Seán Fortune
Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Template:Use Hiberno-English Script error: No such module "Template wrapper".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters". Seán Fortune (20 December 1953 – 13 March 1999) was a Catholic priest from Ireland, who allegedly used his position to sexually abuse children.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Fortune was accused of the rape and sexual molestation of 29 different boys. He committed suicide while awaiting trial.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Life
Born on 20 December 1953 in Gorey, County Wexford,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Seán Fortune was the eldest son of Elizabeth (née Acton) and James Fortune.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". He was educated at St Peter's College, Wexford, which was the diocesan seminary of the diocese of Ferns. It was during his training that the first reports of his abuse were made, although it is not clear whether the Diocesan authorities had knowledge of these complaints before his ordination.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Fortune ministered in the village of Fethard-on-Sea in County Wexford, in Belfast and in Dundalk. Allegations of abuse were made against him in all three places. Fortune would take groups of boys to stay over in Loftus Hall in the early 1980s when it was a convent, and allegedly carried out some of his attacks there.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Sean Cloney compiled a dossier of complaints against him. He also set up a business in Dublin which offered media and journalism training to the public.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
While Fortune was arrested, in March 1995, and charged with 22 offences,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". he sought to have the charges dropped on the basis of the length of time which had elapsed.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". However, criminal proceedings commenced in early March 1999.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Death and subsequent findings
On 13 March 1999, Fortune committed suicide in New Ross on the "eve of his trial".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". He had been facing 66 charges of sexual abuse against 29 boys and, while he was remanded in custody pending trial, he had been released on bail several days earlier.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". While at his home, he took a lethal cocktail of drugs and alcoholScript error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and was found dead in bed by his housekeeper. He was 45.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
In March 2002, the BBC broadcast Suing the Pope, a documentary detailing the activities of Fortune and the response of the Diocese of Ferns to his activities over the years.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
The report of the Ferns Inquiry (published in 2005) stated that two of Fortune's alleged victims had since died by suicide.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". While the Ferns Report noted that Fortune had been removed from some church roles owing to earlier allegations, it found that the decision to appoint him to curacies in County Wexford was "ill-advised and dangerous" and noted a "serious lack of supervision" and other failures in allowing Fortune to "open youth clubs and build reconciliation rooms for young people in the basement of his house".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
See also
- Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal
- Roman Catholic priests accused of sex offenses
- Crimen sollicitationis
- Sex Crimes and the Vatican, a BBC Panorama documentary film
- Colm O'Gorman, one of Fortune's victims
References
Notes
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Sources
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External links
- "Silence on Child Abuse is Bleeding the Church" (2002) Irish Times Opinion
- Section of Ferns Report covering Seán Fortune (2005) Ferns Inquiry
Template:Catholic Church sexual abuse in Ireland Script error: No such module "Authority control".
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- 1954 births
- 1999 deaths
- 1999 suicides
- Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals in Ireland
- 20th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests
- Drug-related suicides in the Republic of Ireland
- People from Gorey
- People educated at St Peter's College, Wexford
- Roman Catholic priests who died by suicide
- Violence against men in the United Kingdom
- Christian clergy from County Wexford
- Incidents of violence against boys
- Male suicides