BishopAccountability.org
 
  Don't Miss Message of Hope

By Dennis Gaboury
News-Miner [Fairbanks AK]
March 29, 2005

On Wednesday night, I participated in a extraordinary event at St. Raphael Catholic Church. At the invitation of Father Pat Berquist, I recounted the difficult story of my long recovery from sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, before an audience of about 80 parishioners and priests from around Fairbanks.

My appearance was the subject of an article that appeared in the News-Miner on Thursday. And I was saddened to read that the reporter, intent on recounting every prurient detail of my life before recovery, missed my points entirely.

I did not shed the armor of discretion to titillate readers or to seek pity for victims but to open a discussion with Catholics about the path to healing and recovery, both for victims of sexual abuse and for the Catholic church.

Clergy sexual abuse leaves a unique mark on the minds of children because it brings into question all their religious training and suppositions set against a criminal act. The years of self-abuse I engaged in were a direct result of an unconscious decision I made as a 10-year old child, the only decision a devoutly Catholic 10-year-old boy raped by a priest could possibly make given my prior indoctrination that I was a sinner and that priests were good and holy men.

That decision led to decades of secrecy, to extreme religiosity in repentance for what I thought was my sin. When prayer didn't take away the pain, I moved on to sex, drugs and alcohol because they obliterated any thought of the pain or its cause. Finally, with the help of therapists, drug rehabilitation and hard work, I was able to take my power back, to change that early decision about my sinfulness and to forge a life of self-affirmation rather than self-destruction.

The wider point I made at St. Raphael's was that the church's current journey back from denial is similarly arduous, similarly fraught with pain and stumbling blocks, both for the hierarchy and for parishioners.

Just as I kept my secret, so too the church long kept secret the predations of its pedophile priests; just as I was in denial that that one defiling act could lead to so much devastation, so too the church was in denial; just as my elderly mother suffered a crisis of faith as a result of what was done to me and the bishop's response, so too do many good Catholics, both laity and priests.

But I went to St. Raphael's to deliver good news: Just as I did, the church is making its way back. Bishops once dismissive of accusations are now calling the police. The diocese of Fairbanks, for one, has produced a policy on sexual abuse and a program for educating children to prevent abuse that is precisely what I and other survivors long hoped for. A good man who happens to be a priest, Father Pat of St. Raphael's, took the risk of inviting me, a survivor who has never shrunk from criticizing the church's behavior, to speak with his parishioners in the hope that my presence would stimulate dialogue. And 80 people showed up and struggled together for a full three hours.

Have we seen the end to this long and terrible scandal? Probably not. Victims often don't come forward for decades, and despite the best efforts of the church, the sick and criminal will always be with us. But my message to parishioners was one of hope--hope that faith need not be eroded by the criminal behavior of abusers, hope that they need not be afraid to leave their children alone with their parish priest, hope that their church can, as did I, heal from the terrible scars of child sexual abuse.

Dennis Gaboury lives in Fairbanks.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.