TIPTON (IA)
WQAD
TIPTON, IA. -- Saint Mary's Church in Tipton is quiet after morning mass, but Father David Hitch says he won't be quiet anymore. "All of us in the Church need to keep searching, how could this be? How this could happen in our church, that we were so trusting, so innocent of our priests."
In the 1960's, while Father Hitch was in seminary, his younger brother Michael, says he was being sexually abused by Priest James Janssen. "(Michael) thought all priests were trained in seminary how to do this, touching of genitals and the like."
Father Hitch says shame and embarrassment keep his brother from coming forward, until just three years ago. Father Hitch says a culture of silence in the Church kept the issue in the dark, eventhough the higher levels of the diocese knew what was happening.
Now a new book, Toward Understanding and Healing, is helping victims deal with the issue of abuse by accused priests like Janssen.
Posted by kshaw at June 5, 2005 07:02 PM