MISCREANT, MANIPULATIVE OR BOTH?

MISCREANT, MANIPULATIVE OR BOTH?

Looking at the leaves on the ground it must be about late September or early October 1989. I had left Saint Michaels Abbey, Farnborough, Hampshire, UK in August the same year and a fuller account of circumstances leading up to my departure can be found in my first blog on this site.

 David Cuthbert Brogan was in Frimley Green Hospital undergoing minor treatment but was allowed out and we had arranged to meet on the Sunday. Now Cuthbert told me he was prohibited from seeing me and therefore had arranged that I should stay the previous night with a family from the parish, who, presumably, would keep our confidence. To the best of my knowledge they did. How much of the actual story they were aware of I am unsure. 

 So Cuthbert and I met up on the Sunday and went to Mass at a Church in Frimley. We also visited Waverley Abbey ruins where the above photo was taken.

 28 years on and nearly 9 months into my / our? campaign for justice, Cuthbert remains Abbot Cuthbert Brogan OSB. As the gradual revelation has dawned as to the damage this man has inflicted on me (and others?) I have found myself revisiting events without the blinkers of youth and groomed conditioning.

 If Cuthbert really was prohibited from seeing me, why become more conspicuous by wearing your habit? Or would it appear more as though you were trying to deceive by not wearing it?

 So as my title suggests, he is either a miscreant, a manipulator OR BOTH!

 If he was prohibited from seeing me, what would his superiors, Abbot Visitor, Abbot President etc have made of this disobedience?

 And if not, this is further proof of his continuing manipulation of me.

 I felt, accurately or as it may be, inaccurately, that I was unwelcome at Saint Michaels! I loved that place and although during the culmination of everything that led to my departure, at the time, I couldn't get away quick enough, within 9 months I was driving to Oxford, Blackwells, to get a Gradual Romanum, to Alton Abbey for Rosa Mystica incense and I recall more than one occasion driving up, around and out of the drive, with a pause outside the Church. Myself and a friend did attend Mass during the Summer of 91 and I called briefly when Martin Baillie was dying but sadly I was too late to see him. It was not until 1995 that I would stay at the abbey again accompanied by a few friends, one an organist, who got to avail himself of the instrument! 

 This new found contact was again shortlived by a distorted and misplaced sense of loyalty to my abuser. He freaked me out by introducing myself to a lad he described as a former choir boy, all by ourselves, just the three of us, in the upstairs calefactory that was. Was it innocent? On the day of our profession I watched Richard Hesketh, a lad Cuthbert had known from his passionist days in Liverpool, drive quickly passed me on the Abbey drive. I recall his face. like someone hurt who couldn't wait to get out of there quick enough. Had Cuthbert invited him to display me, his latest? This is certainly what came to mind as I sat against the west wall of the calefactory with Cuthbert and this lad together under the far window. Was he doing the same to me? It was at that point that I vowed to myself if I ever heard of a minor being hurt, then I would tell my story. Unfortunately at the time, I neither considered how hurt I had been and therefore how hurt other vulnerable adults may have been. (I think anyone both taking a leap of faith and placing oneself under a superior, is consequentially vulnerable and safeguarding in this regard, needs to be examined!) So this made me uncomfortable about visiting again and then not too long after I had a phone call from a lady connected with the men & boys choir stating that Cuthbert was trying to evict the choir and could I give them anything to take to the Bishop? Was Cuthbert Gay?, she asked. I said that I was and that's why I left, but I couldn't speak for him. I then alerted then superior Dom Magnus Wilson and later received a call from Cuthbert, the details escape me but I think he was appreciative. I then made a decision that my contact with him might hinder his comfortable perseverance and so made a decision to not keep in touch, therefore I lost Saint Michaels again! 

 It was dissapointing on finding David Cuthbert Brogan on facebook in 2013 that he didn't immediately want to meet up and offer his profuse apologies for what he did to me. His initial reticence to engage further depressed me and should have been all the indication I needed that if he felt anything at my coming out of the woodwork, it was fear! Now some might say that I should have made an effort to go and see him face to face but then, is it really fair to expect the utmost of functionality from a victim when confronted by the prospect of their abuser?

 Now I have lost Saint Michaels for a third time and potentially permanently though I hear it is so run down and full of junk as to only fill one with sadness at what has become of the place, oh yes, traditionalists will love the Church. I don't, apart from the organ pipes.

 It would be a comfort to think that this latest blog, perhaps revealing disobedience after he had been given a second chance, might result in the justice I / we seek, but I wont hold my breath and Cardinal Keith O' Brien probably need not rush to make up the spare bed anytime soon, if at all.

Putting The Fox In Charge Of The Hen House!

Can you believe it????

 Abbot Cuthbert is on Portsmouth Diocese safeguarding commission!!!!
http://www.portsmouthdiocese.org.uk/safeguarding/

 Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house!!!

Apparently he is there to advise on the peculiarities of Religious Life versus diocesan life.

In other words, "Keep Your Nose Out!!"

I received these emails from Portsmouth Diocese Safeguarding:

Angela McGrory <amcgrory@portsmouthdiocese.org.uk>	4 Jan
to me

Dear  Tom

Thank  you  for your  email  and the account  which I  have now read.

Have you  already  contacted the Police ? If  not  do you  wish  me to  pass this on to the Police ? I  can do  so  to  a Police colleague to establish  if there are  any  criminal offences ,they  will not take a formal allegation from myself it would need to  come from you  but  I  can get  an opinion regarding the possibility  of  any  criminal investigation. I  must  warn you that  it  may  be that they  decide that  no criminal offences were committed but  its best  to  get that  decision from them.

I can do  this anonymously  in the first  instance or  just  forward your  email .

Please  let  me know which  way  you  wish me to  proceed.

Kind regards

Angela  .

Dear  Tom

I  am writing  to  confirm that  I have heard  from the Police that  they  have spoken with you  and confirmed that  no  criminal offences have been disclosed in relation to  the Abbot  of  Farnborough.

I  wish to  confirm that  I  have discussed your  complaint  with the Director of  the Catholic Safeguarding  Advisory  Service who  agrees with  me that this  matter  raised by  yourself does not  come within our  Safeguarding  remit.

I understand that you have already contacted Church  Authorities  in the UK  and further  afield and the Abbot  Visitor  for the French  Benedictines.  This is the correct  course of  action for a complaint  of the nature you  have made. 

I  wish  you  well in the future,

Regards

Angela McGrory

Diocesan Safeguarding  Co-ordinator

(The police advise me that the law at the time did not recognise that an adult could be groomed and that the sexual contact therefore, as disclosed, was consensual.)

So that's the legal issue put to bed, so to speak, but what about the moral and ethical? You would think that Portsmouth Diocese from parishoners to clergy to the Bishop to the English hierarchy and to Rome would all be concerned?

Thanks be to God whose concern extends to a single sparrow because the Church doesn't seem to care much!

 Farnborough is Subiaco - Cassinese, not French Benedictines and as such I wrote to the Abbot President thus:

Tom Wood <tgwood9@gmail.com>	9 Jan
to s.ambrogio

Dear Abbot Guillermo Arboleda Tamayo OSB,

 Regarding Dom Cuthbert Brogan OSB Abbot Of Farnborough.

My name is Tom Wood and I was clothed and simply professed at Farnborough UK, during 1988 / 89, becoming, until dispensation, Dom Thomas Wood OSB, sharing my novitiate with the current Abbot.

For many years I believed that Dom Cuthbert and I were peers who fell short of our commitment to celibacy, but whereas I wanted to leave, he wanted to stay. I therefore saw it as my duty to protect him from any scandal within my gift, which I did. I now with the benefit of my years, see things very differently and believe my self to have been sexually manipulated by this man and not just sexually abused but damaged in my adult development in a way that has scarred my life, particularly in my difficulty to form close relationships or to clearly perceive my sexuality.

 All this I would have tried to offer up, were I to see Dom Cuthbert as a humble penitent Man, quietly working to edify and grow his monastic house. I could even accept that he might have become a beloved and respected superior, father in Christ.

 Unfortunately I have found a vain, self promoting, narcissistic man who rather than grow his community has brought it to nigh extinction! He travels the world photographing himself fine dining and seeing the sights. His 19th century religious practices belong in a museum. And to top it all he presumably has charge of the formation of young monks and has demonstrated no conversion of life, in fact his worldly obsessions demonstrate the exact opposite! One has to consider that he may have and may be continuing to hurt others as he hurt me.

Please remove this Man from office and replace him with a devout man and give Farnborough a chance to recover and once more be an apostolate of faith, hope and charity, a beacon in the community and by it's presence, location and liturgy succour the souls of those who walk in it's grounds and live and worship within it's once again hallowed walls.

 Kindest Regards,

 Tom Wood.

 You guessed it, no response!

I have since learnt that the Abbot's Extraordinary status might actually place him under the direct jurisdiction of the Congregation Of religious? http://www.congregazionevitaconsacrata.va/content/vitaconsacrata/it/congregazione/competenze.html

and my next course of action may well be to contact them and I hope they will not replicate the disdain shown to myself and my peers as demonstrated by other primates!

The deafening silence leads one to conclude that those already in the loop are placing their money on this story quickly becoming tomorrow's chip paper!

I'm determined to make sure it does not!!

Another Abbot Extraordinary.

Update 2023: Please read this blogpost first Amazing Grace! 

 

#churchtoo

I understand that the original blog of this title was removed following litigation and was, by many accounts a very informative read! I'm just very sorry I never had the chance to avail myself, only becoming computer literate(allegedly!) during 2013. I hope that those behind the original and it's followers will make themselves known to me as I believe us to have a common purpose.

Should his lordship wish to send me one of his solicitors letters, all I can say is "Bring It On!!!"

 Call me a liar in court! If you win, it will be a pyrrhic victory! Because I haven't got a pot to piss in.

 So who am I?

Well...this particular Tom Wood is no brewer of beer, though have been unofficially involved in much (too much) quality control testing!!

 I am also no great shakes on the Rugby field,

 No, this Tom Wood was between the years of 1987 and 1989 known as Dom Thomas Wood OSB of St. Michael's Abbey, Farnborough, Hants, United Kingdom and I was a novice at the same time as Cuthbert Brogan the now Right Reverend Cuthbert Brogan OSB, Lord Abbot Of Farnborough  and indeed we were simply professed during the same ceremony. Here we are pictured after the event.

But let's go back a bit... how did it all begin for me....

Whilst praying before The Blessed Sacrament at the alter of repose on Holy Thursday in 1987, I suddenly felt a loosening of the fear that I had felt about seriously exploring a possible vocation to priesthood and / or religious life. I spoke of it with my parish priest who was supportive and I started writing some letters to various orders but the response I had from St. Michaels Abbey, Farnborough, Hants, with an invitation to visit really captured my thoughts and so it was that I was due to visit at Pentecost but a heavy cold forced me to put back my plans by a week and my visit duly took place to include Trinity Sunday. It's interesting to note, that had I visited at Pentecost as had been planned, I would have met his Lordship, then, David Brogan who would go on to have such a detrimental effect on my life and others. I am thankful, in hindsight, that I was able to enjoy and experience the life of the abbey to a small extent before his arrival and I can only wish but that I had the maturity back then to have avoided this narcissist and his grooming techniques, but perhaps in fairness it was supposedly more experienced monks holding offices within the community that should have picked up on it, anyway, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. My Trinity Sunday weekend was an experience of sheer bliss! My experience of Gregorian chant up till then was an old record of my fathers featuring Soleme and our occasional visits to my fathers hometown of Bishop's Stortford and the then redemptorist parish church of St. Joseph where he had been an alter server man and boy when they would have a Mass in latin. (De Angelis)

Yes, I was truly bowled over by the beauty of the abbey in June, the beauty of the music and liturgy and a very pleasant conversation seated in front of the west door of the church on the Sunday afternoon with the mild mannered Dom David Higham the then Prior (superior). It was agreed that I would return in July and stay for a month. The Month I waited to return felt like an eternity. I do remember meeting an old school pal who made some comment about girlfriends or my lack of them or something, but all I remember is a feeling of great relief that such areas of complication would no longer be of concern....oh the naivety of youth!! But despite the lesson I still had to learn, namely that you cannot run away from yourself, a mistake in reverse that I believe I made when I left, the truth is that it should have been my internal battle one that I was at least partially girded to fight, namely my faith, piety, good manners and fair mindedness.

My month started in dismal summer grey weather and the beauty of the abbey in glorious sunshine was brought into stark comparison with it's absence. I met befriended a fellow would be postulant Stephen Guest and Dom Andrew, then sacristant took me to Winchester on a dies non and as well as marvelling at the cathedral we walked along the river to St. Cross alms house, which was very monastic in appearance including a lovely chapel. On the way back Dom Andrew remarked that postulants come and go, but they mainly go...I pondered on this and hoped I would persevere. The end of my month was marked by the Feast Of The Assumption and the glorious spectacle from my east facing cell window of the summer sun gradually climbing in the sky was to me like an icon of the virgin ascending to heaven itself. About this time The Prior had asked me how I felt about trying my vocation, to which I said that I wished to try and he replied in a way so kind and embracing, "We would like you to try too!" I returned home to spend another unending month sorting things out and disposing of my car.

Thursday the 17th of September, Feast Of St. Hildegard. My parish priest collected me, suitcase in hand as I bid farewell to parents and brothers and the family home and our aged cat that had been our family pet for as long as I could remember. As far as I recall, Stephen started at the same time and being slightly older than I, took seniority. My cell was top floor of the red brick house, second window along from the "Solesmes" bit as viewed from the cloister garden, Stephen and later Matthew Newton, would occupy the first. As I understand, today, four rooms have become two, with "en suite!!!" 21st century style austerity!

My first "Wobble" if you like, was over an incident reported to the novice master, Mario Sanderson whereby Stephen was observed laying his head on Fr Wulstan's  shoulder. Mario gave us quite a lecture indicating that he didn't want a ridiculous regime of no closed doors, as he had experienced in his formation, but that tactile situations should be avoided. I remember feeling suddenly lonely and had a walk down the lime tree avenue considering my future in an environment starved of simple, innocent intimacy, though later I felt better and that as far as I knew regarding Stephen anyway, was that, although nearly 30 years later I have sadly learned from Stephen, that after all that Mario acted in a sexually inappropriate way and then ordered Stephen to leave! This revelation was initially incredulous to me, however I recalled how later, after the inappropriateness I was involved in surfaced, Mario asked me such probing and intimate details of every aspect that in hindsight I cannot dismiss the very real possibility that he was gratifying himself with this knowledge and I therefore feel I have absolutely no credible reason not to support my friend as he has so kindly supported me, thank you Steve.

I think David Brogan started in the October initially my junior. This changed because the family cat that I mentioned earlier was dying. I asked if I might briefly return home to see him one last time, but this was rather curtly and dismissingly denied by Mario. It's important I feel to mention that I in no way attempted to return home, I stayed, but this was used as an excuse to clothe David, now Cuthbert, ahead of me and so create him now my senior, which he enjoyed and let me know with various quips which back then and until quite recently, I put down to his sense of humour, but actually they were nasty little knives in my self esteem furthering my psychological dependence on him.  One afternoon, the three of us, Cuthbert, Stephen and myself were cleaning in the hall / choir room kitchen / bar area. Somehow the conversation had come around to romance / relationships and I happened to mention that I earlier had thought I might be gay, certainly it seemed as though the rest of my school class thought I was and I endured a particularly rough third year with taunts. It's my belief that this was a green light to Cuthbert because it appears in my recollection, that following that I was subject to a merciless attack on my piety, stories of someone he'd had a crush on, and the irreverent gay culture of a passionist brother he had befriended whilst himself a passionist. Now let me say that today I quite like a lot of the "Gay Culture" up to a point. Drag Queens etc, I am ok with pretty much everything provided everybody looks after each other and cares as far as possible for each others well being and attempts to make amends if necessary, crumbs, I don't mind an irreverent joke, again, up to a point, and in a time and place so long as it is not crushing a persons devotions, devoutness and piety unless it be expressed in such a way that is crushing or persecuting another. I love Fr Ted, though perhaps with the exception of Speed 2, which directly mocks the efficacy of The Mass, otherwise it's comic exaggeration of catholic traits is hilarious especially the episode The Mainland, where Mrs Doyle has a fist fight with her friend for not letting her pay for the tea!!! In our family, sit down dear I'll get it, no, no, no, you sit down and I'LL get it...lol..!!!

Now I'm certainly willing to accept that monastic formation will involve the abrading of rough edges, but this was not the job of the senior novice, who would have had at least some check and balance had he remained junior and not had such a familiar relationship with the novice master Mario, even so, ridiculing my piety, filling my head with gay culture and not just that. He would be discourteous and judgemental about various other community members and I was gradually losing my shock and beginning to think he was the bees knees and that the sun shone through and out of him. He had me where he wanted me. By this time I wasn't minded to talk to Mario, even if he would have done something and dear Dom David was to weak to act, also Cuthberts mockery had rubbed off on me and I now feel rather bad, especially since learning of Dom David's passing, that I had repaid his initial kindness with disdain. It's true Dom David could be a bit pretentious and I was yearning for a little more variety in liturgy, tastes of which with breaths of fresh air were enjoyed when Fr Robert and Father Stephen were back in the house. I thought Cuthbert was similarly minded so have been quite shocked to see him among the most traditional!! No, the baby was well and truly thrown out with the bathwater. I supported the community's (His?) decision to ask the men and boys choir to leave in the mid nineties, mainly because I still hadn't woken up fully to what he'd done to me, but also because I was not nourished on just polyphony and plainsong, but I'm sure variation would have been possible without completely dismissing the choir. Anyway, about that time a lady connected with the choir phoned me and asked if Cuthbert were gay. I said, I was and that's why I left, but I couldn't speak for Cuthbert and as for the choir, it was a decision for the monastic community. In writing this you would be correct in imagining that some of my answers if this were happening today, might be somewhat different, indeed, If any former member of the choir should read this, I would like to profoundly apologise that due to the testament I present here, I was not able at the time to act in your favour. Perhaps if anything resembling justice results from this, it may be of some satisfaction to you too.

Almost like a bolt out of the blue some seven months exposed to Cuthbert's world view, I suddenly found myself experiencing a tremendous crush on him. Not just hero worship, this was visceral. I was very confused. One moment he seemed to be indicating that while it wasn't the ideal, we're only human and therefore tolerable, and then he suddenly made it abundantly clear it was not acceptable at all! This resulted in my heart dropping through the bottom of my stomach, my head spinning and my eyes welling up with inconsolable tears, somehow, somehow I made it through compline and then Dom Mario noticed something was very wrong and managed to usher me into the calefactory by which time I was hysterical. Just like on tv he attempted to stop my hysterical crying by striking me across the face. The shock of knowing what he was about to do (Because my father when experiencing the "Red Mist" would do the same although his would often make contact.) instantly stopped my crying and we were then able to talk about the situation. Exactly what was talked about is lost to me, but I recall feeling stronger and resolved to enjoy beauty in all it's shapes and forms and those who's form and beauty struck particularly deep in particular ways in a more rounded, less intense, less visceral and non sexual way. And for a little while, I thought I had a sustainable long-term strategy, that was until.....

My father was into restoring vintage commercial vehicles particularly The Scammell Mechanical Horse 3 wheeled articulated small lorry and it's later developments, Scammell Scarab and Scammell Townsman. In the early eighties he befriended the Madeley family from Horsham, Brian, the Dad and his two sons Sean and Tim were all equally enthused, but Tim had a priestly vocation and would go on to study at Wonersh at the same time as I was at Farnborough and so it happened that not long after the events I've just related Cuthbert and I went to visit Tim at Wonersh. Was it a coincidence that the biblical passage read before lunch, for which Cuthbert and I had changed into our habits, was the words of caution to "Beware those who dress in long robes and parade about making a great show for all to see"... yes... must have been a coincidence!!?? After a pleasant visit I sat back to enjoy the train ride from Guildford to Farnborough North when I became aware that Cuthbert had his hand on my leg. "Is that ok?" he said. I think I probably murmured yes, or didn't answer...I really can't remember, he certainly didn't force himself, at least, not in a direct way, but I now see that all the earlier events, the licencing and revoking of said, all at his whim and all at the expense of my sanity and self esteem, this breaking me, this grooming! Of course, given the way I had been feeling only a week or two earlier, my restored resolve dissolved and I endured / enjoyed my first sexual experience firstly a grope on the train and then later he came into my cell for a less encumbered encounter. For me, the genie was out of the bottle and over the course of the next year 88 - 89 an on / off affair perpetuated. At one point I felt I wanted to leave, but he told me that I would be preyed upon by dirty old men and not knowing otherwise stayed with the one who had already preyed upon me. I don't know why he didn't let me go at that time, did he think he could control me? He was soon to find out, that he couldn't because once again I was going to find the emotional baggage unbearable only instead of a fit of hysterical crying, by this time ascribing to the identity of a gay man I found myself in a situation with Matthew. I owe Matthew a huge and profound apology because as Cuthbert's quite literal "Right Hand Man" I had scorn for Matthews piety and both fancied him for myself and yet demonstrated toward him a superiority and disdain as was formed within me by Cuthbert's diatribe. something was going to snap! It did. Matthew and I were working together making up guest rooms. I was enjoying some different company and conversations which was a breath of fresh air and I felt increasingly drawn to him and I guess he was experiencing similar because we ended up together. During our encounter(s) he related that he had an involvement with another member of the community and... as my new found freedom weakened and the desire for Masters "Love" and sustainance increased, I beleived I had to confess to Cuthbert what I had done, but thought I could soften the blow and win back his affection by telling him what Matthew had been up to! Cuthbert appeared to be inconsolable, but he rallied and went to find Mario. What they cooked up is known between themselves and God. Whether the prior was informed sooner or later I don't know, all I do know is that as I related earlier, Mario demanded such explicit detail of my exploits that, all these years later, lead me to believe he may have gratified himself with it. I now had my eye firmly on getting out of there and finding "Lerv and a boyfriend aaaahhhhh" but...it has to date... not happened and the factors are stacked against it. Whenever I try to hold on to something I over think it and it starts to look and feel different and it's like sand running through my hands... but let's just finish my historical (hysterical)(Both comic and tragic!) Farnborough experience. The Prior suggested I took three months to think about things but I think we both knew I wasn't going back. I visited Dom Stephen Darlington then chaplain at Prior Park College, Bath. He said "You could always go back." At the time I said no, and indeed it has necessitated 30 years to even entertain the thought that the voice in my head when I stepped outside the Abbey front door that said, "You can leave here, but don't think you'll find what you think you want!" I resisted believing that was the voice of God for so long because it doesn't sound like a benevolent God, but now, after working in mental health and with people who have difficulties engaging or socialising and musing on, like demonstrated in the parable of the talents, that you have to give, to dance when the pipes are played in order to receive, that healing occurs when the waters are stirred! It's not that God desires that for those who can't, that even the little they have will be taken away, it's an inescapable facet of the mechanics of our existence here, but there is an unexpected or immanent component, that of love, of charity of selfless giving, of grace. I try to be a channel of that in my mental health work and for those who remain untouched I pray their penance will win a crown in the next world. But what of that voice. I think it may have just been simply saying that whether consecrated or not, I'm not the marrying type, in any shape or form it's just a matter of dealing with the rising sap. There are suggestions of gnostic practices of diverting the energy upward very similar to Tantra, the "Upflowing Jordan" or "Upflowing Ganges." In my experience a much more brief hands on tried and tested practice quickly restores sanity and that "Battling" in this area may lead to worse infringement, if it's infringement at all, so as I say, though with trepidation, perhaps I was going along the right lines anyway 30 years ago. Who can say whether or not I would be sitting in the same place and dealing with the same issues today had I not encountered David Cuthbert Brogan and having had the experience of a better formation?  But myself and others deserved the chance to find out! And where is Cuthbert today but Lord Abbott!! And this "Stable" "Monks" "Austere" lifestyle includes jet setting the world, dining at Harvey Nics and in the CN Tower! Those of you who follow his facebook page can see for yourself!! Why we might ask, does he spend so much time away from the Abbey? Is it because being there forces him to confront his past and to consider the fact that whilst he has restored the church, he has ruined the abbey, crumbs we thought it was struggling back in the day with 12 or so monks, but now it has about 5? And what has happened to the surviving members from my time? Not one in the house. Why?

Why am I doing this and why now? Well I recently got back in touch with both Matthew Newton and Stephen Guest, both former postulants / novices and both have been damaged by the experience. Myself, for years I believed that Cuthbert was a peer who had struggled with issues like me, but unlike me, he wished to stay and I felt duty bound to protect him and try to ensure he could live the simple Benedictine life and build the life of the Farnborough community. Someone once said about a person having a vocation to be an abbott, but not a monk!!! This would appear to true in the case of Dom Cuthbert. He has nether sought to offer an apology to me or the others. Join a monastery and see the world!! was not what I expected. His lifestyle is an affront to the people he has damaged, but it's not just that, it's the double standard. Stephen recounts he was ordered to leave for refusing Mario's advances, yet Cuthbert remains to rise within less than twenty years to the position of abbott and visitor and to otherwise officiate despite what he has done!! I felt that Cuthbert was seen as an intellectual "One of us" whilst myself and others were seen as carrott crunching yokels, we were all cannon fodder to forwarding his career and his familiarity with Mario the novice master in hindsight carved that particular rune!

David Cuthbert Brogan should remove himself from office and lead a private life of prayer and penance in a foreign house having no public ministry, contact with minors, vulnerable adults or novices, that limited travel be supervised and that all these restrictions be monitored and verified. The Community to be dispersed and absorbed into other communities that may test, prove and perfect their vocation.

OR

That Saint Michaels Abbey lose it’s canonical status within The Roman Catholic Church and all it’s Clerics be laicised. The former Abbot, Mr David Brogan and his friends will have inherited quite a pile but lost the imprimatur of The Church.

Left to right: Myself, Dom Thomas, Novice Master Dom Mario and Dom Cuthbert.

It can be a little lonely coming out with all this hearing stories that there are many, legions a comment on Pat Buckley's "Thinking Catholicism" blog  puts it. http://wisecatholic.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/farnborough-abbey-concerns.html

 I would love you to get in touch with your stories and experience of Farnborough Abbey and Dom Cuthbert be they for publication or not.

Tom Wood: https://www.facebook.com/tgjwood

St. Michael's Abbey Past & Present (A fan page for Farnborough Abbey remembering and celebrating all that was / is / and can be good): https://www.facebook.com/amorveritatis/?pnref=story