By Greg Hardesty
Orange County Register
July 8, 2011
http://www.ocregister.com/news/casteix-307554-abuse-church.html
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| Joelle Casteix, was sexually abused by a choir director at Mater Dei who, she says, got her pregnant and gave her a sexually transmitted disease. Casteix hands out leaflets at the Sts. Simon and Jude Church about Gus Krumm, a former pastor there who faces a civil trial starting July 11. |
The brunette woman in dark sunglasses smiles at the motorist outside the church.
She hands him a green leaflet, one that says, among other things, "Turn in abusers!"
Frequently, Joelle Casteix gets castigated for this – and not because she's hawking car washes or even pushing a political view.
No, she says – a lot of people take offense at her publicly railing against Catholic clergy sexual abuse. When she was 15 and a student at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, she was molested by a lay choir director. Now 40, Casteix says her calling is to stop future abuse.
Even if some people don't want to hear her.
"Mothers sporting hair extensions and gravity-defying breasts yell 'Shame on you' before pealing out of the parking lot in late-model Mercedes and Porsches," Casteix writes about her protests, in a proposal she hopes to turn into a book.
Sassy and often caustic, the internationally known advocate of victims of clergy sexual abuse also is a married mother of a 5-year-old boy. After years of struggle, Newport Beach resident says she's arrived at a place she once believed unattainable.
Peace.
Kind of.
•••
Casteix, 40, is sitting in a Costa Mesa restaurant, cracking wise.
A veteran public relations specialist and journalist, and western regional director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), she has become a persistent and vocal opponent of church officials who would like the world to forget about the long-running scandal.
The title of her proposed memoir echoes as much: "The Worthy Adversary – My Global Journey to Expose Abuse in the Catholic Church."
While others have written clinical exposes or commentaries on the subject, Casteix's proposed narrative is personal. It would be a first-person tale of her journey as a survivor of sexual abuse, and her crusade to help other victims.
Rape, abortion, emotional breakdowns and a suicide attempt are part of her story. Still, Casteix has tried to dial down some of the angst, hoping to reach a mainstream audience.
"Nobody wants to read a book that makes them want to go home and stick their head in an oven," says Casteix.
She tosses out another zinger.
"I originally wanted the title to be, 'The Pope Makes Me Puke.' But I knew that wouldn't fly."
•••
Casteix last month distributed leaflets outside Sts. Simon and Jude Church.
She brought doughnuts to disarm any potentially combative parishioners or ushers.
"No one can get angry if you give them a doughnut," she says.
The focus of the leaflets is a civil trail scheduled to start Monday in Orange County Superior Court.
In a lawsuit, two brothers accuse two former priests, Fr. Gus Krumm and Fr. Alexander Manville, who were members of the Franciscan order, of sexually abusing them under the guise of giving medical exams.
The Franciscan Friars of California deny the abuse, which allegedly occurred in the early 1990s.
Krumm has admitted to sexually abusing minors elsewhere, but defense attorneys say there is no evidence to support the claims of the Orange County plaintiffs.
Casteix believes the Sts. Simon and Jude case is typical of how church officials allegedly have turned a blind eye toward errant priests and still cover up scandals involving sexual misconduct.
"I can't just sit by and let this all be in vain," she says.
•••
Casteix met her molester in the summer of 1986, just before her junior year at Mater Dei.
Thomas Hodgman was the new choir director, and he immediately paid special attention to her. Soon, she writes, they were having intercourse. The abuse continued through the end of her senior year in 1988.
During her senior year, Casteix started confiding in friends about what was happening. At her high school graduation, she was pregnant. That summer she had an abortion.
She outed Hodgman during her sophomore year at UC Santa Barbara, in an article she wrote for the student newspaper. At the time, only a few reports had surfaced that linked sexual abuse to the Catholic Church.
Her parents at first were disbelieving and blamed her for the "affair." Others called her a liar, a slut – or worse.
Hodgman, meanwhile, soon quietly left Mater Dei.
In 2003, Casteix filed a lawsuit that resulted in a $1.6 million settlement. The suit also led to the release of documents that showed Mater Dei administrators knew abuse was occurring but did nothing to stop it.
•••
For years, Casteix struggled with being a victim of sexual abuse. She thought she was to blame.
She writes: "I didn't think that I deserved happiness or success... I thought that I was a bad person. ."
Casteix found her voice as an advocate for other victims soon after she filed her lawsuit. She became more emboldened in 2005 when the lawsuit was settled.
Since then, Casteix has traveled the globe to expose abuse and help victims, and has talked about the subject regularly on TV and in newspapers.
She laughs at a common misperception about her. In many news photos, she is a grim-faced protester standing outside a church or a courtroom.
Rarely do people recognize the happy suburban mother who hangs out at the park with her family or takes her son to swim lessons.
Still, Casteix remains outraged over what happened to her and other victims of clergy sexual abuse, and isn't about to stop her crusade.
"While I'm the product of the Catholic Church," Casteix writes, "I will spend the rest of my life demanding justice from it."
Contact the writer: 714-704-3764 or ghardesty@ocregister.com
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