By Ray Weiss
Daytona Beach News-Journal
April 26, 2010
http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2010/04/26/priests-abuse-left-sons-life-in-shambles-parents-say.html
Joe and Toni McMorrow no longer have faith in the church that both of their families belonged to for generations.
Their trust is gone.
Back in 2002, they saw their A-student son, a Maryland teenager with aspirations of attending the Air Force Academy, spiral into depression and drugs, finally dropping out of high school.
"It was just horrible seeing a bright, happy person go in that direction," Toni McMorrow told a small group gathered Sunday at the Ormond Beach Public Library.
The McMorrows said they confided at first in a priest, their parish's high school group leader and a confidant to their then-14-year-old son. A year later, while in drug rehab, their son shocked his parents, accusing that very same priest of sexual abuse.
"I can't describe to you what that moment was like," Joe McMorrow recalled. "Imagine if it was your son or your daughter. To sit there and have our son tell us and say how ashamed he was to tell us. No parent should go through that."
Last November, Aaron Cote, the Maryland priest, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years probation for sexually abusing their son.
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| Joe and Toni McMorrow share the pain of their son’s abuse by a predator priest during a meeting Sunday of the Volusia Voice of the Faithful at the Ormond Beach Public |
"This is a Catholic priest, not a stranger or neighbor, a priest I gave confession to," McMorrow said during a presentation sponsored by Volusia Voice of the Faithful. "Not many get prosecuted. Fewer get convicted. Even fewer go to jail."
The McMorrows, now living in Rockledge in Brevard County, hold the Catholic Church responsible, accusing it of placing the protection of pedophiles over the safety of children. The couple said they discovered on their own in 2005 that the priest had been reassigned to Rhode Island as the parish's youth minister.
"Not a phone call, not a letter to us," McMorrow said. "No investigation to exonerate him."
His wife added: "I felt totally abandoned, cast aside. There was no outreach from the church hierarchy. It seemed only we cared about it."
But with the help of SNAP, a clergy abuse support network, a civil court action was filed in 2005, and the priest was removed the next day from his position following the negative publicity.
"All we wanted was that he be held accountable, so he would not harm other kids. It turned out he had 20 years of questionable history, dating back to the seminary," McMorrow said. "The abuse was preventable. It could have been stopped."
The Orlando Diocese's Bishop Thomas Wenski acknowledges the abuse of children by church leaders should have been addressed earlier.
"The scandals have been a bitter lesson to learn, especially in the places where the allegations were mishandled," he said last week. "In the Diocese of Orlando, we instituted a zero-tolerance policy here in the early 1990s. Many of the other dioceses did not do that until the 2000s.
"We always will continue to apologize to victims and denounce the heinous abuse of children."
Wenski said most cases surfacing now are 20 to 30 years old, and he believes the church has instituted measures such as background checks to ensure the safety of children. He added that sexual abuse of children is not just a Catholic problem, but one that touches all institutions.
McMorrow acknowledges the Catholic church has many excellent priests who do great work.
"But how many children is it OK to sexually abuse compared to all the other good you do? You have been called to a higher authority, a higher morality," McMorrow said of priests and top church leaders. "You should be leading the way in stopping the sexual abuse, not being dragged into a courtroom kicking and screaming. Most of what we got was by legal action. And it shouldn't be that way."
Given what happened to their son, the McMorrows fear other children are still being abused by priests and protected by their superiors.
"Our case is recent. We don't believe this is over," McMorrow said. "It's a blessing our son announced it after just one year. His rehab program was all about being honest with himself. Usually, it's well into adulthood, if ever."
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