It is over three years since it was revealed that an Irish Catholic priest had abused several children in Japan. His victims here are probably still unaware their tormentor was a serial offender.
Father Patrick Maguire worked in Japan between 1961 and 1974, during which time he has admitted to abusing at least 13 boys, 10 of them in 1973. The priest subsequently went on to abuse dozens more children in Britain and Ireland, and has been convicted (and imprisoned) on separate counts of indecent assault in both jurisdictions. He has never been held to account for his actions in this country.
"Bishop Hirata was most understanding but said that it would be best that Pat slip out of Japan quietly." So wrote a fellow priest in Maguire's Columban Fathers to the society's head in Ireland in 1974. The reason for Maguire's hasty exit was a "problem" involving "young male children" and "a danger that the weekly magazines would latch onto a thing like that and blow it up out of all proportions." So, fearing adverse publicity, the Church spirited him back to Ireland. For his Japanese victims, that was probably the last they heard of Father Maguire.
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