Harvard Divinity School Honors Victim Advocate Peter Isely

By Annysa Johnson
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
January 22, 2014

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/241482321.html

Peter Isely of Shorewood, who has traveled the world as an advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse, will be honored by Harvard Divinity School in April as a distinguished alumni.

Isely is a recipient of the 2014 Peter J. Gomes Memorial Honors, established last year to honor alumni whose “excellence in life, work and service pays homage to the mission and values of Harvard Divinity School,” according to its website. Nominations were sought in several categories including service and advocacy, ministry, law and education. Last year’s recipients included Muslim scholar and author Reza Aslan and The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, a Buddist monk who leads the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Isely, a psychotherapist, is Midwest director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group for sexual abuse victims. Isely was sexually abused as a student at St. Lawrence Seminary, a Capuchin-run prep school in Mt. Calvary, in the 1970s. He graduated from Harvard University with a master’s of divinity degree in 1988.

Peter J. Gomes, was a professor of Christian morals and a Baptist minister who served Harvard’s Memorial Church for decades. He died in 2011, at the age of 68.