Chicago Tribune
November 14, 2011
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-trice-sexabuse-1114-20111114,0,41335.column
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| Penn State students embrace during a candlelight vigil Friday showing sympathy for victims of sexual abuse. In allegations that have rocked the State College, Pa., campus, former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky is charged with sexually abusing several boys. (Patrick Smith, Getty Images / November 11, 2011) |
For Jerry Hutchison, the sexual abuse started when he was a 14-year-old altar boy living in California.
Hutchison said his home life was in disarray. His father ignored him, and he didn't talk much to his mother. He spent the majority of his time at his parish church.
"Then a new priest was assigned to the church," said Hutchison, now 62 and a retired Oak Park chiropractor. "He knew I was having problems at home. He was my father's age, 44, and he paid special attention to me. I could do no harm in his eyes, and he doted on me. I was desperate (to be) special to someone, and I was special to him."
Hutchison said the abuse began with the priest plying Hutchison with single-malt scotch and telling him that it was normal for them to have sex.
"He told me, 'It's what all guys do,'" Hutchison said. "He said, 'I'm surprised your dad didn't teach you this.' I didn't have a lot of close friends, and I believed him. He made it seem that I was an idiot for not knowing."
Hutchison said one reason he believed the priest was that the abuse wasn't a secret. He spent a summer at the priest's ranch and shared a bed with the priest even during a weekend when guests arrived for a holiday celebration.
"It wasn't something happening in the dark," Hutchison said. "He hauled me around with him and I was like a sidekick. I was also such a frequent guest at the rectory, and I had dinner with him and the other priests. I was allowed to go back to his bedroom at any time of the day."
I talked to Hutchison last week as the Penn State University sex abuse scandal was unfolding. He said what struck him was the similarity between the university's apparent culture of silence and that of the church.
According to a grand jury report, a graduate assistant in the Penn State football program saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky sodomizing a 10-year-old boy in the team showers in 2002.
The graduate assistant reportedly told former head football coach Joe Paterno and other university officials. But because no one informed police, Hutchison said, it seems they cared more about the institution's reputation and fundraising ability than the children.
Sexual abuse is heinous and adds one layer of trauma, Hutchison said, but it makes the situation worse when other people know about it and fail to stop it.
He said although some Penn State students promised a weekend vigil for the victims, he was dismayed by the show of support Paterno received after being fired last week. Hutchison said it was reminiscent of the way some parishioners have acted when learning their priest had been accused of abusing children.
It sends a terrible message to victims.
"Every time I read something defending priests, saying 95 percent of them are good, it turns my stomach," Hutchison said. "Anybody who's been around priests knows they're gossipy and hear things about each other. … Nobody wants to mess with the cash cow."
Hutchison said that as a child, he never told anybody, including his parents, that he had been abused for three years. He said he didn't realize he was gay until he turned 30, and it wasn't until he was 40 that he understood that his relationship with the priest wasn't consensual.
That notion crystallized further about a decade ago when he became a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (www.snapnetwork.org) and began attending support group meetings.
He said it's common for a survivor to feel anger toward the abuser as well as toward himself. The victim may also disassociate from the abuse and even repress it.
"I had been active in cross country … in high school. But after 16, I dropped it," he said. "I was so angry, and I couldn't put a finger on why. But I stopped doing things that were healthy and provided a lot of enjoyment."
In 2004, after filing a civil suit against the church and receiving a settlement, Hutchison attended a conference on settlements for the California abuse cases and met two men about his age who had been from prominent San Francisco families. They told stories about how they had been straight-A students before being abused by priests at their schools. After the abuse, they flunked out of school, he remembers them saying.
"The priests who were raping them told the boys' parents that sometimes families have black sheep," said Hutchison. "Both boys later went to prison. It may have been unusual that they went to prison. But it wasn't unusual that their lives were derailed and they turned their rage against everyone else."
Hutchison said he has spent years unable to live in the present because the past always hovers. He has battled self-sabotage and is always questioning his motives.
"When the motive of the priest turned out to be suspect and corrupt, that transferred over to me in a way that made me distrust my own motives," he said. "I've spent my entire life questioning every intention I had. Then the doubt would come in, and then the sabotage."
He said because other people knew about the abuse and didn't try to stop it, he became distrustful of authority figures.
He said the alleged victims in the Penn State case will need therapy and many other forms of support to help repair the damage
"Having other people in the room who have been through this is mind-blowing," he said. "For the first time, you don't have to explain to someone what it feels like to be isolated and alone on this issue — and that goes a long way toward the healing."
Hutchison said he will never forgive his abuser, who left the priesthood not long after Hutchison refused to have sex with him anymore. The priest was never, to Hutchison's knowledge, charged.
"What happened to me will never be undone," he said. "But (therapy has given) me the ability to make a daily choice of whether I want that experience to control my thoughts and how I live my life, or whether I want more loving motives to guide me. But I will always have to make that choice."
Contact: dtrice@tribune.com
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