CALIFORNIA
The Press Democrat
Thursday, January 13, 2005
By GUY KOVNER
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
A former Calistoga altar boy said he lived with a painful secret for years before acknowledging his past and filing a sex abuse lawsuit against his alleged molester.
"I'm tired of secrets and living in a lie," Greg Sloan, 48, said in a telephone interview from his home in the Sierra foothills town of Sonora.
Sloan's lawsuit, filed more than two years ago, is the first of 11 claims against the Santa Rosa Diocese heading for trial, after a judge this week issued a final ruling refusing the Catholic Church's request to throw out the case.
Sloan accuses the Rev. Patrick Gleeson of repeatedly molesting him in a Calistoga rectory from 1968 to 1972. Gleeson, a North Coast priest for 38 years, died in 1991.
In going to court and now casting off his anonymity, Sloan, who works as a contractor, said he is fighting off years of bottled-up shame, anger and depression.
Posted by kshaw at January 13, 2005 01:30 PM