that their story broke in January 2002. The phones, in fact, are ringing off the hook. We are led to understand that the scores of callers are mostly victims of abuse who have been empowered by the story to come forward.
This is followed by a series of titles that appear on screen before the final credits roll: list upon list of the names of hundreds of U.S. dioceses and of dozens of countries where clergy sexual abuse has occurred, indicating the incomprehensible magnitude of the crisis. As happened the first time I saw Spotlight, I was again left hunched in my seat, barely restraining the tears.
Spotlight reopened for me that same gnawing feeling I had not felt in years—that “shitty feeling,” as reporter Mike Rezendes puts it in one of the movie’s most poignant scenes after he finally gets his hands on documents detailing that the Boston Archdiocese had knowledge of, and flagrantly mishandled and attempted to hide, child sexual abuse by members of its clergy.
That feeling Rezendes described is something most Catholics would rather not feel, and to which they would rather not expose themselves or their loved ones. And that’s understandable, to an extent. There is a part of us that wants to keep the reality of clergy sexual abuse and its aftermath at a safe mental and emotional distance. The idea of sexual abuse of children is an acutely anxiety-provoking thought; and our minds naturally tend to filter and block such thoughts. This peculiar psychological dynamic has, in fact, shaped cultural attitudes toward sexual abuse for centuries, and in large part explains societal malaise and indolence in attempting to deal with and prevent child sexual abuse wherever it occurs.
So, naturally, Catholics recoil. While such dodging, distancing, and denial are understandable, they constitute fundamental obstacles to the Church’s healing process, and ultimately to creating and sustaining within the Church the type of environments that are truly safe for children, as well as safe havens of support, nurture, and recovery for victims of abuse. For that to become a reality, we all need to listen to victims tell their stories.
Victims of sexual abuse—particularly abuse endured in childhood—can be vulnerable and fragile. Many suffer through lifelong, often daily, emotional and psychological battles. Many are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in all its cruelty: bouts with insomnia and nightmares, anxiety attacks, flashbacks, social isolation, depression, self-destructive behaviors.
The victims who were willing to speak with me in some manner—these remarkable and courageous men and women—have taught me one simple thing: we who have not suffered the torture of sexual abuse really have no idea what victims have gone through.
So in my mind there is no more adequate way to come to grips with the horror experienced by survivors of sexual abuse than by hearing their stories—not in snippets filtered through the news media, but rather, if at all possible, in person, up close, in their own words, catching their gestures, looking into their eyes, hearing their voice.
Jean’s Story
Sadly, accounts of clergy sexual abuse recounted in disturbing detail have not been lacking online and in the news media. Survivors of abuse—not exclusively, but typically, males—have mustered extraordinary courage in sharing their stories. Each story is as unique as each victim of abuse. I could have easily incorporated elements of their stories into this book, but as I made progress on the manuscript I was blessed to meet and interview a remarkable Catholic woman we will call Jean. Jean too is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. Thirty-nine years of her life passed before she finally felt the courage to report her abuser to authorities in her diocese, well after the perpetrator was dead. By the time we met, she felt ready to go public for the first time with her story, agreeing to do so in the pages of my book.
Our interview lasted nearly three hours. In what follows, I have quoted large portions of our conversation as well as portions of some of her written testimonials and woven them into a narrative. While not simply a transcription of our interview, this does represent a faithful account of her story as she shared it with me. Jean only requested that her identity should remain anonymous, as well as that of her perpetrator—we’ll call him Father Bill. In order to comply with her request, I have altered the details of the setting in which her story unfolds. Those alterations do not in the least alter the content of her personal story.
Jean’s abuse happened when she was between the ages of fourteen and twenty, in the late sixties into the early seventies, and her allegations have been deemed credible by authorities within the diocese where her abuse occurred.
Why she did not report the abuse sooner will become clear.
How grace has triumphed through her darkness will also become readily evident.
This is Jean’s story.
Jean is in her mid-sixties and still radiates a kind of farm-girl wholesomeness. She is quick to smile, her eyes are bright, and she expresses herself spontaneously with small-town simplicity. It did not take long to discover in her a vast reservoir of spiritual depth and insight emerging from her personal experience of repeated sexual abuse. She bore the hurt for nearly forty years until the recurring nightmares were too much for her. Her personal tragedy did not stop her from becoming a nurse, marrying, and raising a family.
Jean began our meeting by showing me her first Communion photo taken with her classmates, the girls in dainty white first Communion dresses, the boys with meticulously combed hair in their white suits. Father Bill, the proud pastor—in his cassock, with hands folded reverently—stood behind them, beaming for the photo, flanked at right and left by altar boys. Jean identified herself and her twin brother for me. Then, referring to Father Bill, she explained: “This priest baptized me. He heard my first confession. He gave me my first Communion, and he buried my little sister.” Father Bill was the priest at the altar when Jean and her husband were united in marriage. He had been a priest at Jean’s parish—most of the time as its pastor—for more than forty-seven years until he eventually retired in the local community.
And in such a small community—Norman Rockwellian in its wholesomeness and simplicity—it was no surprise that Father Bill was a celebrity. His long years as pastor gave him a kind of mythical stature. He was a constant presence in the local media and had an in with most community leaders.
The parish also had a beautiful Marian shrine on the property that Jean absolutely loved. The parish church, offices, grounds, and shrine required a small body of employees to whom Father Bill offered a generous daily wage. He was especially fond of hiring teenage girls.
The summer Jean turned fourteen, Father Bill personally invited her to join the staff. Jean was thrilled. Her pious Catholic upbringing had instilled in her a lively faith, and a profound veneration for her pastor, who, although not a regular presence in Jean’s home, had nonetheless been very close to the family. The first sexual assault occurred on her second day on the job. Jean recounts:
The second day of my employment, he entered the tiny building where [I was working]. He pushed me back to the counter and thrust his tongue into my mouth.
I gagged.
It tasted so bad from pipe and cigar tobacco. I thought I was going to vomit, but I didn’t. I remember thinking: If you slap a priest, do you go to hell? I didn’t know what to say or do. He just turned around and walked out. The abuse continued and worsened. I told him to stop, but he continued to abuse me. He was forty-five and I was fourteen. That’s how it started.
Eventually Father Bill would rationalize the abuse by chiding Jean, saying he didn’t want her to be
