New revelations resurrect pain of abuse in one priest’s victim; omvang van de boodschap

"the whole system was abusive"

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.