Abuse victims not afraid to show their anger at meeting with O'Malley

Boston Globe ^ | 7/3/2003 | Thomas Farragher

[sinkspur]

Far from the bright lights of live television cameras, Bishop Sean Patrick O'Malley sat solemnly at a polished wooden table in his predecessor's mansion and stared into the eyes of perhaps his most important constituency, the men and women whose lives were shattered by the priests they once trusted.

[sinkspur]

I'll bump this once.

[sfvgt]

......wow, the word "Priest" has now been redefined. Now the first thought you have after someone mentions the word "Priest" is "pervert"......it's true!

[The Great RJ]

I think if the people in the pews stopped digging in their jeans and putting their hard earned money in the collection plates Rome would take more notice.

[tiamat]

''I'm the victim of Father James Porter, and my son is a victim of Father John Geoghan. And I want you to understand that everybody's tired of this situation, and it has to be resolved -- and resolved immediately,'' Thomas Fulchino of Weston said he told O'Malley at the Tuesday afternoon meeting at a first-floor conference room at the archdiocesan residence.

*************************************

How, HOW can any parent who had been abused themselves, allow their children ( in this case the fellow's son) to be made vulnerable in the same diocease where they themselves had once been abused?

Why did he subject his son to the same sort of thing?

This is negligence at the very least.

Tia

[sinkspur]

This is negligence at the very least.

No it's not. This guy trusted that lightning wouldn't strike twice, in the same place.

The gullibility of trusting Catholics is the stuff of legend, but there's a lot of truth to the attitude that many Catholics took toward their priests.

That iconic view is shattered now, however, likely forever. And that's a good thing.

[tiamat]

It is indeed a good thing the mind-set is changing.

Still very hard for me to understand.

A good friend of ours was raised in a large Catholic family and is pretty certain that some of his cousins had been molested. The family had a history of sending their boys to a particular school in Wisconsin. They had been doing that for generations, and there are suspicions in the family that the uncle had had it happen to HIM as well.

(shudder)

Tia

[sinkspur]

They had been doing that for generations, and there are suspicions in the family that the uncle had had it happen to HIM as well.

"Nobody will believe you" were usually the last words an abuser uttered to his little victim as he dropped them off at home, or ushered them out the door.

And, until the early 80s, nobody did believe them, so they just carried the horrible secret around with them.

I'm really surprised, frankly, that some of these victims haven't taken the law into their own hands.

The sadder ones turn the gun on themselves.

There's lots of anger out there, and the smarter bishops are telling their lawyers to take a hike, and they're listening to the victims, one by one.

Some of these guys just want somebody in authority to understand what happened to them.

[tiamat]

"Nobody will believe you" were usually the last words an abuser uttered to his little victim as he dropped them off at home, or ushered them out the door. "

********************************************

Yuck.

I have heard that. Pure evil.

Stuff like this has caused me to have several LONG talks with my daughter ( 11) .

My husband, her godfather and myself have ALL spent LOTS of time drumming it into her that if ANYONE touches her in an inappropriate way, EVER, she is to TELL one of us ASAP and she WILL be believed.
( And may God help the perp ! Godfather is the formerly Catholic friend and a former Green Beret.... he takes a dim view. )

We keep her so close to us...

Scary times we live in......

Tia

[Lusoman]

How, HOW can any parent who had been abused themselves, allow their children ( in this case the fellow's son) to be made vulnerable in the same diocease where they themselves had once been abused? Why did he subject his son to the same sort of thing? This is negligence at the very least.

It wasn't the same diocese, Porter was in the Diocese of Fall River, Geoghan was in the Archdiocese of Boston.