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	Alleged Clergy Abuse Victims Testify before Bankruptcy Judge By Sean O’Sullivan News Journal August 12 2010 http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20100812/NEWS01/100812023/Clergy-abuse-victims-testify-before-bankruptcy-judge A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge today started to hear from witnesses who said they were abused by priests as children and that any additional delays in letting their civil cases go to trial is causing them harm. Attorneys and activists say the decision by Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi to take direct testimony from victims – as he decides whether to extend a stay on some civil cases against the Diocese of Wilmington as mediation is ongoing – is unprecedented. And Sontchi’s courtroom was packed to overflowing today, so much so that court officials allowed several dozen people to listen in on proceedings in a different courtroom. The first of eight to testify was a 56-year-old man identified only as “John Doe 3.” He told Sontchi that the abuse he suffered for three years, starting at age 10 at the hands of the Rev. Francis DeLuca, ruined his life and haunts him to this day. Doe 3 said he came from a very religious family and at St. John Beloved, DeLuca supervised him as an altar boy. Doe 3 said the abuse began one day after he served as an altar boy for an early morning service and DeLuca invited him to the rectory to have a nap before school. Once in DeLuca’s bedroom, Doe 3 said DeLuca began to molest him. Over the next three years, he said DeLuca also took him on trips to New York and Philadelphia, where he would molest him in hotel rooms. Doe 3 said more than 40 years later he still has intimacy issues, among other problems that he traces back to the assaults. “When my own son puts his arm around me, I cringe. Imagine that,” he said during his emotional testimony. The judge also heard this morning from Mary Dougherty, who recalled how she was sexually assaulted by the Rev. Leonard J. Mackiewicz in 1968, when she was 13, on a CYO trip to the Indian River Inlet. She said he tackled her and kept saying, “This is power.” The assault only ended when another priest knocked Mackiewicz off her and told her to run. Both said they saw their upcoming civil trials against their attackers as a chance for vindication and healing and have been traumatized by ongoing delays. Doe 3 said he hopes the trial and catharsis will help him finally put the incidents behind him. He said the delays -- like when his trial was pulled off the calendar days before it was set to start due to the Diocese of Wilmington declaring bankruptcy -- make him feel “worthless.” He said the stopping and starting “just continues to drive me into depression.” Dougherty said she has been ostracized by her family for coming forward and looks to her trial for “validation, justice.” She said she hopes to go to trial to show all other child victims that they were not the cause of the assaults. “That we didn’t do anything wrong, that those men who used the name of God, the sanctity of Christ, to abuse us and treat us like trash ... they are the ones that need to confess. They need to stand up and take responsibility.” Testimony in the hearing is expected to resume at 2 p.m. Contact Sean O’Sullivan at 324-2777 or sosullivan@delawareonline.com
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