The middle-aged woman in the casual pants suit who paced at the front of the lecture hall in Merkert Chemistry Building looked like someone you might expect to see at a high school PTA meeting. So did the three men with her, in their dark suits and ties. All, in fact, were solid suburban parents in their forties or fifties. But the four had something else in common: Each had been sexually assaulted as an adolescent by a Catholic priest; each had spent years in denial and then recovery; and each now speaks publicly and often of the painful experience that binds them, in order to educate others and make such suffering less likely in the future.

They were at Boston College on the evening of November 7 to tell their stories. The accounts they gave to a hushed audience of 60 or so were heartbreaking and horrific. Susan Renehan, who said she had been stalked and sexually abused by a priest in New Jersey for three years beginning at age 11, later helped found a local victims organization, Coalition of Catholics and Survivors. Although she went to daily Mass during Lent before being abused, she said she has never felt at home in the Church since. She said her spiritual needs are met now by a 12-step recovery group.

The three Massachusetts men who spoke remain Catholic to varying degrees, with the deepest expressions of devotion coming from Thomas Fulchino ’68 of Weston. Fulchino, a father of six, told a gruesome story: In 1960, at age 12, he was molested by the defrocked priest James Porter, and in the 1980s his son was molested by the defrocked priest John Geoghan, whose assaults were publicly reported in 2002, launching the current sexual abuse scandal.

Fulchino said he believed his going public has enabled “hundreds of grown men and women” to tell their stories. “You wonder how it could be possible that so many children for so many years could be molested by a group of predators who were Catholic priests, priests who teach the word of God, who supposedly carry out the teachings of the Church, priests who were considered next to God in the eyes of their victims?” he asked rhetorically. And he proceeded to relate the deviousness with which his son was abused. He said Geoghan would visit CCD classes, rewarding boys who answered his questions with quarters. Fulchino said that his son, who had a learning disability, did not usually raise his hand. “But on that frightful Sunday morning,” he said, “Geoghan’s question was, ‘Can you name Mary’s son?’ Eagerly, Christopher raised his hand. For the first time, he knew the answer.”

Fulchino’s son was told that, to get his quarters, he had to visit Geoghan in the rectory for cookies and milk. Fulchino said that when his son arrived, Geoghan ordered him to sit in his lap for a prayer because there was only one chair. Geoghan then gripped his son and raped him, said Fulchino.

The other men who spoke, William Gately of Plymouth and Steve Lewis of Lynn, also told stories of having their boyhood trust in priests broken by sexual exploitation. Neither felt able to report the abuse and suffered alone in silence for years.

In remarks afterward, Ann Burgess, BC professor of psychiatric nursing, said that sexual abuse by priests should probably be considered a form of incest. A hallmark of incest, she said, is divided loyalty in a family after incest is discovered. The Church, she noted, has been torn in its loyalties too.

“The dynamics are similar,” said Burgess. “When you have a named abuser and a named victim in a family, family members have to side with one or the other. You really can’t be loyal to both parties. With the Church, its leaders have basically sided with the priests, the ‘fathers’ if you will, by keeping abusive priests in the system without really addressing the problem.”

Another dynamic, she said, is the fear of public reaction that often keeps incest quiet. “As in a family, I’m sure that there were people in the Church who thought, ‘What will people think? Let’s just keep this quiet.’”

Fulchino said that even his horrifying experience could not drive him away from Catholicism. “It’s just a part of who I am,” he said, adding that faith “is as important to me as it is” to the bishops.

Richard Higgins

Richard Higgins is a writer based in Concord, Massachusetts. His report on the launch of BC’s Church in the 21st Century initiative, “First Night,” appeared in BCM’s Fall 2002 issue.

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