Group Seeks Archdiocese Building for Healing Sexual Abuse Victims

By Tyler Berg
KSTP
September 9, 2015

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3901872.shtml

A victim of sexual abuse and a former priest convicted of sexually abusing minors came together in an attempt to start a healing center.

The duo and others formed the Gilead Project to purchase the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis' Chancery building across from the Cathedral of St. Paul. The nonprofit's effort hasn't come without criticism from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Susan Pavlak, the president of the project, said the location would serve as a memorial to victims, like herself, and help them with programs for healing.

"The wonderful thing we need to do is show people what the next horizon is in the sexual abuse crisis," Pavlak said.

One of Pavlak's partners, Gilbert Gustafson, was convicted of sexual abuse in 1983 when he was a priest.

"I don't think the sky is falling," Pavlak said. "I have worked with Gil Gustafson for a number of years."

SNAP disagrees. Fred Meuers, the leader of the Southern Minnesota branch, said Gustafson's involvement is irresponsible.

"It doesn't seem to make sense to have someone who has abused children suddenly set up a headquarters for abuse victims," Meuers said.

Pavlak said it's been decades since Gustafson has preyed, and now offers an honest, different approach to the healing process.

"Now, not everybody is going to be able to do that," Pavlak said. "But if we don't know how that's done, how are we ever going to get beyond locking up everybody?"

In 2009, the Archdiocese's monitoring report said Gustafson "Admits to a sexual fixation with minor males and realizes this will be a lifetime effort on his part to avoid situations where that attraction could be provoked."

"As far as we know, there's no cure," Meuers said. "Then you have to wonder why would you open a home for that?"

Pavlok says SNAP didn't take the time to ask her about the program and only attacked it. She and another member of the project, Dr. Gerald Schlabach, stand by the strategy and welcome anyone in the healing process.

"We have to go carefully, slowly, respecting the people who have been traumatized," Schlabach said. "But we can't give up hope on some type of reconciliation."