December 18, 2005

Strict pact bound victim

DENVER (CO)
Denver Post

By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer

The package arrived in Joe McGee's mailbox in September 1996. The Sterling insurance agent had waited a long time for this: a settlement offer crafted by attorneys for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver.

McGee hoped it would ease the anger he carried for 40 years against his childhood priest, the Rev. John Stein. McGee says Stein sexually abused him hundreds of times over a three-year period in the 1950s at St. Catherine of Siena parish in the plains town of Iliff.

McGee said he didn't closely read the 3½-page legal document before signing it.

He said he was angry after going back and forth with an archdiocesan official for five years about just compensation. He wanted to be done with it. He realizes now it was a mistake.

"When I look back, the thing that hurts the most is the isolation I lived in because I had to keep the secret," said McGee, 63.

Posted by kshaw at December 18, 2005 02:34 AM