By Christopher Quinn Contact: cquinn@ajc.com
Catholic World NewsRetired Australian
August 25, 2007
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/living/stories/2007/08/24/priest_0825.html
Kenneth Joe has been known as the former child welfare chief for Fulton County whose overzealous and sometimes passionate management style helped lead to his ouster.
His friends, coworkers and even his enemies are about to discover another side of Joe.
It is one that helps explains him, his actions, his zeal, he says.
Joe, 38, was sexually abused as a teenager by a Roman Catholic priest.
He lays the details out in a self-published book that he funded with his $850,000 legal settlement with the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the city where Joe grew up.
"I have decided to more forward now," Joe says.
It is not easy to tell his story, he says.
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| Kenneth Joe, Sr. is self-publishing a book about being abused by a Catholic priest when he was a child in Chicago. Photo by Ben Gray |
He worries about how people will treat him. There are strong emotions he struggled with before writing the book. Fear. Shame. Betrayal.
"No one has written a book like this because of the shame," he says.
Then he explains:
"Will they think you are less than a man?"
"Sexual abuse is physical. It's mental. It leaves scars that never, ever go away," he says.
"It challenges your sexuality. It leaves many without being able to have intimate relations."
Joe survived. He grew and dealt with his issues, got married and has a son and has a 17-year career working on behalf of abused children.
Joe still works for the Department of Family and Children Services in an administrative position.
Despite his successful life, the question of whether he should tell still bounces around in his head. He wonders about the reaction his book will bring. "From Abused to Protector" is available starting today through Joe's Web site, www.careenough.net
"I'm about to find out if coworkers and friends will treat me differently," he said.
The Archdiocese of Atlanta has had cases of sexual abuse by clergy, but they have been scattered. There is nothing here like the clusters of victims in cities like Boston and Chicago, victims who won multi-million dollar settlements offered by the church.
Joe's abuser, who is now dead, was implicated in abusing more than 20 boys.
Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory played an important and pioneering role in 2002 in the church's abuse crisis as president of the 190-member U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He set an example by calling the abuse a crime and refusing to let priests hide behind the church. He pushed the church to deal with the issue and to begin rebuilding trust and faith.
He credits previous church leaders, particularly former Atlanta Archbishop Thomas Donnellan who served from the 1960s to 1987, with dealing with the issue well enough to prevent large scale abuse.
A 2004 report from the Archdiocese showed 25 claims of abuse by minors in Atlanta since 1950. There are none under investigation now.
"The [Atlanta] church handled things well. I am not alleging we handled them perfectly. But we handled them as well as we could given what we knew at the time," Gregory said.
Joe describes a different reception to his revelation of abuse in Chicago. Initial discussions with two other priests there were met with admonitions to pray about it, otherwise with steely silence.
Last year in Atlanta, victims formed a local chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Another support group, Voice of the Faithful, has met and corresponded with Gregory. Joe isn't a member of either group.
SNAP member Denise Weaver said about 10 people have shown up for meetings.
The group is slowly attracting members, some of whom were living out of state at the time of the abuse. She believes more cases of abuse will come out in Atlanta in coming years.
Gregory said it often takes years for cases to be reported. Many of the cases being dealt with today in places like Chicago go back decades, he said.
The Archdiocese has set up a Web site for those who want to report abuse and it includes advice about reporting to law-enforcement authorities.
Joe's abuse took place in early 1980s.
Shortly after he settled his suit last year, he was hired to try to straighten out Fulton County's Department of Family and Children Services.
Last spring, he was removed after a state report criticized his management style and questioned his results. Joe has defended himself, saying he was getting rid of deadwood and fighting a bureaucracy that was often intransigent.
Perhaps now people will realize the issues that were driving him, he hopes. He had been failed by the church bureaucracy and did not want his office to fail others, he said.
"I was uncompromising. I make no excuses for that," he said.
He believes his book will help bring some closure to that part of his life and encourage others who have been abused.
"I had to decide. I had to own [my pain], and as difficult as it was, learn to forgive."
And learning to forgive taught him something about becoming whole again.
"Forgiveness was not for those who have hurt you. It is for you."
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