Breaking his silence amid ”the despair that is killing” him, a sobbing Craig Martin, who suffered abuse at the hands of a priest at age 11, captivated a grief-stricken audience on Thursday at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
One could hear a pin drop in the crowded auditorium where 288 black-clad bishops and cardinals and scores of victims’ advocates and family members sat, as one by one, the victims rose to tell the stories of their egregious abuse.
Martin was one of four victims emboldened to tell their stories to the clergy leaders, with ”the hope against any hope” that such violations would be relegated to the past, that their children would never be subject to the horrors they themselves were.
”Today is a very difficult day for me,” Martin began, somewhat apologetically. ”I wanted to break the silence and the despair that is killing me. I wanted someone to hear my story.”
Married and the father of three girls in Saint Cloud, Minnesota, the 46-year-old Martin’s round face was drawn and ashen as he chose his words carefully, trying to describe the ”awful night” 35 years ago that turned his life upside-down.
Father Joseph Heitzer invited the 11-year-old boy to a fishing party for a weekend, an invitation his parents thought was a ”great idea.”
”I remember the motel that night with the priest, but hardly anything else. I have no idea how I got home,” he said haltingly. He described the symptoms of his long descent into what he described as years of ”destructive behaviour”: his hostility towards women, alcoholism, uncontrollable sexual urges, poor self-esteem, depression and thoughts of suicide.
Then, almost like the child he was all those years ago, he asked his parents for forgiveness for the years of turmoil and dissolved into tears.
Paula Gonzalez Rohrbacker, the 37-year-old mother of two, was next to describe her descent into hell when, as a young teen, ”Father Jose,” a close family friend, violated her.
”He molested me with several digital penetrations of the vagina, and fondled me,” she told the assembled crowd of black-clad bishops and cardinals, many of whom did all they could to stifle their own dismay and hold tears from cascading down their cheeks.
”He said ‘don’t tell anyone.”’
When she became pregnant at the age of 19, Father Jose paid a visit to the family. ”I had a nervous breakdown and that’s when I confided everything to my husband,” she said.
She told of her spoiled youth, her stolen innocence and the years of psychotherapy to deal with the suffering that accompanied the ”deep scars on (her) soul.” She too, contemplated suicide and had difficulty developing a healthy sexual relationship with her husband.
”I have remained a faithful Catholic woman,” she told the bishops. ”I ask all of you to remember me and all the victims as you make decisions during this meeting.” She went a step further, imploring them to adopt a zero tolerance policy when dealing with all abusive priests — those who committed their crimes in the past and those who might in the future.
Zero tolerance ”will send a message to all the victims that we are your primary concern,” she pleaded.
It was too hard for Michael Bland, a seminary student who became a priest, to give the details of his harrowing relationship with a man he once admired. ”He did something to me that no one had ever done to me before. He told me ‘everything will be okay.”’
Bland eventually abandoned his calling to confront his past, but was stunned by the response he got from the top ranks of the church, who doubted his allegations. ”The sadness and the hurt come from the sexual abuse,” he said. ”The anger comes from the church’s failure to respond appropriately.”
Barely able to contain his anger, he asked, incredulously, how it was possible that the man who violated him was, after psychiatric treatment, able to take a teaching post at a Catholic university. – Sapa-AFP