Young Faces Applied to Old Wounds, by Sandi Dolbee, Union-Tribune, August 20, 2007

Young Faces Applied to Old Wounds

By Sandi Dolbee
Union-Tribune
August 20, 2007

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070820-9999-1m20photos.html

She sits in bankruptcy court on wooden benches much like church pews, grasping a homemade fan as if it were a rudder in a storm-tossed sea.

On one side of the fan is a black-and-white photograph of herself when she was dressed up for her first Holy Communion. On the other side, she's posing with her three sisters, little heads rising like stair steps.

Heidi Lynch of El Cajon wears a golden dog tag with a picture of herself as a girl to court hearings in the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego bankruptcy proceedings.
Photo by Howard Lipin / Union-Tribune

All four were allegedly being sexually abused by their priest at Holy Spirit Catholic Church on 55th Street in the 1950s, when the photos were taken.

She's 58 now and lives within walking distance of the San Diego church. She says the pictures are to remind everyone in the Catholic diocese's bankruptcy case that "it's all about the children."

She adds: "I don't want them to look at how I look now. This is how I looked then."

She is not alone. For several years, men and women who said they were sexually abused by Catholic church workers when they were minors have waged a war of images.

Heidi Lynch, 50, of El Cajon wears a golden dog tag with a picture of herself as a girl. On the flip side are the words: "Remember me."

Dozens of young faces smile from quilts that are unfurled at vigils and news conferences. Quilt maker Erin Brady, 48, who lives in the San Gabriel Valley, is starting her seventh panel. By her count, she's used 168 photos submitted by people from Southern California.

David Clohessy may have been the first to hand a photograph to Catholic bishops. Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was speaking to U.S. bishops in Dallas in 2002 when he held out a picture of Eric Patterson. Patterson, 29, killed himself after years of wrestling with trauma, including being allegedly molested by a priest in Kansas when he was 12.

"People have to understand this crime didn't happen to a 30-or 40-year-old woman. It didn't happen to a big, burly guy," says Clohessy, who lives in Missouri. "It happened to a kid, and we have to remind people of that."

'A real face'

SNAP leaders say the childhood picture campaign began in earnest five years ago, as the Catholic clergy abuse crisis exploded across the country.

"When you look at us today, we're all grown up," says Barbara Blaine, SNAP's founder. "It's hard to recognize us as vulnerable kids."

Blaine, a Chicago resident, says the photographs have helped many with their healing. She remembers the wife of one person who claimed abuse coming to a SNAP meeting and seeing the photographs on the walls. "She stood at the doorway and she just started crying and she just said, 'Now I get it.' "

The Rev. Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit magazine America, calls the photographs "heart-rending."

"You get a real face for the person who was abused, I think it's a very successful tactic and very, very moving," says Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center.

Public response from bishops has not exactly been resounding. Last year, SNAP displayed Brady's quilts in a tent near the Los Angeles hotel where U.S. bishops were meeting. None came.

"I wasn't surprised, but there was a little piece of me who was disappointed," says Brady, one of more than 500 victims who last month settled with the Los Angeles archdiocese for $660 million.

San Diego Auxiliary Bishop Salvatore Cordileone says he doesn't remember seeing any of the photographs, either on the quilts or elsewhere. He has noticed men and women at demonstrations, though he says he hasn't tried to approach them because it wouldn't be appropriate.

"There might be an opportunity to exchange a few words but it might make the situation worse because it really needs an extended conversation," says Cordileone. "So I have not attempted to do that myself in that kind of situation."

He adds: "I think what's important for the victims is healing, and we do want to do what is necessary for healing, which involves a lot. Not just money, but reconciliation and so forth. That's our hope."

Case put on hold

The woman who made the picture fan was "absolutely shocked" when the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Feb. 27. Her lawsuit was among roughly 150 cases put on hold by the bankruptcy petition.

So she fashioned the fan out of cardboard, which she framed in embroidery, and attached a lopped-off paint stick for a handle. As often as she can, she takes vacation days from her job at a health care provider and drives downtown to the federal bankruptcy courthouse.

She has asked not to be named and it is the newspaper's policy not to identify such victims without permission.

She bristles at bloggers and letter writers who accuse plaintiffs and their attorneys of greed. She says that after going to confession, she still had to do penance. "Now the church needs to do their penance."

Lynch, the woman who wears her childhood picture on a dog tag, says asking for money "just seems to be the only thing that will wake them up." She says she suffers from anxiety and depression so severe that she's unable to work.

At a bankruptcy hearing in April, Lynch also brought a large color photograph of happier days. Supporters "would look at me and nod and smile and put their thumb up."

She cradled the picture in her lap. "It brings it into perspective," Lynch says. "I was a very small child and the perpetrator was a very large adult. Now we're sitting there as adults and we don't really don't look like victims."