5 entries for Fr Salvatore

In August 1959, Fr Placido was again required to deal with Fr Santino because Fr Salvatore33 was no longer willing to keep him in Kilmurry, where he was having an unhealthy influence on certain members of the professed and also on some of the novices. He suggested that, if no alternative could be found, he would as a last resort be compelled to keep him in Upton but warned: ‘there would be grave risks in accepting him here considering the class of boy we have in certain age groups here’.

The Provincial asked the Rector of Kilmurry, Fr Salvatore, to write to the Superior General, setting out his views on the matter. In a letter, Fr Salvatore wrote: Br Constantin’s case is a sad one. He came here [Kilmurry] over a year ago from Upton. Fr Provincial will, no doubt, have informed you that this Brother had great difficulty in observing his vow of chastity. His Rector at Upton was forced to send him away from that house because he had proof that, in two cases at least, he had sinned with boys. The fact that he is still a religious is due to the charity of his Superiors because, generally, in these kinds of cases the rule is to send the accused person away. I must say, Father, that Constantin himself did ask his Superiors to take him away from the occasion [in the sense of the occasion of temptation]. Sending him here was seen as saving his vocation but it is not like that.

When the Rosminians discovered this Brother was sexually abusing boys, the first response was to move him. There does not appear to have been any proper investigation of the extent of his activities because Fr Salvatore’s letter says that the Rector at Upton had proof ‘in two cases at least’. There were very possibly more. It would appear that he went on to be a problem once more in Kilmurry, because sending him there ‘was seen as saving his vocation but it is not like that’. The priority was again keeping the matter secret. Permitting the Brother to obtain relief from his vows avoided the need for a formal process, which suited the Order, and was convenient for the offender, particularly as the actual dispensation was not even contained in his record. Taking this course meant that minimal information was recorded about the departure of the Brother from the Order. The Rome file: Br Fausto

Other documentary references to the Brother are even more vague, although generally suggestive of reasons for apprehension about his behaviour. For example, one comment read, ‘Fr Salvatore ... told me that he did not consider Fausto’s influence there as being to the spiritual advantage of the Novices’.

Another reference discussed his suitability as follows: you don’t mention Kilmurry; from what Fr Salvatore ... was saying to me, I have my doubts if Fausto is the best one for that house. But the Novice Master holds him in high esteem.