HARRISBURG (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Martha Raffaele
Associated Press
HARRISBURG - Brian Guarino's eyes welled up as he told of his priest driving him to a dark, wooded parking lot behind a seminary and raping him when he was an altar boy at a Catholic church in Greensburg, Pa.
"To this day, I still shudder inside," Guarino, 42, said in a 15-minute DVD recording that was shown yesterday during a forum organized by a coalition of advocates for victims of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic priests, along with other advocacy groups.
The DVD, which includes accounts from alleged victims and their family members, will be sent to state lawmakers to encourage them to adopt reforms recommended last fall by a grand jury that investigated alleged abuse by Philadelphia priests.
"To get people's attention and help them really understand the issue, it's really important to hear from survivors," said John Salveson, a spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the Survival Network of Those Abused by Priests and Other Clergy.