VERMONT
Burlington Free Press
Published: Sunday, May 21, 2006
By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer
Michael Gay thought the waves of emotion rippling inside him would subside after he accepted $965,000 to settle his priest sex abuse lawsuit with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington last month.
He now knows he was wrong.
"I thought I would feel better, but I don't," he said in an interview last week. "I feel the same feelings I had before, the anger and hate and humiliation. I want to go on with my life, but I can't. Money can't heal the pains of the heart."
For that, in large measure, he blames Bishop Salvatore Matano.
Gay, 38, said any hope he had of getting past his pain were dashed when he read Matano's letter to Catholics released last weekend.
He said he was particularly offended by a remark in the bishop's letter about putting the church's parishes into individual charitable trusts to protect them from "unbridled, unjust and terribly unreasonable assault."