Priests on the frontline

The number of clergy attacked and robbed in their own homes is increasing, particularly in the inner cities. Can they continue their ministry without turning their presbyteries into fortresses?

?THIS IS my guard dog,? said Fr Paul O?Donnell, introducing a large animal with long white hair that peered shyly from behind his legs. ?Unfortunately, she got so badly beaten up by the last lot of burglars that she hides upstairs most of the time these days.?

His presbytery, in an inner city area of Liverpool, was broken into in February while Fr O?Donnell was saying Mass. It was the seventh time he had been robbed since arriving in the parish six years ago. In his previous parish, also in Liverpool, he was burgled so many times he lost count, but estimates the number of incidents at more than 15 in 10 years.

All the ground floor windows of his presbytery are now barred and a discreet button on the wall by the doors leading on to his garden prompts a metal shutter to purr down over the doors. ?The police told me I have to close the shutters every time I leave the house now,? he said.

A further security device is a series of CCTV cameras. In the corner of Fr O?Donnell?s sitting-room is a television, the screen of which shows the view from the four cameras situated around the exterior of the house. ?I only had them installed quite recently,? said Fr O?Donnell, who is 58. ?But the last time I was broken into they smashed up the garden bench and used the wood to push up the camera lens so that I had a good view of the clouds.?

Liverpool has one of the worst records for violence against clergy in Britain ? but it is not the only area. The dangers faced by clergy of all denominations were highlighted last week when an Anglican vicar in Rochdale, Lancashire, was reported to be moving his evening services to his home because he and his parishioners were so intimidated by teenage vandals hanging around the churchyard.

I went to meet Fr O?Donnell, who asked that his name be changed. As he pointed out, Catholic clergy are particularly vulnerable because they are perceived as soft targets. They live alone, they open the door to visitors, and criminals mistakenly believe there will be collection money in the house. He lives in a large presbytery behind a church on a busy main road. ?This house would originally have accommodated four priests and a housekeeper,? he said. ?Now I live here by myself.?

According to figures compiled by National Churchwatch, an organisation that advises clergy on dealing with crime, in 2002 there were 6,829 incidents involving religious premises or employees. Of these, the majority were burglary and criminal damage, and 186 were violent crimes. By far the most severely affected area of the country was Essex, with 1,521 incidents, followed by Hampshire with 709. In the same year the Liverpool area recorded 569 crimes.

Nick Tolson, an ex-policeman who runs the organisation, estimated that only 22 per cent of crimes were recorded because clergy felt problems were too minor to report or did not believe the police could help.

?Some people experience constant, low-level aggravation and abuse which they do not bother to report,? said Mr Tolson. ?But over a sustained period of time this can lead them to the verge of a nervous breakdown.?

Fr Leo Lynch, parish priest in the smart, coastal suburb of Blundellsands on the fringes of Liverpool, has also been attacked and robbed on various occasions.

?Here?s the radiator where one of them tried to batter my brains in,? he said cheerfully, indicating the first in a series of crime scenes in his presbytery. Going into his study, he pointed to the window. ?They smashed that once to get the money from my desk. I look at it as one of those things we have to deal with as priests. It?s all part of the job now.?

Fr Lynch?s sanguine attitude is astonishing given the way he has been treated. Six years ago two men broke into the presbytery of his former parish in Formby, near Liverpool, tied him up with strips of sheet torn from his bed, put a pillowcase over his head and ransacked the house, stealing about ?1,200 in collection money.

?I didn?t feel frightened, just furious,? said Fr Lynch, the pitch of his voice rising in indignation at the memory of his ordeal. The robbers eventually escaped in his car, leaving Fr Lynch tied up on the floor of his bedroom. ?I was rolled up like a mummy,? he said, demonstrating how he was unable to walk because his ankles were so firmly bound.

He slid downstairs and got a kitchen knife between his teeth, using it to cut the sheets around his legs. On the street, his arms still tied behind his back, he tried to stop a car, which sped away. ?I think they thought I was a madman because I was all tied up,? he said.

Having tried unsuccessfully to press the doorbell of the deacon?s house with his nose, he finally managed to alert another neighbour by knocking on the kitchen window with his forehead. By this time it was 9.30 in the morning, nine hours after the thieves had initially broken into Fr Lynch?s house.

Most extraordinary of all, Fr Lynch?s friend and colleague Fr Joe Darcy had been subjected to exactly the same treatment by the same criminals the night before. The thieves were caught the following day and imprisoned.

?I don?t open my door at night any more, but apart from that I try to live my life normally,? said Fr Lynch. ?I don?t feel threatened and I?ll send them to kingdom come if anyone tries to break in again.?

Fr Darcy, who managed to conduct a large wedding ceremony hours after wriggling free of the chair he was tied to, was equally philosophical about the threat to his security, seeing it as a modern social problem that simply had to be accepted. ?I don?t feel afraid day to day,? he said. ?To be available these days is to be vulnerable, and I wouldn?t want to restrict my availability too much.?

Merseyside is the only region of the country to have its own dedicated Churchwatch organisation, which was set up in 1995, before the national body, which operates independently of it. It was the brainchild of Harry Ross, an Anglican vicar whose church was burgled, prompting him to found an interfaith organisation to support clergy and collate crime statistics.

A year after its inception Christopher Gray, a young vicar, was stabbed outside the church of St Margaret in Liverpool. The murder injected Harry Ross? organisation with an increased sense of purpose and Mr Ross now works with the police, travelling around Merseyside doing ?road shows?, demonstrating the precautions clergy need to take.

Mr Ross agreed with Mr Tolson that one of the problems that had to be overcome was that most clergy were reluctant to report crimes. ?They often say they don?t want people to know that they?re having problems because they think it looks like they?re failing in their ministry,? said Mr Ross.

He is now raising funds to compile comprehensive statistics for Merseyside over a six-month period. He hopes to persuade all clergy to keep a diary recording every incident, however minor. This can then be used to prove to religious leaders, police, social workers and drug counsellors that there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

Mr Ross said that there needed to be more awareness at diocesan and national level. Churches and presbyteries, he said, should be adequately equipped with security devices and clergy should receive training.

?I don?t want places of worship and clergy?s homes to be locked, barred and bolted,? he said. ?But if we?re not going to live in fortresses then we must do something about the problems.?

A spokesman for Liverpool archdiocese said that the Church was doing everything it could to support clergy and make church property secure. ?Over the last 10 years we have made great improvements to the way we approach these problems,? he said. ?Priests are prepared for parish life in every possible aspect.?

He also emphasised that this was a social issue, which was not confined to the Catholic Church. Research published in 2001 by the Department of Social and Political Science at Royal Holloway College, University of London, supported this. It compared the violence experienced by Anglican clergy, probation officers and GPs, finding that nearly three-quarters of clergy and GPs had been verbally abused during the two years of the study. Ten per cent had suffered a physical assault during the same period.

Psychologically, the effect of being burgled or attacked can be extremely damaging. Fr O?Donnell said that he felt he had been violated and that he had trouble saying Mass after the most recent robbery. ?I felt so disengaged from what I was saying,? he said. ?As I get older I?m finding it more difficult to cope. I?ve had enough and I?d love to be able to retire, but I?ve got to wait another seven years.?

Fr O?Donnell said that one solution might be to live in a residential street where he would be less isolated, although like Fr Darcy he was reluctant to make himself less accessible to parishioners who needed him. However, it is exactly this accessibility that lays clergy open to victimisation. The assailant who tried to hit Fr Lynch?s head on the radiator was a drug addict who had come to see him to ask for financial help. Fr Lynch gave him ?30, but was then persecuted daily for more money.

?He was very aggressive and on the day he attacked me I had almost nothing to give him because he?d already taken so much from me that week,? said Fr Lynch. ?I gave him everything I had in my pockets and he left. I think he?s getting out of prison soon so I?ll probably get half a brick through my window. That?s usually the way I know when they have got out.?