By Sean O'Sullivan
News Journal
November 12, 2010
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20101112/NEWS/101112038/Priest-abuse-victim-to-jury-What-Frank-did-the-stuff-he-s-sick-
 |
| John M. Vai |
An emotional and sometimes angry John M. Vai took the witness stand today in his civil case against St. Elizabeth's Roman Catholic Parish and the priest who molested him more than 40 years ago.
Unlike his earlier, brief testimony in a Diocese of Wilmington bankruptcy proceeding, Vai did not talk in detail about what defrocked priest Francis DeLuca did to him.
Instead, he told the jury that they heard DeLuca admit in a video to molesting him, so they did not need to hear the "vile" details. "What Frank did, the stuff… he's sick," Vai said, adding as an eighth-grader he was awed that a priest wanted to be his friend and buddy. "I'm 58 years old now … I was abused as a child," he said, adding in an apparent reference to the opening statement by defense attorneys, that it did not matter if it was 10 times, 100 times or 1,000 times that he was abused, it was wrong.
Vai said DeLuca sexually abused him on trips to New York City at the St. Elizabeth's rectory and on trips to Wildwood, N.J.
He described steps leading to the second floor of the priest's home at St. Elizabeth’s, where DeLuca's bedroom was at the time, as "the stairs to hell .. I thought hell was down but hell was up."
He also said there were other priests in the rectory when he visited and clearly recalls seeing one, now-Monsignor Thomas Cini, as he ascended the stairs on one occasion. "I walked by him, I said 'Good evening, Father,'" Vai recalled, "I'm in the rectory, he sees me. He doesn't see me go into Frank's room, but what the hell am I doing there?"
Cini, in earlier testimony, denied every seeing Vai or any other boys in the rectory during those years and said if he had, he would have taken some kind of action.
Vai, meanwhile, expressed outrage that nothing was done at the time. "I can't believe no one saw anything. It just doesn't make sense to me," he said, adding he filed suit and brought his case to trial so the truth would be brought out.
Attorneys for St. Elizabeth's will cross examine Vai this afternoon.
Contact Sean O’Sullivan at 324-2777 or sosullivan@delawareonline.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.