Last papal visit traumatic for some abuse victims

By Bill White
Morning Call
August 1, 2015

http://www.mcall.com/opinion/white/mc-bw-pope-francis-visit-20150801-column.html

Pope Benedict XVI speaks to tens of thousands of pilgrims and well-wishers during his final general audience Wednesday, February 27, 2013, the eve of his retirement as leader of the world's Roman Catholics at St. Peter's Square, Vatican City.

Robert Corby of Bethlehem tells a story about the time ex-football star Franco Harris visited Northampton Community College to lead a town hall meeting about how Penn State handled the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Corby, now 80, who says he was a victim of child sexual abuse by a priest, decided to attend, and at some point, very nervously, he stood up to speak about what happened to him. "I'm not here to question Joe Paterno's motives," he says he began. "I'm here to speak for all the victims of sexual abuse."

He was rewarded with applause — and a surprise when the event ended. "An old guy came down the aisle, tears running down his face," Corby recalled. "He said, 'Thank you for speaking up for the victims.'"

The first time I met Corby, we were at Juliann Bortz's kitchen table seven years ago, talking about Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States and the toll it was taking on people who were victims of sexual abuse by priests.

Including them.

Benedict's first U.S. visit rekindled anger and anxiety over the betrayal by pedophile priests and the church leaders who allowed their crimes to continue. Bortz, then local coordinator for the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests — known as SNAP — was bombarded with phone calls from emotional survivors.

Bortz, then 58, was one of several victims who years ago sued the Allentown Diocese and church officials for systematically covering up years of abuse, including her alleged molestation by a teacher at Allentown Central Catholic High School when she was 14. The case was blocked by the state's statute of limitations.

Corby, a fatherless 11-year-old altar boy when his abuse began, reacted to Pope Benedict's visit by telling his therapist — paid for by the Philadelphia Archdiocese — that he wanted to return to the Bethlehem church room where he first was molested. The emotions were overwhelming. "I was shaking all over," he said.

Corby and Bortz were two of many victims who began telling their stories when sex abuse and cover-ups in the Boston Archdiocese made national news in 2002. Those revelations and a horrific grand jury report a few years later on the Philadelphia Archdiocese helped them and other victims understand that they weren't alone.

Now another pope's visit to Philadelphia is generating tremendous excitement. I wondered: Has the passage of time and the more compassionate tone of Pope Francis' leadership changed the way child sex abuse victims are reacting to this event?

Bortz told me she still gets calls, even though she's no longer officially affiliated with SNAP. The volume increases every time another child sex abuse case hits the news, most recently with the Duggar family.

This pope's visit hasn't triggered that kind of reaction yet, she said. "I really don't care if he's here or not," she said.

Bortz, who told me the calls she was getting during the pope's last visit were so troubling she had trouble sleeping, said she mostly refers them to someone else now, unless the caller is really distraught. "I just feel helpless," she said. "I've learned over the years that I can't do anything for anybody. I will listen, that's the most I can do."

She's most affected by the people who thought they were the only victims of this predator, even that they were somehow responsible. "When I hear from some guy in his mid-40s who still thinks that with everything that happened, he and his brother were the only ones, it makes me sick. There are so many more out there."

SNAP Executive Director David Clohessy told me there hasn't been any spike in their phone calls from victims and witnesses, which continue to come in steadily.

He said, "If there's a change in the calls we've gotten over the past five or six years, it's that we get a lot more calls from worried parishioners." They're less likely now to blindly trust their pastors and other leaders, he said. "Our priest hired a music director, and he kind of feels creepy to us," they'll say. "Have you heard anything about this guy?"

Clohessy acknowledged that Pope Francis has made great strides in church governance and public relations, but he said Francis' response to the continuing problem of child sex abuse, which has included a pledge of zero tolerance and the acceptance of some resignations, has been more symbolic than decisive. "He's a master of symbolism," he said. "Unfortunately, symbolism doesn't protect kids."

Among other things, Clohessy would like to see the pope defrocking, demoting, even denouncing the bishops who have protected predators, as well as lobbying for, not against, legislative reform that protects kids and appointing people who truly are committed on this issue.

Corby said he likes what he's seen of this pope. Still, when he heard that Francis was planning to visit inmates at a Philadelphia jail, he wrote a letter to the editor suggesting that the pope instead meet with victims of sexual abuse by Philadelphia Archdiocese priests.

He struck me as much more confident and determined than the man I met seven years ago. "I do whatever I can," he said. "But I still have to live with this every day."