Memorial to Sexually Abused Children Destroyed, by Abbott Koloff, Daily Record, November 21, 2011

Memorial to Sexually Abused Children Destroyed

By Abbott Koloff
Daily Record
November 21, 2011

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20111120/NJNEWS/311210008/Man-destroys-memorial-to-sex-victims-at-church-using-sledgehammer

Mendham, 11/20/11--The Millstone Memorial, located on the grounds of St. JosephÕs Parish in Mendham, New Jersey was destroyed sometime on Friday night. The memorial was dedicated in April 2004 to the victims of sexual abuse "at St. JosephÕs and everywhere." STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER/BOB KARP 2011 / staff photo

MENDHAM — A memorial to sexually abused children, which victims advocates have said was unique because of its location at a Catholic parish where abuse occurred, was destroyed over the weekend by a man with a sledgehammer, police said.

Gordon Ellis, 37, a borough resident, has been charged with destroying the memorial, a 400-pound black basalt millstone, at St. Joseph's Church on Friday evening. Ellis was arrested as he walked through the center of town just minutes later, police said Sunday.

Police said they did not have a motive for the crime and did not know whether Ellis had a connection to St. Joseph's Church. The memorial was dedicated in 2004 near the rectory that once housed James T. Hanley, a priest who has since been defrocked and has admitted molesting about a dozen children at St. Joseph's and other area parishes decades ago.

Ellis remained in the Morris County jail Sunday in lieu of $25,000 bail after being charged Friday night with possessing a weapon — a sledgehammer — used in the commission of a crime, defacement of private property, desecration of a venerated object and criminal mischief, Mendham Police Sgt. John Camoia said.

Monsignor Joseph Anginoli, pastor of St. Joseph's, said on Sunday that the memorial would be replaced but altered in an unspecified way. He said he couldn't be more specific.

"It will be replaced but probably not take the form of what was here," he said outside the parish rectory.

The memorial had been the idea of some of Hanley's victims following the 2003 suicide of Morristown resident Jim Kelly, a victim's advocate who had been a St. Joseph's parishioner. It was encouraged by Monsignor Kenneth Lasch, an advocate for abuse victims who was then pastor of the church. It took the form of a millstone because of a Bible passage that says it would be better to be cast into the sea with a millstone than to harm a child.

Patrick Kelly, a Mendham Township resident and Jim Kelly's brother, said on Sunday that the memorial was important for victims because it acknowledged their suffering. Hanley has publicly admitted that Patrick Kelly was among his victims. Kelly praised Lasch for allowing the memorial to be placed at the parish, and for inviting a support group for sexual abuse victims to meet there. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, moved its meetings to a nearby Lutheran church in 2007 after Anginoli told the organization it no longer could no longer meet at St. Joseph's for lack of space.

"I'm in shock over this," Kelly, a SNAP member, said on Sunday. "At least one church official (Lasch) had the guts to stand up and acknowledge the abuse of the past and a willingness to ensure that it didn't happen again. … We would want it replaced as completely as it was. It stood for everybody in our community and for the silent majority (of people who didn't come forward to talk about their abuse)."

Lasch was unavailable for comment on Sunday.

Kelly brought his 9-year-old son Alex to see the destroyed memorial in the afternoon. "He knows I go to meetings to talk about bullies and that this was a statue to help kids who were picked on by bullies," Kelly said.

Police said Ellis was arrested shortly before 9 p.m. Friday after the coach of a youth basketball team playing at the church witnessed the destruction and called authorities.

Contact: akoloff@njpressmedia.com