Podcast Show Notes
Max Murray (formerly Father Max Murray groomed Vincent from the age of 14 in 1956 and this relationship continued on for 34 years.
Murray had a profound influence on the spiritual life and trajectory of Vincent’s life.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12099220
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Murray_(Catholic_priest)
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/insight/paedophile-priest-defrocked
http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/133
The institutional church has never undertaken an in -depth and long- term investigation of the spiritual damage inflicted on victim survivors of sexual abuse by clerics and church officials.
The consequences of spiritual trauma are profound, adding to the emotional, physical and psychological damage. Father Tom Doyle has investigated this and no one has ever written a better account of it. You can download it from here.
Vincent Reidy Seminarian Holy Name Seminary Christchurch ca 1963
Best Man 1968
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About The Guest
“I went there [to the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care] with a view …my testimony would be an encouragement to others who are suffering privately out there who feel they’ve got nowhere to go with it, to actively land it on the Commission and ask the Commission to give it back to the Catholic Church where it belongs”
Vincent Reidy
Born in 1942, Otago, New Zealand into a devout Catholic family
Educated by Sisters of Mercy and went on to St Edmund’s, South Dunedin and then to Christian Brothers High School (later St Paul’s and now Kavanagh College, Dunedin).
Groomed by Father Max Murray as a 14-year-old. Murray (defrocked in 2019) later convinced Vincent to abandon his plans to study law and instead enter the, Jesuit -run Holy Name Seminary in Christchurch and thence to the Vincentian-run Holy Cross College in Mosgiel, Otago.
At Holy Name, the then Rector convinced Vincent that a lady. whose company he enjoyed at Canterbury University, was a “Black Tracker” or female predator wishing to seduce him. Vincent deeply regrets this relationship was destroyed by this man. He was taught misogyny and homophobia.
In a type of Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome, Vincent kept up his friendship with Max Murray up until 1990 when Murray was in Ngaruawahia, Waikato.
When Murray was convicted for sex offences in 2003, he had to re-examine the relationship and seek counselling when he realized what grooming was and that he had been the target of this grooming.
Vincent had, what most would consider. a stellar academic career and, ultimately a successful and lucrative business career but never felt worthy and has dealt with depression and anxiety for many years, a consequence, in large part, of having the misfortune to have run across a series of manipulative church officials that started with one of New Zealand’s most horrific peadophiles.
Vincent is the proud father of two remarkable sons by his first wife and is working to replace the toxic spirituality he feels was inflicted on him by an institutional church with the on-going search for a loving “God” and a belief in the essential goodness of mankind.
In June 2020, he took part in a Private Session of the Royal Commission with Commissioner Sandra Alofivae and found it an affirming and positive experience.
He wants other survivors who have carried the guilt and suffering of clerical abuse or abuse at the hands of church officials entrusted with pastoral care, to step forward and seek redress and an end to their pain.
This is why he agreed to go public and do this podcast.
About The Host
Murray Heasley
Murray is an advocate and historian for The Network of Survivors of Abuse in Faith-based Institutions and Their Supporters and a founding member of The Reckoning NZ