SEX CRIMES BY CHRISTIAN CLERGY - NEW REVELATIONS RESURRECT PAIN

Anonymous Wrote:

Local view: New revelations resurrect pain of abuse in one
priest's victim

By David McGrath, for the News Tribune
Duluth News Tribune
Sunday, May 3, 2009

While many are appalled by recent revelations the Catholic
Church was aware of chronic sexual abuse by priests in the
U.S. as early as the mid 1950s, some victims, after the
initial shock, are seething.

While many are appalled by recent revelations the Catholic
Church was aware of chronic sexual abuse by priests in the
U.S. as early as the mid 1950s, some victims, after the
initial shock, are seething.

Robert J. is one of them.

Before the National Catholic Reporter published an account
-- "Bishops were warned of abusive priests," March 30 -- of
letters written by the Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald to his
superiors in the 1950s, urging the church to remove what he
believed were incurable pedophiles from the priesthood,
Robert J. (name changed to protect his privacy) had made a
treaty of sorts with the past.

From the time he was in first grade, Robert J. was
assaulted by a pastor on numerous occasions from around
1955 through 1958. Later, as an adult, he said he had put
aside anger, trying instead to understand the sickness of
the individual human being and to focus on his family and
professional life.

After all, no one else other than the priest was to blame.
So Robert felt he was no different from a lot of people who
have had crimes committed against them. You move on.

But newly unsealed letters from the Rev. Fitzgerald, who
was the founder of Servants of the Paracletes, a religious
order in Jemez Springs, N.M., that operated a halfway house
for priests who were alcoholics or pedophiles, tell us that
others were, in fact, also to blame. They include bishops,
archbishops and the Pope himself.

Despite repeated denials, they had firsthand information
from Fitzgerald that U.S. priests were sexually abusing
American children. Fitzgerald argued that transferring
priests to other parishes, other states or other duties
would not stop the abuse.

As early as 1952, Fitzgerald wrote to the Bishop of Reno,
Nev., that, "I myself would be inclined to favor
laicization for any priest. ... Leaving them on duty or
wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to
scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal."

Fitzgerald lived with, spoke with, commiserated with and
prayed with these priests. And he tried to convince the
Vatican, in a lengthy letter in 1962, that they should be
removed from the priesthood and denied access to innocents.

His warnings were ignored. None of the sexual predators
were defrocked. Instead, they were passed around like
radioactive potatoes, from one diocese to the next.

When Robert J. was 6, Father "Mark" was a friend of his
large family. It considered itself blessed to have a holy
priest visit, dine and sleep overnight. Other families were
envious. For many Catholics, this was like having Christ
himself in their home.

Father Mark banked on that aura of privileged association,
on the innocence and limited understanding of childhood,
and on the adulation of adults to assault the child in the
guest room, in the yard, in the family sedan.

When Robert turned 7, Father Mark was transferred to
another state. Now when he visited, he had necessity to
stay several days, and the abuse continued.

After four more transfers, Father Mark finally ended up as
pastor of an impoverished parish in the South. The
considerable distance, along with a poorer Sunday
collection basket, precluded many more visits to the home
of Robert J. So the family traveled to see Father Mark
instead. But Robert was older now, and he had begun
maintaining an uneasy distance from the holy man.

So many transfers in less than a decade may be routine
among ranks of the clergy. Nonetheless, Robert J. says this
latest National Catholic Reporter story gives him pause. It
makes him wonder if someone else knew Father Mark's secret.
If someone else knew he was assaulting Robert J. and
possibly other children.

And though the abuse ended for Robert J., the abusing did
not end for Father Mark, whose official file at his
religious order's headquarters includes Robert's
allegations along with a sexual abuse complaint from a pair
of brothers in Nashville.

Father Mark died before being moved anywhere else. During
his religious career, he repeatedly committed felonious
assault. He got away with it.

Learning there may have been church authorities who let him
get away with it, who deliberately decided they would not
protect a 6-year-old boy, makes Robert J., now an adult,
beside himself with anger. That treaty he made with his
past? Broken. And he is not certain how it will be mended
anytime soon.

David McGrath of Hayward is a freelance writer and emeritus
English professor.

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/119284/

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