be interpreted in two ways. The first is the more benign. It comes from a general diffidence to the idea of ministry itself. It stems from the local clergy’s innate laziness coupled with a misplaced superiority complex. A spell of missionary work in Uganda or the Democratic Republic of Congo would solve this.

But there is a fear that it stems from the old ambivalence towards me and my family amongst certain members of the clergy, and that it reflects an attempt to punish us for standing up to the Church a quarter of a century ago.

It has never been my intention to write an anti Catholic diatribe. The sins of its members are well known, especially here in Cavan. I sometimes think that lessons have not been learned here. There have been many apologies from leading churchmen and from religious orders elsewhere in Ireland. They seem sincere: these groups are not accustomed to admitting error; rather, they have seen it as their role in life to point out and correct the errors of others. There are some, within the church and in allied lay institutions who are deeply unhappy about the exposures of abuse, both physical and emotional. They seethe with anger, for any dent in the influence of the Catholic Church is a direct assault on their power base, no matter how small and trivial that is. The experience of Tony Sweeney is perhaps just one form of this anger – a desire to punish and to penalise those who want to relate their experiences. Psychologists and psychotherapists are agreed that such an externalisation of negative experiences is an important part of the recovery from trauma. But the Victims’ Redress Board want none of it. Their response is: Here’s some cash. Take it and shut up.

Those who shield abusers, whether they be ministers of the Catholic church or lay people, are evil; they are as evil as the abusers themselves. The latter often need help, not protection. The abusers are extrinsically evil, the former intrinsically. They are attracted, almost magnetically, to sources of power, such as the Catholic Church. Once they insinuate themselves into its fabric they gain dominium over other people. This might be sought for its own sake – there are people who like power. Alternatively this dominium could be used to compel people to look the other way. For the past one hundred and fifty years the Catholic Church has been the most powerful, and the least transparent and accountable institution in Ireland. So it naturally attracts the power hungry, in the same way as the Communist Party did in the former Soviet Union.