ILLINOIS
The Rockford River Times
By Melissa Wangall, staff writer
Editor’s note: This article contains sexually explicit material that may not be suitable for all readers. Reader discretion is advised.
All non-clergy members’ names have been changed due to the graphic nature of the alleged abuse and the age of the victim at the time of the alleged abuse.
Life was different for 13-year-old Thomas White after he returned home from a four-day trip to the Wisconsin Dells in the summer of 1969. He had allegedly been raped by his 38-year-old priest, and the scars of that weekend would be permanently etched in his memory.
White began self-medicating himself with heroin, cocaine, alcohol and marijuana, and began planning ways to end his life. His once high marks in school fell to barely above passing, and he failed all of his classes in his first semester at West High School.
White’s middle-class, blue collar parents had entrusted Catholic priest Theodore “Ted” Feely, then assistant pastor at St. Anthony’s Church in Rockford, to take their son on the four-day trip. Feely was a trusted member of the community, and he had even spent significant time with the family. But during the trip to the Wisconsin Dells, Feely allegedly fed White Balantine scotch, Budweiser beer, and Camel filter cigarettes. White awoke in the middle of the first night to Feely allegedly choking, sodomizing and masturbating him.
“I knew something happened to him,” Thomas’s brother, George, said about his brother’s return from the Wisconsin Dells. “I could see it in his eyes. I asked him what happened, but he wouldn’t tell me.”
Thomas White’s experience with Father Feely had erased all trust and respect the teen-ager had for authority figures. He began to get into trouble at school and stopped participating in sports.