Male rape victims flood help lines after clerics' apology

Male rape victims flood help

lines after clerics' apology

A PUBLIC apology by the Roman Catholic teaching order the Christian Brothers has led to a surge in calls from male rape victims to Irish rape- crisis centres.

Olive Braiden, director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said the number of calls from male victims it received had risen threefold since last week's newspaper advertisements.

A separate counselling help-line funded by Catholic orders, and advertised in the Christian Brothers announcement, received 750 calls last week, almost as many as it normally has in a year.

The advertisements sparked a debate over how genuine the apology was. Some argued the it only added to "the spirit of denial". One victim, John O'Brien, 44, who as a child was hospitalised for a week after a battering by the Christian Brothers, told the order they could "burn their apology". He told the Irish Independent "we were like lambs to the slaughter when we were given over to them and this apology is an insult". - Alan Murdoch, Dublin