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  Deposition Reveals Truth about Molesters
Prepare Children to Face Evil

By Merlene Davis
Lexington Herald-Leader [Kentucky]
May 15, 2005

It simply was creepy to watch a news report of Oliver O'Grady, the defrocked and deported Roman Catholic priest who was convicted of-molesting children in California, as he described how he lured trusting kids into his snare.

"We begin, just the hugging," he said. "Hugging starts off, and then I might just drop my hands. And all the time you're sort of looking for an OK or a permission, and if I wasn't getting a resistance, that was allowing me to go further and further."

O'Grady was giving a deposition in his native Ireland to attorneys who had filed a civil suit against the Stockton Diocese in California, where O'Grady had committed several molestations. The suit claimed the diocese failed to protect children from O'Grady, a known abuser.

O'Grady sat there, sometimes contrite, sometimes winking, as he recalled what he had done. According to his reported testimony, if the child gave him a big hug, he took that as permission to molest.

I've only seen bits and pieces of the-deposition and have read accounts of O'Grady's testimony. But we parents have to somehow get our hands on that 15-hour videotaped deposition and show it to our children.

We have to show them there can be evil-behind a kind and gentle face.

According to a Los Angeles Times story last week, O'Grady told attorneys he preferred "slim, playful boys," but he also "liked to lift little girls' skirts and peek at their underpants."

Asked to demonstrate his technique, O'Grady reportedly softened his voice and said, "Hi, Sally. How are you doing? Come here. I want to give you a hug. You are a sweetheart. You know that. You are very special to me. I like you a lot."

That's when my skin crawled.

We teach our children to be loving, and now we learn that's making our children magnets for slime balls.

O'Grady said he didn't like aggressive kids, just the-compliant ones ages 8 to 10.

So does that mean we-parents should teach our-children to be more aggressive and have them miss out on the beauty of innocence and-openness?

Or should we simply teach them that grown-ups, especially those who are related to them or in authority over them, can be nasty people?

According to recent-research of abusers of-children, both might be on-target. Some 90 percent of child victims know their-offender, with almost half of the offenders being a family member. And most offenders choose victims of their own race.

Apparently that also-happened with O'Grady. It turns out two priests as well as his brother had molested O'Grady as a child, who in turn molested his little sister and later some 25 children in his parishes over 30 years.

After each incident,-O'Grady testified, he would confess his sins to priests.

The problem is, O'Grady confessed but didn't repent. Repentance means to turn away from the sin, not just to feel sorry about it.

He should have demanded that his superiors get him the therapy he needed long ago.

O'Grady, 59, spent seven years in prison for child sexual abuse and then was returned to Ireland, where he is to-receive three years of therapy; he says he will receive $800 a month for 10 years, starting at age 65, paid by the Stockton Diocese.

"I often question myself of recent times, especially since my last therapy, if I even should have been ordained a priest to begin with," O'Grady said on tape.

I really hope the therapy for pedophilia works, as results show it can, for O'Grady's sake.

At least now, with O'Grady's testimony on videotape, this evil can be turned to good.

For more information, see http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/wireStory?id=749593.

We need to prepare our children for the predators who are laying in wait.

And we need to kiss the-innocence we knew goodbye.