The Dinner Ladies from the Vatican

Matriarchy versus Patriarchy (21)

Some women, it seems, go through a process of internal misogyny and self-hatred where they judge other women and find them wanting because of their gender. My Catholic aunt firmly believed that ‘the trouble all started with Eve’ (not Adam), and that her own sex was the cause of the world’s woes.

The solution for some of these women would seem to be to outdo men in enforcing the rule of the patriarchy.

Below is a new post on my wordpress site which shows just how effectively the patriarchy (in this case the Catholic Church) uses the matriarchy – three high-rankingCatholic women – to enforce its power. My friend Rafael went to the Vatican – the heart of the patriarchy – and got short shrift from these matriarchs he met. I had the feeling he would have been given an easier time if he had encountered three male representatives of the Church.

The cruel nuns of the notorious Croome Court that Rafael spoke of are another example. And many of us are now aware that Saint Theresa of Calcutta was far from saintly. The full extent of her crimes include financial corruption (see the Stern magazine exposé), wretched conditions for the poor (an example of similar Catholic care for the poor is below), and – more recently – allegedly child trafficking, selling babies, which is still being challenged. Her other crimes are a matter of record.

I once commissioned a serial for Toxic! because I loved the title as well as the story: The Dinner Ladies from Hell by David Leach. We all know the types. I hated my school dinner lady because she was a vicious bully. In David’s story, the wives of the Four Riders of the Apocalypse have six days, six hours and six minutes to corrupt seven children with the deadly sins and only one man and God's cook book stand in their way.

It sounds like Rafael had the misfortune to meet The Dinner Ladies from the Vatican. For many Survivors, the Vatican is Hell because it’s the HQ of the organisation that made the lives of so many children, like Rafael, a living Hell.

A recent X post highlights the problem and maybe the reason, exampling similar powerful women, who certainly seem to be outdoing the men.

‘THE WRONG KIND OF SURVIVOR’

Rafael Viola’s trip to the Vatican.

My friend and fellow Survivor, wheelchair-bound Rafael Viola, had been promised by the Papal Nuncio in June 2022 that he would talk to the Pope about his case. This included exposing the true nature of the crimes against children committed by the nuns of Croome Court. And the De La Salles at St Gilberts, who claim they are not responsible for their sexual abuse crimes because they were employees of the Home Office. Both were scandals that made national headlines in the UK. The Nuncio said he would be back in September 2022 to see Rafael with the answers.

Three years later Rafael is still waiting for a reply.

It was clear the Nuncio had lied. It was a deceitful PR exercise, a photo opportunity for The Tablet. Nothing more.

Today the same Nuncio is the Papal ambassador to Ukraine.

There seems to be a problem with the Nuncios. His British predecessor was summoned to answer the serious allegations of Catholic child abuse investigated by IICSA. He declined to attend, stating that he had diplomatic immunity.

Cardinal Nichols, the head of the UK Church, was also summoned by IICSA. He pleaded a headache at 8.00PM in the evening, the day before he was due to appear and answer the very serious accusations against the Church.

Faced with these kinds of individuals, and this kind of resistance to the Truth, most of us would give up. We would think, what’s the point? The Church is just too powerful to be challenged.

But Rafael doesn’t think that way. Because he’s the wrong kind of Survivor. He never gives up.

So, earlier this month, he went to Rome with the specific intention of meeting the Pope or his close representative and finally getting answers to the promises made by the Papal Nuncio to Rafael.

He was not visiting the Vatican as a tourist. It was a tough, hot and unpleasant trip. But he felt it was necessary not only for himself, but to encourage other Survivors to go to the Vatican for answers. Because they won’t be found in UK Catholic Safeguarding such as the RLSS or the CSSA . As Rafael says, ‘they are not fit for purpose.’

Rafael then went on to Spain, where we met up on Wednesday June 18 in Marbella and he gave me a vivid account of his journey.

Rome was an expensive visit because it was a bank holiday and prices for even dormitory hostel accommodation that Rafael settled for had gone through the roof. 7O Euros a night.

Initial impressions of Rome were also not good. Rafael discovered there were endless homeless people sleeping during the day near the railway station because it was too dangerous for them to sleep there at night. Instead, they walked the streets at night.

The Vatican had purchased the land the homeless slept on and they supplied them with water and pasta. They charged the Italian government 2,000 Euros per month, for each homeless person.

The homeless supply their own cardboard to sleep on.

Rafael didn’t think there were sanitary facilities. If they existed, they were insufficient because he said the stench was overwhelming.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (also known as the Dicastery) had agreed to meet Rafael and represent his views and hand over his letter personally to the Pope.

I have been closely following the activities of the Dicastery and their leader, British-born Father Small, for some time. For some reason he always reminds me of Father Ted. Maybe it’s the silver hair, rather than the money Father Ted had ‘resting in his account’.

But Father Small does direct an ambitious financial global Church operation that the media have raised concerns about.

In 2023, AP reported: Pope Francis has asked aides to get to the bottom of how at least $17 million, including money to refurbish the dorm, was transferred from the Vatican’s U.S.-based missionary fundraising coffers into an impact investing vehicle run by a priest, The Associated Press has learned. Two years later, the U.S. fundraiser says the money is gone, and the monastery is shuttered.

A financial expert I’ve spoken to has also questioned the very basis of Father Small’s Catholic investment scheme.

Father Small is also the driving force for the Dicastery, so he’s a busy chap. But a year or so ago, he also raised Vatican funds to buy a ‘Palace for Survivors’. I’ve written about it before in past blogs. It looks truly beautiful: high ceilings, fabulous architecture.

I wasn’t sure exactly how that worked. My best guess is it would be a drop-in centre for Survivors visiting the Vatican. Maybe like a drop-in centre for the charity, Mind? But Father Small has never explained it, even though I have asked him. There was certainly ‘no room at the Inn’ for Rafael.

Perhaps it was still being decorated, although it already looked rather splendid in the photos I’ve seen. Or perhaps Rafael was just ‘the wrong kind of Survivor’ for the Palace of Survivors. Rafael and I speculated that Survivors had to be carefully vetted and needed to be suitably obsequious to deserve the comfort and relaxation of Father Small’s palatial palazzo.

The Palazzo Maffei Marescotti in Rome, which houses the commission on Sex Abuse’s new offices

Alongside the Survivors, there would be Dicastery staff, of course. No working out of a portakabin for them. Giving Survivors of the Catholic Church the run-around is clearly hard work. So they deserve their palace.

Instead, the Commission agreed to meet him, Tuesday June 3^rd 2025 at 9.30am at their institutional offices in Palazzo Maffei Marescotti.

Rafael took the lift to the sixth floor of a grim-faced municipal building and was shown into a massive board-room where he was confronted by three even grimmer-faced women who represented the Commission.

Rafael said it was like facing three magistrates in court.

They made him feel very uncomfortable. That’s hardly surprising. ‘Three against one’ is a standard intimidation technique used by bullies in authority.

The three women in question were Secretary Adjunct of the Commission, Mrs. Kettelkamp, Mrs McCarthy, Head of Institutional Relations, and Mrs Giacometto, the clinical psychologist of the Commission.

There was no human reaching out, no compassion, no ‘how was your trip?’

Rafael – mindful of how often the Catholic Church lies – asked for the meeting to be recorded. They reluctantly agreed, but only on condition it was not published.

As Rafael said to them, ‘But I’ve got nothing to hide. Have you?’

He presented his case and they heard him out in stony, unsympathetic silence.

It included his passionate belief that there should be proactive Survivors as top members of Safeguarding, armed with executive power.

I second that, even though the Church would try to ensure they are not game-changers. But Survivors are usually highly motivated by Truth, not by unquestioning obedience to the Church. So it’s a risk the Church would be unlikely to take unless a media spotlight was beaming down on them.

Currently, although there are occasionally non-executive directors, AFAIK, Survivors are never, ever in the driving seat of Catholic Safeguarding.

Instead, we have an ex-cop who talks to Survivors like we’re police suspects (the Head of RLSS). Nazir Afzal, who boastfully told me he received a standing ovation from the bishops for endorsing their ingenious scheme to get around the Elliot Report. This was the report which publicly condemned the Catholic Church (the Head of CSSA). And various uncaring female civil servants working their way up the greasy pole to Damehood (the Head of IICSA).

Such people are always ‘safe pairs of hands’. No game-changers. Occasionally, if one somehow slips through the net, game-changers usually ‘resign’ within a year or so, sometimes under odd circumstances.

Then their memory and legacy will be erased or trashed, as I’ve witnessed recently at first hand.

Rafael told the women his words of wisdom that are at the heart of the problem for the Catholic Church, ‘We Survivors don’t trust you. You only appoint hand-picked Survivors.’

The three women agreed to pass Rafael’s letter onto the Pope and promised to respond to him within four weeks. Their reply to Rafael requires special approval, it seems.

Rafael felt so affronted by the negative way they treated him, he left without saying goodbye

But, just two days later, the new Pope was photographed with a coterie of Dicastery staff around him including the three ladies in question. Although I could see no sign of Father Small.

The Pope was speaking out about child abuse.

It was featured on cruxnow.com: Pope Leo’s meeting with the Commission for Protection of Minors. ‘Abuse crisis not over’. On that headline, at least, we can all agree.

It is a surprising coincidence.

Could those women have actually had a word with the Pope? Could Rafael’s heartfelt visit have touched those seemingly hearts of stone?

I think Rafael was a little optimistic that he just might have had an impact on those three steely-eyed ladies.

Me, not so much.

Now two weeks have gone by, and Rafael thinks he may well be ghosted and they won’t respond as they promised. We’ll see.

But he did warn them. If they ignored him as before, if they ghosted – him a standard defence technique used by Catholic Safeguarding (I am ghosted by the RLSS) – he would return to Rome. And they know he means it.

As Rafael said to the women in his wonderful, rich Glasgow accent, a rival to Arnie Schwarzenneger’s Terminator, ‘I’ll be back.’