Childhood Trauma and Adult Alcohol Abuse: Shedding Light on the Connection
Posted: 07/22/2013 10:01 am
New Research on Childhood Abuse and Adult Drinking Problems
A study reported in the June 2013 edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (Schwandt, M. L., Heilig, M., Hommer, D. W., George, D. T. and Ramchandani, V. A. (2013), Childhood Trauma Exposure and Alcohol Dependence Severity in Adulthood: Mediation by Emotional Abuse Severity and Neuroticism. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 37: 984-992. doi: 10.1111/acer.12053) provides valuable insight into the relationship of childhood abuse and later alcohol abuse. The researchers compared a group of men and women who had sought treatment for drinking problems to a control group who had no current or past problems with respect to drinking.
Assessing Childhood Abuse
Both groups were assessed for having experienced five types of abuse at some point in their childhood: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. In addition to determining whether or not these men and women had experienced such trauma, the researchers were able to assess how severe that trauma was. Finally, all participants were assessed for a number of personality traits.
The Connection Is Revealed
What the researchers found was that childhood trauma (abuse and/or neglect) was significantly more prevalent among the men and women who were now seeking help for a drinking problem. Moreover, the severity of their drinking problems was directly related to the severity of their childhood abuse. In other words, the more severe the childhood abuse or neglect, the more severe the adult drinking problem was likely to be. Among the five types of trauma, emotional abuse and neglect, were the ones most often experienced by the men and women with drinking problems.
These findings are important for two reasons. First, they support the notion that genetics alone are not sufficient to account for a person’s vulnerability to addiction. Prior experience also plays a role. Second, the results point a direction for areas that need to be explored in treatment.
Fleshing Out the Connection
Beyond establishing the connection between childhood abuse and neglect and later drinking problems, this study sought to explore the connection by analyzing the results of the personality tests that both groups took. What they found was that the group who experienced emotional abuse and neglect in childhood and who as adults sought treatment for drinking problems reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, and/or anger. In addition as a group these men and women were act impulsively in response to these emotions. That impulsiveness could include drinking as a means of coping with or anesthetizing those negative feelings.
From my own clinical experience I would also add grief and loneliness to the list of negative emotions that can contribute to drinking as a means of coping. These emotional states were not specifically measured in this study. However, many victims of childhood abuse report feeling lonely and isolated as adults, and many also experience grief related to the “loss” of love that they suffered.
What to Do?
As a first step, you can take a minute to reflect on your own drinking behavior with the goal of deciding where your drinking falls on the following spectrum:
Note that in this view of “the drinking world” people are not simply classified as being “alcoholics” or “non-alcoholics.” That sort of black-and-white thinking characterized society’s view of drinking for a long time. More recently, health and mental health professionals have come to look at drinking in terms of this spectrum. At the extreme right are those men and women whose drinking has caused major negative consequences and who have tried but failed to stop or moderate their drinking many times. At the extreme left would be those people who drink but primarily in social situations. These men and women rarely exceed the recommended limits suggested by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is no more than 4 drinks per day and 14 per week for men, and no more than 3 drinks per day and 7 per week for women (www.pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/RethinkingDrinking). Then, of course, there are those men and women who do not drink at all.
In between the two extremes of low-risk social drinking and dependency lies a large grey area. Most people’s drinking behavior is either limited to social drinking or falls somewhere in this large gray area. Some of these men and women, while not alcoholics, may be “almost alcoholics.” Moreover, many of these men and women may drinking because they are trying to cope with one or more of the very negative emotions associated with eventual drinking problems. And some of these men and women no doubt experienced the emotional neglect and abuse that appear to be the precursors of later drinking problems.
For those whose drinking has gotten out of control, abstinence, preferably with the support of a therapist plus a supportive 12-step fellowship such as AA may the only “sane” solution. On the other hand, for those whose drinking falls in the gray almost alcoholic zone, the options may be greater. They may, for example, seek out the professional help of an experienced therapist. Alternatively, they may choose to pursue self-help before considering that option. In either case, though, they need to consider the role that drinking is playing in their effort to control or contain emotions such as anxiety, depression, grief, anger, or loneliness. Bringing these emotions into the light of day, and honestly confronting childhood abuse and the emotional wreckage it creates, can be key to these men and women’s efforts to “shift left” on the drinking spectrum, back toward low-risk drinking.
For additional resources, including a free self-assessment, visit www.TheAlmostEffect.com.
Need help with substance abuse or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
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UPDATE, October 23, 4:10 p.m.:On Wednesday, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced that his office cannot move forward with the prosecution against Father Brennan given the recent unexpected death of the 26-year-old man reported on below. According to the local NBC affiliate:
“The district attorney said he dropped rape and sexual assault charges levied against the 75-year-old priest because there was no longer enough evidence—direct or circumstantial—to continue a trial. ‘In many cases of sexual assault whether they be victims or adults or children, really the testimony of that victim is paramount to getting a conviction,’ he said.”
A 26-year-old man who, along with a number of other individuals, accused Father Robert L. Brennan of raping him as a child died of an accidental drug overdose last week. Now, the chance to finally put Father Brennan behind bars may have died along with him, despite a paper trail of abuse accusations stretching back 25 years.
The 26-year-old told authorities that the abuse lasted for three years, beginning when he was an 11-year-old altar boy and Brennan, then 60, was assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Northeast Philadelphia. All told, more than 20 boys from at least four Philadelphia parishes have filed complaints about Brennan, now 75, according to the secondof three grand jury reports investigating the Philadelphia archdiocese. However, the 26-year-old’s allegations were the first to lead to legal charges, thanks to Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations on child sexual abuse. (In Pennsylvania, victims have until age 50 to open a criminal prosecution and age 30 to file a civil suit.)
In September, Brennan was arrested in his Maryland home and charged with rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and aggravated sexual assault.
Research has long linked the trauma of childhood sexual abuse with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.
A Brief History of Father Brennan
When the first grand jury was impaneled in Philadelphia to investigate rape in the Catholic Church in 2001, they expected to review “a small number of isolated incidents that occurred decades ago.” Instead, they uncovered evidence that “over the past 35 years more than 120 priests serving the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had been accused of sexually abusing hundreds of” children, and that with “rare exceptions” the archdiocese didn’t contact authorities. According to the grand jury:
Child molesters purposefully select the most defenseless children. They should not be rewarded for their deliberate selection of vulnerable victims by a statute of limitations that, given the severity of the harm they inflict … makes it very unlikely their crimes will be timely reported.
The grand jury discovered so much evidence that they exceeded the two-year sitting limit, and had to fold their findings into a 2005 bombshell report, which singled out Father Brennan as one of several case studies of priests with long histories of suspect behavior.
Cardinal Bevilacqua (then archbishop of the Philadelphia archdiocese) assigned Brennan to St. Ignatius parish in suburban Philadelphia in 1988. According to records, the assistant pastor at St. Ignatius expressed concern over Brennan’s “actions with young boys and teenagers” since Brennan’s first day on the job.
The assistant pastor characterized Brennan’s interest in young boys, whom he reportedly often “forced” to sit on his lap, as “extreme”; he was even said to host sleepovers in the rectory.
When the mother of the first complainant, a 13-year-old boy, met with Brennan, he gave her an autographed photograph of himself, according to the report. When Brennan was sent to the archdiocese-owned hospital for a psychological evaluation, church officials lied to parishioners and told them their pastor was on retreat.
From the report:
Since that time, the Archdiocese has learned of inappropriate or suspicious behavior by Fr. Brennan with more than 20 boys from four different parishes. He was psychologically evaluated or “treated” four times. Depending on the level of scandal threatened by various incidents, Cardinal Bevilacqua either transferred Fr. Brennan to another parish with unsuspecting families or ignored the reports and left the priest in the parish with his current victims. The Cardinal’s managers advised Fr. Brennan to “keep a low profile,” but never restricted or supervised his access to the youth of his various parishes.
Cardinal Bevilacqua died last year, a day after a judge ruled him competent to testify in the trial of his one-time right-hand man, Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn was ultimately convictedof child endangerment, making him the first administrative church official found criminally liable for sexual abuse crimes committed by a priest.
The first grand jury was correct to worry that, combined with the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse, the church’s strategy of rotating priests and lying to parishioners would hamstring justice. Although the 2005 grand jury said they documented evidence of child sexual abuse by at least 63 priests, and have “no doubt” there are “many more,” not one priest faced legal charges.
“The biggest crime of all is this: it worked,” they wrote.
Shuffling abusive priests strategically exploits the way victims process trauma and frequently delay reporting, especially when the abuser is a trusted authority figure. In the largely working-class Catholic neighborhoods of Northeast Philadelphia in the 1980s, there was no bigger authority figure than a priest. The grand jury even noted a case wherein a boy who told his father about his younger brother’s abuse was beaten to the point of unconsciousness for telling “lies.”
Meanwhile, as the Philadelphia district attorney’s office has been investigating child sexual abuse and its subsequent cover-up by the archdiocese, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the public affairs arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been lobbying state legislatures against reforming the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse.
The Fight Over Statute of Limitations Reform
Criminal and civil statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse vary state by state, but have generally been expanding, or liberalizing, since the explosion of the 2002 Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Boston.
Advocates of statute reform generally want to expand or abolish the time-frame wherein victims can file both criminal and civil complaints. In Pennsylvania, in the wake of child sexual abuse problems exposed in the church, at Pennsylvania State University, and in Boy Scout troops in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, advocates are focused on pushing for a bill that would establish what a “window”—a temporary period of time, usually one or two years, wherein victims can file civil complaints based on incidents that otherwise already timed out of the statute.
California passed a window bill in 2002. The resulting flood of lawsuits identified 300 perpetrators, which resulted in the church paying $1.2 billion in settlements. (Gov. Jerry Brown just vetoed a bill that would have implemented a second window, a decisionapplauded by the California Catholic Conference.)
Delaware, Minnesota, and Hawaii have implemented pieces of window legislation.
In Pennsylvania, the statute of limitation has been viciously fought over for years, but the Penn State and Philadelphia church sexual abuse scandals forced the issue into the forefront last year. State Rep. Louise Bishop (D-Philadelphia) helped bring even more attention to the issue by coming forward as a sponsor of a statute of limitations reform bill and, for the first time in her life, a survivor of child sexual abuse. Bishop, a minister and accomplished radio DJ, had been silent about her abuse for 66 years.
Still, after an elaborate and messy game of brinksmanship, the bills were once again left to die of neglect.
One of the main arguments the Catholic Conference has made against the window legislation is that over time, evidence is lost or can’t be found. But evidence has been found, again and again, and it’s the statute of limitation that prevents that evidence from seeing the light of day in the courthouse.
Optimistic About Reform
Advocates for survivors of child sexual assault in Pennsylvania have a fierce new ally in their corner: state Rep. Mark Rozzi (D-Berks), who recently spoke out about his own abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest at a press conference in Harrisburg.
Rozzi says he didn’t start speaking out about his own abuse until four years ago, so he knows first-hand that often, by the time victims are ready to speak out, they have already timed out of civil litigation. In Rozzi’s case, he came forward after a friend who was allegedly abused by the same priest committed suicide.
“We just want to be given a chance to have our voices heard in a court of law and to expose the perpetrator,” Rozzi said in a September press conference. “I think the community has a right to know that these men and women are still out there.”
Rozzi announced that yet another Pennsylvania bill would be introduced to try and reform the state’s statute of limitations for child sexual abuse. The legislation would raise the age wherein a victim can file a civil suit to 50 years old, establish a window for civil suits (window legislation is not possible for criminal complaints), and eliminate sovereign immunity, which means the law would apply to both public and private organizations.
For years, the problem has been that legislators against reform—namely state Reps. Ron Marsico (R-Lower Paxton) and Thomas Caltagirone (D-Berks)—stonewall such bills by refusing to allow them to get to the floor for a vote.
Last year, lawmakers supporting statute of limitations reform had to resort to a rare parliamentary procedure to force the bills to the floor for a vote. But the fight ultimately led nowhere. Chad Schlanger, chief of staff for Rep. Rozzi, says reform-supporting lawmakers are prepared to use the same procedure—a discharge resolution—again if necessary. He also says the bill will pass if it makes it to the floor. “If Marsico, Caltagirone, and [Republican House Majority Leader Mike] Turzai would get this to the floor, this would pass,” Schlanger told RH Reality Check. “I have lists of every single member.”
As the legislative fight continues to brew in Harrisburg, Marci Hamilton, co-counsel for the recently deceased 26-year-old, is hopeful that a survivor who falls within the current statute of limitations can continue the work started by her client. “I am confident there are survivors out there who will be able to carry on the legacy started by this brave young man,” said Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar and professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law who has represented other alleged church sexual abuse victims and is one of the most outspoken advocates for abolishing the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse.
Hamilton speculates that her client’s fate may have been brighter had he not been forced to bear the burden of being the only person to press charges against Brennan. “Perhaps if many [individuals] had been able to come forward together, he might have felt the support of other survivors through the process,” Hamilton said. “I hope the many still in [the statute of limitations] will now come forward to bring Brennan to justice and complete what our survivor started so heroically.”
Brennan’s next preliminary hearing is scheduled for November 14.
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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors will drop rape charges against a suspended priest once named in more than 20 long-ago complaints because the recent accuser died this month of an overdose.
District Attorney Seth Williams announced the decision regarding the Rev. Robert L. Brennan with the family of accuser Sean McIlmail by his side.
“I would hope that we could have brought Father Brennan to justice. It appears now that the only justice he’ll have is in the afterlife,” Williams said at a news conference Wednesday.
Williams said there is not enough other evidence to go forward with the case, which was filed after the 26-year-old McIlmail contacted the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia this year.
An explosive 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report said that Brennan was repeatedly named in complaints about inappropriate behavior around children. He was suspended by the church, and moved to Perryville, Md.
Defense lawyer Trevan Borum said Brennan had hoped to clear his name at trial.
“I’m not only sorry that somebody lost his life, but that we didn’t have a chance to vindicate Father Brennan in court,” Borum said.
The accuser, a La Salle University graduate struggling with addiction, had said Brennan had molested him from about 1998 to 2001, starting when he was 11, at a northeast Philadelphia parish. The archdiocese contacted city prosecutors, who have aggressively pursued clergy abuse cases under Williams.
Brennan was arrested in September and spent several weeks in prison before his bail was reduced and he was released. He had been due in court for a preliminary hearing last Thursday, when he was expected to face his accuser.
McIlmail was found dead in his car on Sunday. He had been clean for seven months, and did not seem anxious about the hearing the previous Friday, family lawyer Marci Hamilton said. He had not yet testified before a grand jury.
“Everybody was just so happy about the progress he was making, and what a good frame of mind he was in,” she said.
He had been in and out of drug and alcohol treatment since graduating from college, and had not been able to hold down a job, Hamilton said. He was living with his parents near Philadelphia.
Two other men have filed civil suits alleging abuse by Brennan.
McIlmail’s mother and siblings appeared at the news conference with Williams, but did not speak. Prosecutors also displayed a picture of McIlmail with Brennan at age 14, and a recent one of him with his young nephews.
“When he decided to come forward, he told his family the reason he wanted to come forward now was for his two nephews,” Williams said. “He didn’t want any more innocent children to be the victim of child sexual abuse.”
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Sean Patrick McIlmail kept his secret for 12 years as it chewed away at him and his close-knit family watched him descend into mental illness and drug abuse.
On Wednesday – four days after they buried the 26-year-old – his parents, brother and sister decided the time for secrets was over.
In an interview at the home of their lawyer, McIlmail’s parents, older brother and younger sister publicly confirmed that Sean was the person who accused former Philadelphia Catholic priest Robert L. Brennan of sexually molesting him over a four-year period beginning when he was 11 years old.
That prosecution by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was called off Wednesday following McIlmail’s accidental death on Oct. 13 from a drug overdose.
District Attorney Seth Williams has set an afternoon news conference and is expected to announce that prosecutors were withdrawing charges against Brennan, 75, of Perrysville, Md.
Marci A. Hamilton, a lawyer for the family, said McIlmail was found dead in a car parked in Kensington, two days after he left his family’s Montgomery County home.
Now the McIlmails have come forward to urge other victims of the 75-year-old Brennan to contact authorities about prosecuting the priest.
Sean was to have testified at Brennan’s preliminary hearing last Thursday but his family said he was prepared and do not believe it had anything to do with his death.
“He wanted to testify,” said mother Deborah McIlmail, 57. “He really wanted to be there . . . He was moving ahead and he wanted to get over this.”
“We just hope that additional people will feel the need to come forward,” she added.
Two Philadelphia grand juries have described the Rev. Robert L. Brennan as a serial sexual predator who molested more than a score of boys as he was transferred from one parish to another over 15 years.
But until last month, after Sean McIlmail agreed to press charges, all the allegations against Brennan were too old to prosecute.
After his death was announced last Thursday – but not his name – Williams praised McIlmail’s courage in coming forward to press the charges against Brennan.
“The decades long demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend when he was found dead by Philadelphia police detectives,” Williams said. “This young man’s courage should serve as an inspiration to us all.”
Deborah McIlmail said her son first told them about being sexually molested by Brennan at their old parish, Resurrection of Our Lord parish at Castor Avenue and Vista Street in Rhawnhurst, last October after he went into therapy. For the first time, she said, the earlier signs of emotional and behavioral problems made sense.
Over the last few weeks, she said, Sean seemed more committed than ever to make sure what happened to him happened to no other children and he referred to his brother’s two young sons.
“He said he was doing this for Liam and Braden,” McIlmail said.
The McIlMails described themselves as “devout Irish Catholics” but they no longer attend church and say they won’t until the legacy of the abuse of children by priests is dealt with by church officials.
Deborah McIlMail recalled Sean talking to her husband, Michael, recently.
“He said, ‘Dad, he took my innocence from me before I even knew what innocence was.'”
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Today’s Sunday Kenosha News featured a major set of stories on survivors of clergy sexual abuse and the newly formalized Survivors and Clergy Leadership Alliance (SCLA). Monica Barrett, a co-founder of the Alliance, and her inspiring story below:
When Peter Isely, the Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, asked Monica Barrett to sit alongside priests and help form a cooperative alliance, Barrett thought “he had lost it.”
Her initial reaction was, “You want me to sit down with a bunch of priests? Are you off your freakin’ rocker?”
“When I went into it, it was half-hearted,” admits Barrett, a victim of clergy abuse as a child. “I really believed they (clergy) were all bad.”
Isely assured her there are priests who will speak out on behalf of survivors. She now works with them as part of the Survivor and Clergy Leadership Alliance, members of which applied for non-profit status in August, nearly three years following the first joint meeting.
“There are clergy of integrity who are in this vocation for the right reasons,” she said. “This is one of the biggest revelations I have had since joining the alliance. I realize that these priests have been lied to as well. They were used, too.”
SCLA (leaders) meets every four to six weeks, said Barrett.
“The only way to heal and resolve this once and for all is for everyone to come together,” she said. “Every survivor wants to know this is not going to happen to another child, that there will not be another generation of victim-survivors behind us.”
It includes retired and active clergy members.
“They don’t agree with how the victims were treated and they are ashamed of the church’s response,” Barrett said of the clergy involved.
The group is made up of victim-survivors who are in different places in their journey. Some still consider themselves Catholic — who participate peripherally or who are very much involved in their congregations.
“And there are people like me who would just as soon walk across glass than set foot in a church,” she said. “The diversity keeps you mindful that you need to respect everyone’s position.”
Barrett said the SCLA seeks justice for survivors, safety for children and support for clergy of integrity. The mission is to address the impact sexual abuse by clergy has had on both survivors and parishioners in the Archidiocese of Milwaukee, effect change through mutual activitism and strive for accountibility.
Its four-step strategy aims to:
— Maintain a safe environment for collaboration among the survivors and clergy members who are committed to radical and systemic change.
— Hold the hierarchy accountable by publicly advocating for full disclosure of all documents, evidence and material related to clerical sexual abuse.
— Provide education, information and professional training to support survivors and prevent future violence against children.
— Collaborate with local, national and international child protective organizations seeking legislation to ensure safety of children.
“It really is time for this type of approach,” Barrett said. “I am hopeful we will be able to accomplish these goals.”
Monica Barrett, 52, brought moral support with her Oct. 8 when she returned for the first time to the church where she said she was sexually abused at age 8 by the Rev. William Effinger.
“I wasn’t sure how it would affect me,” Barrett, who grew up in Kenosha and attended parochial schools there, said.
St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Lake Geneva looks different than it did that Saturday afternoon in 1968. But the white rectory where the alleged act took place and the tree Barrett remembers crying beneath are still there.
“He kept saying, ‘You’re no good. You’re no good,’” she recalled. “He stood up, smoothed his hair back and said, ‘If you tell anyone, they won’t believe you’ and then he gave me penance to do.”
“It was violent,” she said. “I remember wishing I could die and wondering why God wasn’t coming to help me. I went outside by the big tree near the rectory and cried.”
Friend of family
Effinger was a friend of Barrett’s father and a face she saw daily at St. Mary’s school in Kenosha thereafter.
Decades later, when reports of sexual abuse of other children by Effinger emerged, Barrett went to a Kenosha priest and was referred to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
“They were clearly prepared for me,” Barrett said of the first meeting at the archdiocese. “(Archbishop Rembert) Weakland put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry. We’ll take care of this. You don’t have to talk about it anymore.’”
She waited. Unsatisfied with their response, Barrett filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese. This led to a battery of interviews by church-picked psychologists, and attorneys deposed everyone she knew — even those she had yet to tell of the abuse.
The case was dismissed due to the statute of limitations. Barrett appealed, but the appeal was dismissed based on the Pritzlaff decision.
Pritzlaff v. Archdiocese of Milwaukee was decided by the state Supreme Court on June 27, 1995. The suit involved an adult woman who sued the archdiocese for $3 million for suffering she underwent as a result of an affair she had with a priest as an adult. Judith M. Pritzlaff said the affair, which had started in 1959, wrecked her marriage and caused other problems.
“The Pritzlaff decision had nothing to do with assaults on children,” Barrett said. “I felt like I was raped all over again.”
Effinger, the assistant pastor at St. Mary’s in Kenosha in the 1960s, allegedly molested several children. He was convicted in 1993 of second-degree sexual assault of a boy. He died in prison in 1996.
Church leaders knew
The archdiocese recently released 178 pages on Effinger as part of its bankruptcy proceedings. The records show church leaders had knowledge of the allegations against Effinger, who they transferred from parish to parish.
Included in the documents is a 1998 letter from Weakland in which he writes he had “no real excuse” for transferring Effinger to other parishes and that it was “bad judgment on his part.”
Only one sentence about Barrett is included in the documents that were released, proving, she said, there is much more that needs to be released.
Shattered faith
“This whole experience has shattered my sense of faith,” Barrett said. “I do not attend Catholic church. I cannot be involved in a religion whose leaders react to such deep and profound hurt with denial, anger and revictimization. It is no place for me to find spirituality.”
She tried other denominations and is now exploring spirituality though the study of Native American beliefs.
She is continuing her fight for full disclosure and to effect systemic change within the archdiocese as a founding member of a new group called the Survivor and Clergy Leadership Alliance.
Fighting clergy abuse: Victim-survivors call for full disclosure, change within Catholic Church
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has made strides in preventing future sexual abuse of children by clergy.
But it can do more to correct the wrongs of the past and prevent further crimes, said two local women who were abused by priests serving in Kenosha churches decades ago.
Donna Polencheck and Monica Barrett are just two of hundreds of survivors of clergy abuse who are calling for:
— The release of all the documents related to reports of sexual abuse by clergy.
— Those who knew about the abuse to be held accountable.
— More systemic change to help prevent future abuse.
— Financial transparency.
The archdiocese released about 6,000 pages of documents in July as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court. Victims said the files only “scratch the surface.”
“They need to release all of the documents, in all of the files of all the offenders,” Barrett said. “Healing will never happen until the archdiocese accepts responsibility and accountability for these crimes.”
The documents detail the transfer of known abusers from parish to parish. Polencheck and Barrett believe any church leader who enabled this should be held accountable.
“These people need to be criminally prosecuted,” Barrett said.
Also, financial accountability is important to help restore the trust of parishioners, the women said. The documents released detail payments made to get some accused priests to leave, as well as the questionable transfer of nearly $57 million into a trust for cemetery care.
“I wonder how many people know the $57 million is to take care of eight cemeteries,” Barrett questioned.
Both would support a change that would allow priests to marry. Polencheck said she favors increased psychological screening for those who want to enter ministry, and Barrett would like to see some more change in leadership.
“You need to have people in positions of authority within the archdiocese who have integrity and who have a conscience,” Barrett said.
Polencheck added boundaries also need to be erased between the various dioceses. She said there needs to be accountability across state lines and information should be more easily accessible nationwide.
Barrett said she is hopeful Pope Francis will help usher in an era of change. She referenced a quote Pope Francis made during an interview with NBC News when he said he wants to change the “Vatican-centric” view of the Roman Catholic Church and referred to some church leaders as “narcissists.”
“I do feel hopeful about Francis,” Barrett said. “He seems to care more about the people than the institution. He said the church needs to rethink its relationship between its leaders and its faithful.”
He may have stolen my youth, but I won’t let him have my faith’
It’s been 11 years since Donna Johnson Polencheck, now 68, reported the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a local priest.
She said there is satisfaction in knowing her abuser, Joseph Savage, has been unmasked. It allowed her to begin the healing process.
“I still don’t necessarily trust people who are in a position of authority in the church,” Polencheck said. “But I am a Catholic and no one is ever going to take that away from me. He may have stolen my youth, but I won’t let him have my faith.”
Polencheck wasn’t the only one to issue allegations against priests who served at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in Wilmot in the 1950s. John Riesselmann and Wesley Woodall brought official complaints before the Archdiocese of Milwaukee regarding alleged abuse by former priests Harold Herbst and Joseph Savage.
Scared into silence
Polencheck said her late brother and two other family members were also allegedly abused by Savage — who had been defrocked by the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1936, prior to coming to Wilmot.
Scared into silence in their youth, it took more than 30 years for the alleged victims to come forward. Both priests were already deceased when the reports were filed. The purpose of their reports, they said, was to reach out to other victims and make sure information about clergy abuse is made public.
“We wanted to reach out to other victims and let them know they are not alone,” Polencheck said. “There are hundreds out there. We have just scratched the surface.”
Confided in another abuser
Polencheck first went to the Rev. George Nuedling at St. John Catholic Church in Twin Lakes before going public. This was before allegations regarding Nuedling surfaced.
“The first person I told was Father George Nuedling,” she said. “He was good to my family. My father converted because of him. I respected him and I trusted him. That is why I went to him.”
Nuedling’s response was that she should tell her husband and pray. She didn’t know she had confessed her abuse to another abuser.
“When I found out the monster he was I felt abused all over again,” she said.
Polencheck said the Archdiocese of Milwaukee referred her to Chicago. In 2003, she received a report from the Archdiocese of Chicago Office of Professional Fitness Review. She learned Savage was forced to resign in 1936 after alleged sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy. However, none of that information was shared with subsequent congregations where Savage served.
According to Polencheck, the report says he was possibly reinstated in 1938 at a diocese in northern Wisconsin. It is unclear how Savage was allowed to celebrate his Golden Jubilee at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Antioch, Ill., when he was no longer a member of that diocese.
Goes public with report
She went public with the findings. It was a frightening thing to do, she said.
“It wasn’t easy to walk around town after the article came out,” she admits, referencing a newspaper article that appeared in the Kenosha News in April 2004.
But people did come forward. She got letters from other victims, some anonymous, some signed.
Documents regarding the allegations involving Herbst were released earlier this year by the Achdiocese of Milwaukee. Those involving Savage were handled by the Archdiocese of Chicago.
Counseling sessions
Polencheck said the Archdiocese of Chicago provided group and individual counseling, along with opportunities for victim-survivors to attend overnight retreats.
Her counseling sessions ended this spring.
“That was very traumatic for me — to end that,” she said, adding if she could have continued it for the rest of her life, she would.
She is grateful for the Rev. Roger Savage at Holy Name (no relation to Joseph Savage) for believing her and being an advocate for the victim survivors from that parish.
“My former parish has removed the pictures of my abuser and the two pastors he served under who knew about the abuse but did not stop it,” Polencheck said.
In 2004 and 2005, the archdiocese in Milwaukee entered into settlements with victims claiming abuse by Herbst. The initial settlement, which included Holy Name Congregation, resulted in a payment of $75,000. The latter one resulted in a payment of $75,000, and up to an additional $25,000 for any treatment needs.
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Gov. Jerry Brown’s Recent Veto of Child Abuse Legislation and What It Tells Us About the Civil Rights Movement for Children
No civil rights movement worth pursuing happens overnight or easily, because it is always a fight against the entrenched powers that resist and detest change. The ups and downs are sometimes steep, with the oppressed facing devastating losses and heady triumphs along the way. In the civil rights movement for children, which is transforming children from property into persons in the United States, a critical element is giving child sex abuse (CSA) victims meaningful access to justice.
Until relatively recently, most child sex abuse victims in the vast majority of states did not have access to justice, because the statutes of limitations (“SOLs”) cut off their claims before they could make it to the courthouse. A confluence of ignorance meant that these victims were cut off from simple justice: Americans (1) had underestimated the amount of child sex abuse that actually occurs; (2) were unaware that child sex abusers typically tend to be the “nice guy” or gal that adults trust with their children and, therefore, had no idea that so many are hidden amongst us; and (3) did not know that most CSA victims need decades before they are capable of coming forward. The result has been that the legal system has unintentionally favored perpetrators, rather than victims. The perpetrator’s best friends have been short SOLs and public and private institutions that act to protect their image, wallets, and adults’ reputations rather than the welfare of children.
We now know, based on hundreds of scientific studies and experience in many states, that a CSA victim needs a great deal of time to enter the judicial system. In addition, the delay in filing charges or filing a lawsuit does not mean that the perpetrator has stopped harming children. Perpetrators will molest children into their elderly years. Letting a survivor have access to justice at any time dramatically increases the odds of identifying hidden perpetrators among us. Thus, survivors’ access to justice dovetails with the rights of children right now.
Opening the SOLs does not guarantee victims that their perpetrators will be convicted, or that they will win civil lawsuits for damages and other remedies. The SOLs only create access to justice, but access is what marks a rights-holder.
For children to no longer be treated as property, and instead, like persons, we must treat the crimes they suffer as real, and quite publicly hold those responsible accountable. Children, like adults, have a right to bodily integrity, and when state laws aid perpetrators and their institutional abettors to disable the victims, that basic right of children is violated. SOL reform is not about helping prosecutors or trial lawyers, but rather about vindicating the rights of victims to obtain redress for the harm they have suffered, and to grant them the power, through the criminal justice system, to see their perpetrators and those who conspired against them go to jail.
We have seen this movement make tremendous strides in recent years, led by the likes of Delaware, which eliminated its civil and criminal SOLs prospectively and enacted a window to revive claims for the many shut out of the system. Many states have dramatically increased or eliminated civil and criminal SOLs. California, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Guam have enacted windows and many states are now considering it. These are signal achievements that are historical markers of this civil rights movement.
But there have also been setbacks as the enemies of victims’ access to justice, largely fueled by the Catholic bishops, obtained a veto of the first Hawaii window, and blocked legislation in many other states, particularly those in which the bishops exercise extraordinary power over willing state legislators. These legislators remind me of George Wallace, who had no shame in taking a very public position against the civil rights movement for African Americans of the 60s. They are eager to shore up the status quo and can’t see the history writ large in front of them.
The Most Recent Battle for Children’s Civil Rights Lost in California
Last weekend, child sex abuse victims in California received a cruel blow when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed SB131, which would have opened a window to sue private organizations that had made the victims’ abuse possible. Both houses of the California legislature had passed the bill, and all that was needed was for Gov. Brown to sign it. Waiting until the last minute, he refused to do so, and disseminated a “veto message.”
Brown’s Veto Message Is Filled With False Statements of History and Fact
Brown’s message appears to have been written by the lobbyists who have opposed to giving victims enhanced access to justice as it is filled with false statements of fact and specious reasoning. For those who have not been following these issues closely, the opponents of such legislation are the religious organizations, primarily the Roman Catholic bishops, and the insurance industry, which resists paying out on policies collected on years ago.
Brown starts with the nauseating statement that SOLs were hallowed in Roman law. Under Roman law, adults also owned slaves, and had the right to have sex with their young slaves. It was common practice. Thus, this is not the culture I would look to for guidance on how to deal with the laws surrounding child sex abuse.
Brown then justifies limits on child sex abuse SOLs, saying: “[A]ll jurisdictions have seen fit to bar actions after a lapse of years.” Not true. Many states have eliminated SOLs and a number of those passed the “window” Brown vetoed. As Brown himself notes, California passed an SOL window in 2003. This deeply flawed summary of state SOLs makes it apparent that Brown (or his aides) didn’t study the issue themselves, but rather took the lies handed to them at face value.
Brown Misses the Mark on “Fairness”
Then Brown trots out “Fairness.” Let’s talk some real fairness. As I discussed above, victims need decades to come forward. It is patently unfair to keep them out of court when the vast majority can’t come forward before the SOL expires. That is the definition of justice denied. In addition, it is also unfair to our parents and children today to keep a muzzle on victims who know the identities of perpetrators, and know which institutions have harbored those perpetrators, but can’t speak out for fear of being sued for defamation if they speak without having a live legal claim. Let’s also pause for a moment to think carefully about Brown’s call for “fairness” for the institutions that knowingly empowered perpetrators to sexually assault child after child. This is the mark of someone who is so ignorant on these issues, he can’t find his moral compass.
Then, borrowing the Catholic bishops’ signature move, Brown charges that the new SOL window is aimed at the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. This is an outright fabrication, as the law has no such limitation. It is one thing for these organizations, whose behavior is already beyond despicable, to reach for the victim card, but it is quite another for a long-time politician like Democrat Brown to fall for it. Shame on Brown.
In fact, SB 131 was not perfect, because it did not cover public entities as well. But Brown is making the perfect the enemy of the good. If he (and the lobbyists who apparently drafted his statement) were sincere about access to justice for victims, he would have signed SB 131 with a strong message to California legislators to introduce legislation that would cover the victims that SB131 did not cover. Let’s be clear here, the bishops and the Boy Scouts have no interest in affording access to justice for the victims of public entities. Their only concern is to ensure that they are not in the crosshairs of the legal consequences of their evil and illegal policies that endangered children.
Brown Miscalculates Who Has Paid More for Child Sex Abuse
Finally, Brown says the Church has paid enough already, so basically, let’s leave it alone. The 2003 SOL California window was defective, though, because it lasted only one year and many survivors never heard about the law, or understood that their SOL window was closing. There was no public educational push; there were no PSAs that would have informed victims that they needed to act fast. A year is a very short time. The new window would have been highly publicly visible and would thus have accorded more victims access to justice.. Brown, instead, chose privilege for the Church and the Boy Scouts, and every other private institution that enabled abusers, as opposed to the needs of the California victims, whose hearts are now broken. There are thousands of victims who have paid the price for their victimization their entire lives, but Brown chose to insulate those who are responsible from their claims.
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Put It Best
Three years before the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, he laid the foundation for his profound vision of true freedom. During a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he pointed to the distance between the American dream and the reality for African Americans at the time. He blamed white supremacists for violating that dream, but did not stop there. He further charged that “our federal government has also scarred the dream through its apathy and hypocrisy, its betrayal of the cause of justice.” That describes you, Gov. Brown.
But survivors need to understand that this is just one step in the journey of this civil rights movement. Let’s dream and fight on to find justice for child sex abuse victims in the states where legislators and governors will honor the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., and refuse to be co-opted by those who enslaved our children, deprived them of bodily integrity, and then sunk millions to block their paths to justice.
Marci A. Hamilton is a professor of law at Cardozo School of Law, and the author of Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children, which was just published in paperback with a new Preface. Her email address is Hamilton02@aol.com.
– See more at: http://verdict.justia.com/2013/10/17/gov-jerry-browns-recent-veto-child-abuse-legislation-tells-us-civil-rights-movement-children#sthash.q5Xya4kV.dpuf
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Link between child abuse and alcoholism. Important study
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformJoseph Nowinski, Ph.D.
Clinical psychologist
Childhood Trauma and Adult Alcohol Abuse: Shedding Light on the Connection
New Research on Childhood Abuse and Adult Drinking Problems
A study reported in the June 2013 edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research (Schwandt, M. L., Heilig, M., Hommer, D. W., George, D. T. and Ramchandani, V. A. (2013), Childhood Trauma Exposure and Alcohol Dependence Severity in Adulthood: Mediation by Emotional Abuse Severity and Neuroticism. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 37: 984-992. doi: 10.1111/acer.12053) provides valuable insight into the relationship of childhood abuse and later alcohol abuse. The researchers compared a group of men and women who had sought treatment for drinking problems to a control group who had no current or past problems with respect to drinking.
Assessing Childhood Abuse
Both groups were assessed for having experienced five types of abuse at some point in their childhood: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect. In addition to determining whether or not these men and women had experienced such trauma, the researchers were able to assess how severe that trauma was. Finally, all participants were assessed for a number of personality traits.
The Connection Is Revealed
What the researchers found was that childhood trauma (abuse and/or neglect) was significantly more prevalent among the men and women who were now seeking help for a drinking problem. Moreover, the severity of their drinking problems was directly related to the severity of their childhood abuse. In other words, the more severe the childhood abuse or neglect, the more severe the adult drinking problem was likely to be. Among the five types of trauma, emotional abuse and neglect, were the ones most often experienced by the men and women with drinking problems.
These findings are important for two reasons. First, they support the notion that genetics alone are not sufficient to account for a person’s vulnerability to addiction. Prior experience also plays a role. Second, the results point a direction for areas that need to be explored in treatment.
Fleshing Out the Connection
Beyond establishing the connection between childhood abuse and neglect and later drinking problems, this study sought to explore the connection by analyzing the results of the personality tests that both groups took. What they found was that the group who experienced emotional abuse and neglect in childhood and who as adults sought treatment for drinking problems reported higher levels of anxiety, depression, and/or anger. In addition as a group these men and women were act impulsively in response to these emotions. That impulsiveness could include drinking as a means of coping with or anesthetizing those negative feelings.
From my own clinical experience I would also add grief and loneliness to the list of negative emotions that can contribute to drinking as a means of coping. These emotional states were not specifically measured in this study. However, many victims of childhood abuse report feeling lonely and isolated as adults, and many also experience grief related to the “loss” of love that they suffered.
What to Do?
As a first step, you can take a minute to reflect on your own drinking behavior with the goal of deciding where your drinking falls on the following spectrum:
Note that in this view of “the drinking world” people are not simply classified as being “alcoholics” or “non-alcoholics.” That sort of black-and-white thinking characterized society’s view of drinking for a long time. More recently, health and mental health professionals have come to look at drinking in terms of this spectrum. At the extreme right are those men and women whose drinking has caused major negative consequences and who have tried but failed to stop or moderate their drinking many times. At the extreme left would be those people who drink but primarily in social situations. These men and women rarely exceed the recommended limits suggested by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is no more than 4 drinks per day and 14 per week for men, and no more than 3 drinks per day and 7 per week for women (www.pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/RethinkingDrinking). Then, of course, there are those men and women who do not drink at all.
In between the two extremes of low-risk social drinking and dependency lies a large grey area. Most people’s drinking behavior is either limited to social drinking or falls somewhere in this large gray area. Some of these men and women, while not alcoholics, may be “almost alcoholics.” Moreover, many of these men and women may drinking because they are trying to cope with one or more of the very negative emotions associated with eventual drinking problems. And some of these men and women no doubt experienced the emotional neglect and abuse that appear to be the precursors of later drinking problems.
For those whose drinking has gotten out of control, abstinence, preferably with the support of a therapist plus a supportive 12-step fellowship such as AA may the only “sane” solution. On the other hand, for those whose drinking falls in the gray almost alcoholic zone, the options may be greater. They may, for example, seek out the professional help of an experienced therapist. Alternatively, they may choose to pursue self-help before considering that option. In either case, though, they need to consider the role that drinking is playing in their effort to control or contain emotions such as anxiety, depression, grief, anger, or loneliness. Bringing these emotions into the light of day, and honestly confronting childhood abuse and the emotional wreckage it creates, can be key to these men and women’s efforts to “shift left” on the drinking spectrum, back toward low-risk drinking.
For additional resources, including a free self-assessment, visit www.TheAlmostEffect.com.
Need help with substance abuse or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
For more by Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D., click here.
For more on addiction and recovery, click here.
Pennsylvania Child Sexual Abuse Case Highlights Need for Statute of Limitations Reform (Updated)
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL Reformhttp://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/10/22/a-pennsylvania-priest-who-allegedly-abused-children-may-go-free-while-statute-of-limitations-reformers-press-on/
A 26-year-old man who, along with a number of other individuals, accused Father Robert L. Brennan of raping him as a child died of an accidental drug overdose last week. Now, the chance to finally put Father Brennan behind bars may have died along with him, despite a paper trail of abuse accusations stretching back 25 years.
The 26-year-old told authorities that the abuse lasted for three years, beginning when he was an 11-year-old altar boy and Brennan, then 60, was assistant pastor at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Northeast Philadelphia. All told, more than 20 boys from at least four Philadelphia parishes have filed complaints about Brennan, now 75, according to the secondof three grand jury reports investigating the Philadelphia archdiocese. However, the 26-year-old’s allegations were the first to lead to legal charges, thanks to Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations on child sexual abuse. (In Pennsylvania, victims have until age 50 to open a criminal prosecution and age 30 to file a civil suit.)
In September, Brennan was arrested in his Maryland home and charged with rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse, and aggravated sexual assault.
But Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who publicly identifies as Catholic, said his office is reviewing whether the prosecution will continue. “The decades-long demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend,” Williams told the local CBS affiliate.
Research has long linked the trauma of childhood sexual abuse with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.
A Brief History of Father Brennan
When the first grand jury was impaneled in Philadelphia to investigate rape in the Catholic Church in 2001, they expected to review “a small number of isolated incidents that occurred decades ago.” Instead, they uncovered evidence that “over the past 35 years more than 120 priests serving the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had been accused of sexually abusing hundreds of” children, and that with “rare exceptions” the archdiocese didn’t contact authorities. According to the grand jury:
The grand jury discovered so much evidence that they exceeded the two-year sitting limit, and had to fold their findings into a 2005 bombshell report, which singled out Father Brennan as one of several case studies of priests with long histories of suspect behavior.
Cardinal Bevilacqua (then archbishop of the Philadelphia archdiocese) assigned Brennan to St. Ignatius parish in suburban Philadelphia in 1988. According to records, the assistant pastor at St. Ignatius expressed concern over Brennan’s “actions with young boys and teenagers” since Brennan’s first day on the job.
The assistant pastor characterized Brennan’s interest in young boys, whom he reportedly often “forced” to sit on his lap, as “extreme”; he was even said to host sleepovers in the rectory.
When the mother of the first complainant, a 13-year-old boy, met with Brennan, he gave her an autographed photograph of himself, according to the report. When Brennan was sent to the archdiocese-owned hospital for a psychological evaluation, church officials lied to parishioners and told them their pastor was on retreat.
From the report:
Cardinal Bevilacqua died last year, a day after a judge ruled him competent to testify in the trial of his one-time right-hand man, Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn was ultimately convictedof child endangerment, making him the first administrative church official found criminally liable for sexual abuse crimes committed by a priest.
The first grand jury was correct to worry that, combined with the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse, the church’s strategy of rotating priests and lying to parishioners would hamstring justice. Although the 2005 grand jury said they documented evidence of child sexual abuse by at least 63 priests, and have “no doubt” there are “many more,” not one priest faced legal charges.
“The biggest crime of all is this: it worked,” they wrote.
Shuffling abusive priests strategically exploits the way victims process trauma and frequently delay reporting, especially when the abuser is a trusted authority figure. In the largely working-class Catholic neighborhoods of Northeast Philadelphia in the 1980s, there was no bigger authority figure than a priest. The grand jury even noted a case wherein a boy who told his father about his younger brother’s abuse was beaten to the point of unconsciousness for telling “lies.”
Meanwhile, as the Philadelphia district attorney’s office has been investigating child sexual abuse and its subsequent cover-up by the archdiocese, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the public affairs arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been lobbying state legislatures against reforming the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse.
The Fight Over Statute of Limitations Reform
Criminal and civil statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse vary state by state, but have generally been expanding, or liberalizing, since the explosion of the 2002 Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Boston.
Advocates of statute reform generally want to expand or abolish the time-frame wherein victims can file both criminal and civil complaints. In Pennsylvania, in the wake of child sexual abuse problems exposed in the church, at Pennsylvania State University, and in Boy Scout troops in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, advocates are focused on pushing for a bill that would establish what a “window”—a temporary period of time, usually one or two years, wherein victims can file civil complaints based on incidents that otherwise already timed out of the statute.
California passed a window bill in 2002. The resulting flood of lawsuits identified 300 perpetrators, which resulted in the church paying $1.2 billion in settlements. (Gov. Jerry Brown just vetoed a bill that would have implemented a second window, a decisionapplauded by the California Catholic Conference.)
Delaware, Minnesota, and Hawaii have implemented pieces of window legislation.
In Pennsylvania, the statute of limitation has been viciously fought over for years, but the Penn State and Philadelphia church sexual abuse scandals forced the issue into the forefront last year. State Rep. Louise Bishop (D-Philadelphia) helped bring even more attention to the issue by coming forward as a sponsor of a statute of limitations reform bill and, for the first time in her life, a survivor of child sexual abuse. Bishop, a minister and accomplished radio DJ, had been silent about her abuse for 66 years.
Still, after an elaborate and messy game of brinksmanship, the bills were once again left to die of neglect.
One of the main arguments the Catholic Conference has made against the window legislation is that over time, evidence is lost or can’t be found. But evidence has been found, again and again, and it’s the statute of limitation that prevents that evidence from seeing the light of day in the courthouse.
Optimistic About Reform
Advocates for survivors of child sexual assault in Pennsylvania have a fierce new ally in their corner: state Rep. Mark Rozzi (D-Berks), who recently spoke out about his own abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest at a press conference in Harrisburg.
Rozzi says he didn’t start speaking out about his own abuse until four years ago, so he knows first-hand that often, by the time victims are ready to speak out, they have already timed out of civil litigation. In Rozzi’s case, he came forward after a friend who was allegedly abused by the same priest committed suicide.
“We just want to be given a chance to have our voices heard in a court of law and to expose the perpetrator,” Rozzi said in a September press conference. “I think the community has a right to know that these men and women are still out there.”
Rozzi announced that yet another Pennsylvania bill would be introduced to try and reform the state’s statute of limitations for child sexual abuse. The legislation would raise the age wherein a victim can file a civil suit to 50 years old, establish a window for civil suits (window legislation is not possible for criminal complaints), and eliminate sovereign immunity, which means the law would apply to both public and private organizations.
For years, the problem has been that legislators against reform—namely state Reps. Ron Marsico (R-Lower Paxton) and Thomas Caltagirone (D-Berks)—stonewall such bills by refusing to allow them to get to the floor for a vote.
Last year, lawmakers supporting statute of limitations reform had to resort to a rare parliamentary procedure to force the bills to the floor for a vote. But the fight ultimately led nowhere. Chad Schlanger, chief of staff for Rep. Rozzi, says reform-supporting lawmakers are prepared to use the same procedure—a discharge resolution—again if necessary. He also says the bill will pass if it makes it to the floor. “If Marsico, Caltagirone, and [Republican House Majority Leader Mike] Turzai would get this to the floor, this would pass,” Schlanger told RH Reality Check. “I have lists of every single member.”
As the legislative fight continues to brew in Harrisburg, Marci Hamilton, co-counsel for the recently deceased 26-year-old, is hopeful that a survivor who falls within the current statute of limitations can continue the work started by her client. “I am confident there are survivors out there who will be able to carry on the legacy started by this brave young man,” said Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar and professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law who has represented other alleged church sexual abuse victims and is one of the most outspoken advocates for abolishing the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse.
Hamilton speculates that her client’s fate may have been brighter had he not been forced to bear the burden of being the only person to press charges against Brennan. “Perhaps if many [individuals] had been able to come forward together, he might have felt the support of other survivors through the process,” Hamilton said. “I hope the many still in [the statute of limitations] will now come forward to bring Brennan to justice and complete what our survivor started so heroically.”
Brennan’s next preliminary hearing is scheduled for November 14.
Philly DA drops priest’s rape case; accuser died (AP News)
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformPhilly DA drops priest’s rape case; accuser died
By MARYCLAIRE DALE
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors will drop rape charges against a suspended priest once named in more than 20 long-ago complaints because the recent accuser died this month of an overdose.
District Attorney Seth Williams announced the decision regarding the Rev. Robert L. Brennan with the family of accuser Sean McIlmail by his side.
“I would hope that we could have brought Father Brennan to justice. It appears now that the only justice he’ll have is in the afterlife,” Williams said at a news conference Wednesday.
Williams said there is not enough other evidence to go forward with the case, which was filed after the 26-year-old McIlmail contacted the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia this year.
An explosive 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report said that Brennan was repeatedly named in complaints about inappropriate behavior around children. He was suspended by the church, and moved to Perryville, Md.
Defense lawyer Trevan Borum said Brennan had hoped to clear his name at trial.
“I’m not only sorry that somebody lost his life, but that we didn’t have a chance to vindicate Father Brennan in court,” Borum said.
The accuser, a La Salle University graduate struggling with addiction, had said Brennan had molested him from about 1998 to 2001, starting when he was 11, at a northeast Philadelphia parish. The archdiocese contacted city prosecutors, who have aggressively pursued clergy abuse cases under Williams.
Brennan was arrested in September and spent several weeks in prison before his bail was reduced and he was released. He had been due in court for a preliminary hearing last Thursday, when he was expected to face his accuser.
Two other men have filed civil suits alleging abuse by Brennan.
McIlmail’s mother and siblings appeared at the news conference with Williams, but did not speak. Prosecutors also displayed a picture of McIlmail with Brennan at age 14, and a recent one of him with his young nephews.
“When he decided to come forward, he told his family the reason he wanted to come forward now was for his two nephews,” Williams said. “He didn’t want any more innocent children to be the victim of child sexual abuse.”
Family of witness against priest breaks its silence
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformFamily of witness against priest breaks its silence
Sean Patrick McIlmail kept his secret for 12 years as it chewed away at him and his close-knit family watched him descend into mental illness and drug abuse.
On Wednesday – four days after they buried the 26-year-old – his parents, brother and sister decided the time for secrets was over.
In an interview at the home of their lawyer, McIlmail’s parents, older brother and younger sister publicly confirmed that Sean was the person who accused former Philadelphia Catholic priest Robert L. Brennan of sexually molesting him over a four-year period beginning when he was 11 years old.
That prosecution by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office was called off Wednesday following McIlmail’s accidental death on Oct. 13 from a drug overdose.
District Attorney Seth Williams has set an afternoon news conference and is expected to announce that prosecutors were withdrawing charges against Brennan, 75, of Perrysville, Md.
Marci A. Hamilton, a lawyer for the family, said McIlmail was found dead in a car parked in Kensington, two days after he left his family’s Montgomery County home.
Now the McIlmails have come forward to urge other victims of the 75-year-old Brennan to contact authorities about prosecuting the priest.
Sean was to have testified at Brennan’s preliminary hearing last Thursday but his family said he was prepared and do not believe it had anything to do with his death.
“He wanted to testify,” said mother Deborah McIlmail, 57. “He really wanted to be there . . . He was moving ahead and he wanted to get over this.”
“We just hope that additional people will feel the need to come forward,” she added.
Two Philadelphia grand juries have described the Rev. Robert L. Brennan as a serial sexual predator who molested more than a score of boys as he was transferred from one parish to another over 15 years.
But until last month, after Sean McIlmail agreed to press charges, all the allegations against Brennan were too old to prosecute.
After his death was announced last Thursday – but not his name – Williams praised McIlmail’s courage in coming forward to press the charges against Brennan.
“The decades long demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend when he was found dead by Philadelphia police detectives,” Williams said. “This young man’s courage should serve as an inspiration to us all.”
Deborah McIlmail said her son first told them about being sexually molested by Brennan at their old parish, Resurrection of Our Lord parish at Castor Avenue and Vista Street in Rhawnhurst, last October after he went into therapy. For the first time, she said, the earlier signs of emotional and behavioral problems made sense.
Over the last few weeks, she said, Sean seemed more committed than ever to make sure what happened to him happened to no other children and he referred to his brother’s two young sons.
“He said he was doing this for Liam and Braden,” McIlmail said.
The McIlMails described themselves as “devout Irish Catholics” but they no longer attend church and say they won’t until the legacy of the abuse of children by priests is dealt with by church officials.
Deborah McIlMail recalled Sean talking to her husband, Michael, recently.
“He said, ‘Dad, he took my innocence from me before I even knew what innocence was.'”
jslobodzian@phillynews.com
215-854-2985 @joeslobo
www.inquirer.com/crimeandpunishment
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20131024_Family_of_witness_against_priest_breaks_its_silence.html#IlauZ6G0AxQuhELI.99
Brave survivor shut out by SOL works for change
/in Wisconsin /by SOL ReformSOL Reform and the Civil Rights Movement for Children
/in California /by SOL ReformGov. Jerry Brown’s Recent Veto of Child Abuse Legislation and What It Tells Us About the Civil Rights Movement for Children
No civil rights movement worth pursuing happens overnight or easily, because it is always a fight against the entrenched powers that resist and detest change. The ups and downs are sometimes steep, with the oppressed facing devastating losses and heady triumphs along the way. In the civil rights movement for children, which is transforming children from property into persons in the United States, a critical element is giving child sex abuse (CSA) victims meaningful access to justice.
Until relatively recently, most child sex abuse victims in the vast majority of states did not have access to justice, because the statutes of limitations (“SOLs”) cut off their claims before they could make it to the courthouse. A confluence of ignorance meant that these victims were cut off from simple justice: Americans (1) had underestimated the amount of child sex abuse that actually occurs; (2) were unaware that child sex abusers typically tend to be the “nice guy” or gal that adults trust with their children and, therefore, had no idea that so many are hidden amongst us; and (3) did not know that most CSA victims need decades before they are capable of coming forward. The result has been that the legal system has unintentionally favored perpetrators, rather than victims. The perpetrator’s best friends have been short SOLs and public and private institutions that act to protect their image, wallets, and adults’ reputations rather than the welfare of children.
We now know, based on hundreds of scientific studies and experience in many states, that a CSA victim needs a great deal of time to enter the judicial system. In addition, the delay in filing charges or filing a lawsuit does not mean that the perpetrator has stopped harming children. Perpetrators will molest children into their elderly years. Letting a survivor have access to justice at any time dramatically increases the odds of identifying hidden perpetrators among us. Thus, survivors’ access to justice dovetails with the rights of children right now.
Opening the SOLs does not guarantee victims that their perpetrators will be convicted, or that they will win civil lawsuits for damages and other remedies. The SOLs only create access to justice, but access is what marks a rights-holder.
For children to no longer be treated as property, and instead, like persons, we must treat the crimes they suffer as real, and quite publicly hold those responsible accountable. Children, like adults, have a right to bodily integrity, and when state laws aid perpetrators and their institutional abettors to disable the victims, that basic right of children is violated. SOL reform is not about helping prosecutors or trial lawyers, but rather about vindicating the rights of victims to obtain redress for the harm they have suffered, and to grant them the power, through the criminal justice system, to see their perpetrators and those who conspired against them go to jail.
We have seen this movement make tremendous strides in recent years, led by the likes of Delaware, which eliminated its civil and criminal SOLs prospectively and enacted a window to revive claims for the many shut out of the system. Many states have dramatically increased or eliminated civil and criminal SOLs. California, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Guam have enacted windows and many states are now considering it. These are signal achievements that are historical markers of this civil rights movement.
But there have also been setbacks as the enemies of victims’ access to justice, largely fueled by the Catholic bishops, obtained a veto of the first Hawaii window, and blocked legislation in many other states, particularly those in which the bishops exercise extraordinary power over willing state legislators. These legislators remind me of George Wallace, who had no shame in taking a very public position against the civil rights movement for African Americans of the 60s. They are eager to shore up the status quo and can’t see the history writ large in front of them.
The Most Recent Battle for Children’s Civil Rights Lost in California
Last weekend, child sex abuse victims in California received a cruel blow when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed SB131, which would have opened a window to sue private organizations that had made the victims’ abuse possible. Both houses of the California legislature had passed the bill, and all that was needed was for Gov. Brown to sign it. Waiting until the last minute, he refused to do so, and disseminated a “veto message.”
Brown’s Veto Message Is Filled With False Statements of History and Fact
Brown’s message appears to have been written by the lobbyists who have opposed to giving victims enhanced access to justice as it is filled with false statements of fact and specious reasoning. For those who have not been following these issues closely, the opponents of such legislation are the religious organizations, primarily the Roman Catholic bishops, and the insurance industry, which resists paying out on policies collected on years ago.
Brown starts with the nauseating statement that SOLs were hallowed in Roman law. Under Roman law, adults also owned slaves, and had the right to have sex with their young slaves. It was common practice. Thus, this is not the culture I would look to for guidance on how to deal with the laws surrounding child sex abuse.
Brown then justifies limits on child sex abuse SOLs, saying: “[A]ll jurisdictions have seen fit to bar actions after a lapse of years.” Not true. Many states have eliminated SOLs and a number of those passed the “window” Brown vetoed. As Brown himself notes, California passed an SOL window in 2003. This deeply flawed summary of state SOLs makes it apparent that Brown (or his aides) didn’t study the issue themselves, but rather took the lies handed to them at face value.
Brown Misses the Mark on “Fairness”
Then Brown trots out “Fairness.” Let’s talk some real fairness. As I discussed above, victims need decades to come forward. It is patently unfair to keep them out of court when the vast majority can’t come forward before the SOL expires. That is the definition of justice denied. In addition, it is also unfair to our parents and children today to keep a muzzle on victims who know the identities of perpetrators, and know which institutions have harbored those perpetrators, but can’t speak out for fear of being sued for defamation if they speak without having a live legal claim. Let’s also pause for a moment to think carefully about Brown’s call for “fairness” for the institutions that knowingly empowered perpetrators to sexually assault child after child. This is the mark of someone who is so ignorant on these issues, he can’t find his moral compass.
Then, borrowing the Catholic bishops’ signature move, Brown charges that the new SOL window is aimed at the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. This is an outright fabrication, as the law has no such limitation. It is one thing for these organizations, whose behavior is already beyond despicable, to reach for the victim card, but it is quite another for a long-time politician like Democrat Brown to fall for it. Shame on Brown.
In fact, SB 131 was not perfect, because it did not cover public entities as well. But Brown is making the perfect the enemy of the good. If he (and the lobbyists who apparently drafted his statement) were sincere about access to justice for victims, he would have signed SB 131 with a strong message to California legislators to introduce legislation that would cover the victims that SB131 did not cover. Let’s be clear here, the bishops and the Boy Scouts have no interest in affording access to justice for the victims of public entities. Their only concern is to ensure that they are not in the crosshairs of the legal consequences of their evil and illegal policies that endangered children.
Brown Miscalculates Who Has Paid More for Child Sex Abuse
Finally, Brown says the Church has paid enough already, so basically, let’s leave it alone. The 2003 SOL California window was defective, though, because it lasted only one year and many survivors never heard about the law, or understood that their SOL window was closing. There was no public educational push; there were no PSAs that would have informed victims that they needed to act fast. A year is a very short time. The new window would have been highly publicly visible and would thus have accorded more victims access to justice.. Brown, instead, chose privilege for the Church and the Boy Scouts, and every other private institution that enabled abusers, as opposed to the needs of the California victims, whose hearts are now broken. There are thousands of victims who have paid the price for their victimization their entire lives, but Brown chose to insulate those who are responsible from their claims.
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Put It Best
Three years before the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, he laid the foundation for his profound vision of true freedom. During a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he pointed to the distance between the American dream and the reality for African Americans at the time. He blamed white supremacists for violating that dream, but did not stop there. He further charged that “our federal government has also scarred the dream through its apathy and hypocrisy, its betrayal of the cause of justice.” That describes you, Gov. Brown.
But survivors need to understand that this is just one step in the journey of this civil rights movement. Let’s dream and fight on to find justice for child sex abuse victims in the states where legislators and governors will honor the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr., and refuse to be co-opted by those who enslaved our children, deprived them of bodily integrity, and then sunk millions to block their paths to justice.
– See more at: http://verdict.justia.com/2013/10/17/gov-jerry-browns-recent-veto-child-abuse-legislation-tells-us-civil-rights-movement-children#sthash.q5Xya4kV.dpuf