FOR seven years, Irish priest Oliver O'Grady raped Maria and Bob Jyona's daughter at their California home.

They never suspected a thing.

Originally from Co Cork, Maria was so pleased to meet a fellow countryman that she welcomed the now defrocked Limerick cleric into their lives in 1971. He spent his days off at their home and sometimes slept over. He became a surrogate member of the family.

The couple even stood by O'Grady and fundraised on his behalf when the first sexual abuse charges were brought against him. But when their daughter Anne finally confirmed their worst fears, that she too had been sexually abused by him from the age of five until she was 12, their 23year friendship came to an abrupt end.

Fr Tom Doyle travels the world meeting, counselling and apologising to clerical sex abuse victims on behalf of the church. It is probably the only apology they will ever receive.

The Dominican priest, from Vienna in Virginia, hasn't been appointed to this role but has taken it upon himself and says high-ranking clergy have tried to destroy his character to stop his work. Anne, now 40, cried when Fr Doyle apologised to her on behalf of the church years later.

"It destroys you in every way . . . mentally, physically, emotionally and financially.

You blame yourself. I don't think you can understand it until you go through it. All those years and we didn't know, " says her mother, Maria.

"How could I be fooled for 23 years?"

Raised in 1950s Ireland, Maria was brought up to trust the clergy unreservedly. Her husband Bob is a JapaneseAmerican, a Buddhist who converted to Catholicism to marry her. They moved to California in the 1960s and have a son as well as a daughter.

"I was brought up a good Catholic. We were taught to trust priests. People have to know that paedophiles are not the homeless bums on the street. They are your priests, your teachers, even members of your family."

Maria is still a Catholic, but no longer practises. Is sexual abuse of a child something a parent can ever get over?

"Right now, I'd say no. It's something that always sticks with you. But as long as Anne is doing OK, we'll be doing OK.

She's in counselling."

Maria Jyona spoke to the Sunday Tribune while visiting Ireland shortly before the release, next weekend, of a documentary in which she features along with her daughter and husband. Bob did not accompany his wife on her visit. "After everything that's happened, he can't even bring himself to come to Ireland."

Deliver Us From Evil, which was nominated for an Oscar, features O'Grady and some of his victims and their families, who explain the impact his abuse continues to have on their lives.

In the film, O'Grady attempts to explain the mindset of a paedophile and rapist and it becomes apparent he has no grasp of the devastation his actions have caused. He is childlike and fantastical as he recounts grooming and abusing boys and girls.

Some of the film was shot in a playground in Dublin and outside a school, which caused some controversy. Scenes where O'Grady's demeanour changes noticeably as children run around him have since been cut from the film. He becomes agitated, uncomfortable and is visibly at a loss as to how to behave.

Director Amy Berg persuaded him to participate in the making of the film but says that, since her documentary was screened in the US, he got in touch to say he regretted his participation. The Sunday Tribune understands that O'Grady has recently fled from Dublin to live somewhere in Canada as publicity surrounding the film has brought him unwanted attention.

Deliver Us From Evil also explores how high-ranking clergy in California continuously moved O'Grady from one parish to another over several years when allegations of sexual abuse began to emerge.

"Three bishops moved O'Grady around when people made complaints about him.

That's scandalous. Their coverup is as bad as his actions. I'm still a Catholic but my trust in the church is gone, " said Maria.

Fr Tom Doyle, who also features in the documentary, has testified at numerous court cases about the destructiveness of the church's complicity in sexual abuse. He has visited Ireland many times to meet victims and says the extent of clerical sexual abuse emerging here is worrying.

"But Ireland was probably the most clericised of any other country. The clergy ran the industrial schools and the Magdalene laundries and had huge respect and power at one time. Some of the beatings I've been told that nuns carried out here were pure sadomasochism, " he says.

Doyle believes that between six and 12% of the clergy are involved in sexual abuse, far more than official estimates.

They abuse children because they are so sexually immature that they are attracted to people on the same emotional level as them, he maintains. Others are simply sexually dysfunctional and cannot cope with being forced to reject sex, women and family.

"And then there are some who maybe come into the priesthood as a way to get more targets."

One of the Catholic Church's biggest problems, he says, is that it does not understand the effect of clerical sexual abuse on victim.

"They fail to understand the damage sexual abuse does.

They try to tell victims to 'put it behind you and get on with your lives'. It's because of the celibate clerical culture that they cannot understand. They cannot see that it's not only a sexual act; it's a violation of a person's body and soul."

O'Grady is certainly unaware of the extent of the harm he's caused. In the documentary, he talks about writing letters to all the children he abused inviting them to come and visit him so he can talk to them face to face. "I hope some of them will hug me, " he tells the camera earnestly.

"He wants to have a picnic surrounded by them all, " says Doyle. "The man has no idea what he's done. I've dealt with thousands of cases and I'd have to say that O'Grady is probably one of the most dangerous and pathetic of them all."

O'Grady admitted to molesting over 20 children, including a nine-month-old baby, as a parish priest in California. He served seven years in prison in the US on counts of abusing two boys and was deported to Ireland in 2000. "You could safely triple that and you'd have a truer number of children he abused, " Doyle insists.

As Ireland's sex offenders register did not come into existence until 2001, O'Grady is not on it as it is not retrospective. He was therefore not monitored in Ireland.

Maria is deeply troubled by the laws applying to sex offenders here, saying they do not go far enough. Children are at risk if someone like O'Grady is not monitored, she says.

"He is extremely dangerous to children wherever he is. The reason I'm doing this, the reason I talk about it, is to help other kids."

Maria wrote a letter to the Vatican asking that its continued cover-up of sexual abuse at the highest level stop. She never got a reply.

"The church, in general, are scared of the victims. They see them as a threat to their power-holding positions, " says Fr Doyle. "The scandal is not so much the sexual abuse, it's that bishops have covered it up.

Vatican officials are completely insensitive to the harm that's been done. The most important persons to the church leaders are themselves."

Only a radical cultural change within the church will force real change in how they view and handle clerical sexual abuse, he believes.

"Abuse is still going on here and in Ireland too, I'm sure.

Far too many in the church continue to act like little monarchs. We are not above lay people but not everyone in the church sees it that way."

As he sees it, what the church must do now is simple. The Vatican must issue an unreserved public apology to all the victims and condemn clerical sexual abuse wholly.

Bishops everywhere must then be instructed to reach out to those affected. "Heads need to come out of the sand. Aren't we supposed to be spiritual leaders and healers?"

Deliver Us From Evil will be shown at the Screen cinema, D'Olier Street, Dublin, next Friday, 30 March.