A Sexual Abuse Victim's Own Story (an article)

[mdgspencer]

A man in Virginia tells how his sexual abuse from a priest destroyed his life. But in spite at his anger at the people involved, he never lost his faith and no longer blames the Church.
see www.catholicvirginian.org/archive/2011/2011vol86iss24/pages/article4.html

 

[goldangel]

What a tragic story. It illustrates the fact that there is often “victim-blame” or secondary wounding, that is when people are still being victimized or just after the abuse ends, and they tell someone, they often get punished and/or ignored. That’s why all these people who say ‘why did people wait 30 years?’ don’t understand, b/c what happened in the last 30 years is it became acceptable to talk about child abuse.

This person - while the abuse was going on - told his mother who beat him with an iron frying pan, and he told another priest who ignored him. In adult life he told his wife who said that being abused made him not a ‘real man’ and she left him.

In no way does this lessen responsibility of the abuser, but many children/teenagers who were victimized did tell or attempt to tell, often repeatedly, and either were not believed or no one did anything about it. I’m glad he’s doing better.

 

[centurionguard]

A man in Virginia tells how his sexual abuse from a priest destroyed his life. But in spite at his anger at the people involved, he never lost his faith and no longer blames the Church.
see www.catholicvirginian.org/archive/2011/2011vol86iss24/pages/article4.html

WOW! Incredible inspiring story and a huge testament to Great Faith in God coming to terms with acceptance of his profound painful victim-hood and turning it into something good.

Being a Victim myself of gang-rape but not within the Church I know what it takes in a life-time in coming to terms with acceptance of this kind of suffering within.

Only God is the Divine Healer.

Truly a beautiful story.

On a sad note though its too bad stories like these get little review.

 

[cmforte]

I don’t understand the reaction of the man’s wife. He was a kid at the time. What did she expect him to do? What is wrong with some people? I hope she is not typical of other women. I am a man but I never blame the victims of sex abuse and say that they are not really men then. That way of thinking is not only immoral and cold, it is also irrational and bizarre.

-Chris

 

[cmforte]

WOW! Incredible inspiring story and a huge testament to Great Faith in God coming to terms with acceptance of his profound painful victim-hood and turning it into something good.

Being a Victim myself of gang-rape but not within the Church I know what it takes in a life-time in coming to terms with acceptance of this kind of suffering within.

Only God is the Divine Healer.

Truly a beautiful story.

On a sad note though its too bad stories like these get little review.

 

[cmforte]

What a tragic story. It illustrates the fact that there is often “victim-blame” or secondary wounding, that is when people are still being victimized or just after the abuse ends, and they tell someone, they often get punished and/or ignored. That’s why all these people who say ‘why did people wait 30 years?’ don’t understand, b/c what happened in the last 30 years is it became acceptable to talk about child abuse.

This person - while the abuse was going on - told his mother who beat him with an iron frying pan, and he told another priest who ignored him. In adult life he told his wife who said that being abused made him not a ‘real man’ and she left him.

In no way does this lessen responsibility of the abuser, but many children/teenagers who were victimized did tell or attempt to tell, often repeatedly, and either were not believed or no one did anything about it. I’m glad he’s doing better.

 

[Linda_Marie]

I don’t understand the reaction of the man’s wife. He was a kid at the time. What did she expect him to do? What is wrong with some people? I hope she is not typical of other women. I am a man but I never blame the victims of sex abuse and say that they are not really men then. That way of thinking is not only immoral and cold, it is also irrational and bizarre.

-Chris

I know I’m bucking the trend here but there are so many holes in his story that it makes me wonder why anyone believes him, other than that the accused was a priest.

Hitting someone on the head with a cast iron frying pan, not just once but repeatedly, should either kill them or land them in hospital with permanent brain damage, at the very least. How could you hit someone in the head with a cast iron frying pan so as not to inflict a mortal injury? And his own mother no less. Claims he needed stitches but didn’t tell the hospital that his mother inflicted the damage with a cast iron fying pan. Sorry, I don’t believe it.

I’m sure if you asked his wife why she left, you’d find there were other reasons, rather than what he stated here. As you said, it is irrational and bizarre to leave your husband because he said he was sexually abused.

This man was/is an arsonist, one of the most heinous of crimes in my book. He made up this story to excuse his crimes. “It wasn’t my fault. The priest made me do it.”
What complete and utter rubbish.

I was just a child then and really didn’t know what sex was or what was really happening to me.

I worked around the church as sexton and was an altar boy at St. John Vianney parish in Deptford, N.J. from age 13-17.

The priest was an associate pastor at the parish from 1978 until sometime in 1980.

Yeah, right, a teenager, not child, in 1978 didn’t know what sex was. If you believe that, I have a very nice bridge I’d like to sell you. I was a teenager in the late 60’s and I knew what sex was. Every boy I knew, knew what sex was too.

This man is an arsonist and a liar who has defrauded the Church, imho.

 

[Sarabande]

I don’t understand the reaction of the man’s wife. He was a kid at the time. What did she expect him to do? What is wrong with some people? I hope she is not typical of other women. I am a man but I never blame the victims of sex abuse and say that they are not really men then. That way of thinking is not only immoral and cold, it is also irrational and bizarre.

-Chris

As a victim of sexual molestation (not through the Church), I can tell you that there are people out there who are like this, and it’s not just women. Some people cannot handle situations like this, especially with people they “love”. Their inability to handle it, can manifest itself in bizarre ways, such as what the wife did. I think there was probably more to the reason why she left him than just him revealing that he was abused. He did say that his hate of everyone hurt his relationship with his wife and she probably used this as the final reason to leave him.

I know a number of people who were sexually abused as children by either family members, friends of their families and priests and everyone, including myself, have had at least one person who they thought would care and support them and then just completely turn on them. In my case, one of my closest relatives didn’t even want to talk about it and became very cold and distant. I realize it was because she felt very uncomfortable with the subject and just didn’t know how to react to it. The only emotional reaction she had was the relief that she wasn’t related to the person who did it to me. It became more about her and how she would deal with it if it was a relation than it did with me… the victim. So, she was able to close her eyes to it and basically pretend that there was nothing wrong with me if it was never brought up. With other people I know, some became angry with the victim because it made them look at their friend or family member in a completely different light and forced them to have a “tainted” view of them. One, whose father raped her daily from the age she was 8 until she had enough support from friends to bring charges against him when she was in college, had a mother who knew what was going on, but refused to acknowledge it. She was blacklisted from the family, especially after she got him put in jail for his perverted actions. And unfortunately, she suffered mentally and emotionally for years.