A Papal Visit Can’t Heal These Wounds

By Karen Heller
Washington Post
September 17, 2015

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2015/09/17/papal-visit-leaves-this-family-cold/

A statue of the Virgin Mary, bordered by mums, graces the verdant lawn of the McIlmail residence. In the driveway and on the suburban street are three Chevy Impalas, one of them formerly owned by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, long the family’s spiritual home and refuge.

The split-level is crowded with crosses, over doors and beds, and a swarm of butterflies adorns everything from shower curtains to a changing table. These are symbols of the McIlmails’ abiding faith, the cross from their decades as cradle-to-grave Catholics, the butterfly an emblem of comfort adopted in the wake of catastrophic loss.

Each night, Debbie, 59, a former hospital administrator whose employers included Catholic-run medical centers, spends 40 minutes reciting her prayers from a worn folder of cards. There is always a prayer for Sean, her middle child, who had a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his back and a cross inked on his left arm.

In early 2013, Sean reported to the archdiocese that he had been sexually abused from ages 11 to 14 by a parish priest, Robert L. Brennan, since retired, who had been removed from priestly duties years earlier because of previous allegations.

Brennan had been named in a 2005 grand jury report alleging “inappropriate or suspicious behavior .?.?. with more than 20 boys from four different parishes,” cases that never made it to court because of a statute of limitations.

Sean, who alleged that he had been abused from about 1998 to 2001, came forward soon enough to meet the law’s requirements. But days before he was scheduled to testify at a preliminary hearing, he died of a heroin overdose. He was 26. The criminal charges against Brennan were soon dropped.

The McIlmails’ faith runs deep. “Understand, we were not palm-and-poinsettia Catholics,” says the family’s’ youngest child, Kaitlyn, 26, referring to parishioners who attend Mass only at Easter and Christmas.

Mike, 59, in particular, was scrupulous about observing the sacraments. A law enforcement officer for 33 years, mostly in narcotics, he went to confession every two weeks, sometimes more. On his sole trip overseas, to witness his brother’s ordination as a priest in the Legionaries of Christ, a notably strict order, Mike sought confession because he missed Mass while on the flight to Rome.

Resurrection of Our Lord Church in Northeast Philadelphia was the family’s sanctuary for decades. Debbie and Mike were married there. Their three children all attended Catholic school there.

But they don’t go to church anymore, at Resurrection or anywhere else. And they have no plans to see Pope Francis when he visits Philadelphia this month.

Debbie and Mike McIlmail, with daughter Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn holds a photo of Sean, with nephews Braden and Liam shortly before he died. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Betrayal

“What’s worse than rape? Betrayal by the Catholic Church,” Mike says, sitting forward on his chair. “You know, you send your kids to Catholic school and think they’re going to be safe, and Sean’s being raped in the church. They knew about Brennan for years. They did not transfer him.”

Mike cries eight or nine times in the course of a late summer afternoon. “I don’t go too many places now,” he says. “My life is forever changed. You’re not supposed to bury your child, especially in a manner like this.”

Mike, who worked a second job as a roofer to pay for his children’s Catholic education, regularly took confession from Brennan. He often reflexively calls the man he accuses of abusing his son “Father.”

Many Catholics have moved on from the scandal that racked Philadelphia, Boston and other archdioceses where priests were accused of sexually abusing children. Some victim families, having made peace with the past, anticipate the pope’s visit with excitement.

“I have hopes for him. He seems authentic,” Debbie says of Francis. But she also says this visit “is a missed opportunity for the pope. He’s coming to Philadelphia, which is so bad with priest abuse. He’s seeing the poor, the immigrants, the prisoners, all of which wasn’t the church’s fault.”

She pauses. A box of tissues is passed.

“But it is the church’s fault that we have this segment of the population that’s drug-addicted and has all these mental health problems.”

In June, Pope Francis approved the creation of a tribunal for judging bishops accused of failing to do enough to help young victims. In July, he had his first meeting with victims of sexual abuse.

But for activists such as the McIlmails — after Sean’s death, they have become activists — the first South American pope has not done nearly enough. Mike says, “Look what he did in Argentina. Nothing.”

They would like to see more priests behind bars and stripped of their pensions and a church that openly and actively pursues justice on behalf of the faithful.

The McIlmails’ house is tidy, but their lives have come undone.

Butterflies have become their new cross. Kaitlyn, a fashion stylist who lives at home, has a butterfly tattoo on her left forearm, with “Always” written in her older brother’s handwriting. In early September, she added another tattoo, “Let go, let God,” which Sean was prone to saying.

A cross and butterflies grace Sean’s granite gravestone at Resurrection Cemetery in suburban Bensalem.

“The butterfly has become the symbol of the case for them,” says Marci Hamilton, the family’s attorney. “It’s been one of those beacons of hope for them. It’s really common for survivor families to be devoted to some aspect of mission for survivors and their families.”

Debbie’s passion is keeping Sean’s spirit alive. “He really was courageous,” she says. “He really was a hero to put himself out there.”

But, of course, he wasn’t a survivor. “He’s a martyr,” his father says.

Mike says that he went to Mass regularly for a year after Sean told him that he had been abused and that he still talks “to God every day.” But he says, “The last day I set foot in the church was the day after I buried Sean.”

Kaitlyn describes Sean as “a ladies man, a charmer.” He had a dry sense of humor, loved quoting trivia. After he got himself clean — Hamilton wouldn’t take Sean on as a client until he had kicked the drug habit for six months — he spoke of becoming a drug rehab counselor.

He was especially motivated by a desire to safeguard his two nephews, Hamilton says.

“That Friday before the pretrial hearing .?.?. he was in better shape than I had ever seen him,” says Hamilton, who has handled other sexual abuse cases. “His whole thing was about protecting his nephews, those children. Honestly, if they had not come into his life, I’m not sure he would have come forward.”

That Friday night, Sean went to Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood to score drugs — the family suspects that he was nervous about facing Brennan — and never came home. His body was found in his silver Impala two days later.

The pursuit of justice has become the McIlmails’ mission. Sean’s room is home to a library of books about sexual abuse by priests and the church’s power, books that Mike quotes constantly. The family has conducted 20 vigils outside archdiocese churches and offices to promote awareness of the abuse, displaying placards that include a photo of Brennan with Sean at his eighth-grade graduation. Some placards are stored behind the changing table for their year-old granddaughter, Emma Siobhan, her middle name for the uncle who never met her.


For the nephews

For more than a decade, Sean said nothing to his parents about the alleged abuse. It wasn’t until 2012 — during therapy for his drug addiction and after Philadelphia’s second grand jury report on priest sexual abuse in the diocese — that he told his family.

“A substantial delay in the reporting of sexual abuse is common,” says a 2011 report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “and many incidents of sexual abuse by priests were reported decades after the abuse occurred.”

The overwhelming majority of victims in that study were male, 81 percent. “Boys tended not to disclose at the time of abuse,” says sociologist David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, “due to the heavy stigmas of homosexuality and not being able to defend themselves.”

In 2005, Brennan merited a 14-page section in the first Philadelphia grand jury report. He was removed from active ministry that year. In 2006, a lawsuit was filed accusing him of abusing a minor in the late 1960s and early ’70s, two decades before Sean allegedly was abused. That case, like many abuse cases involving priests, was settled out of court.

Now 77, Brennan lives in Perryville, Md., on the Eastern Shore, where he collects a church pension. “His faculties have been restricted for quite some time,” according to a statement by Ken Gavin, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Archdiocese. “He is not able to publicly exercise his priestly ministry or present himself publicly as a priest. His canonical status is currently pending in terms of laicization” — or removal from the priesthood. Brennan’s defense attorney, Trevan Borum. declined to comment.

The sexual abuse scandal shocked the Philadelphia area, home to 1.5 million Catholics, 35 percent of the population. The “Bishop Accountability” Web site, which tracks clergy abuse, lists 136 priests from the archdiocese suspected of abuse, including Brennan.

The scandal ensnared two cardinals, Anthony Bevilacqua and Justin Rigali, who had been criticized for not doing enough to investigate and remove from active ministry priests accused of sexually abusing children. The criminal investigation resulted in the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, the first Catholic Church official jailed in the scandal, for covering up the abuse. It is possible that he will meet privately with victims and their families, but any such meeting is unlikely to be announced in advance.

On Sunday, Sept. 27, Pope Francis is scheduled to visit several prisoners at the jail in Philadelphia where, until July, Lynn was incarcerated. (He is now in a state prison awaiting the outcome of an appeal.)

About a week after Sean McIlmail’s death, the Philadelphia district attorney’s office dropped its case against Brenna for lack of a witness.

“Sean suffered in silence for over a decade,” District Attorney Seth Williams, a former altar boy, said at the time. “I cannot say enough about the bravery this young man displayed in coming forward to bring these crimes to light.”

Sean told his family that he was cooperating with authorities for the sake of his nephews, Liam and Braden, with whom he chased butterflies in the yard, so what had happened to him “wouldn’t happen to these guys.”

A civil case, seeking reimbursement for Sean’s drug rehabilitation costs and damages for pain and suffering, is continuing.

“We plan to depose Brennan. We’ve asked for Monsignor Lynn, the bishops, a laundry list of church officials,” says Hamilton, the family attorney and a scholar of church-state legal issues. “The family is requesting an agreement of better policy. This case is not under seal, because the McIlmails have refused to sign the confidentiality agreements requested by the church. They want justice. They want to protect children. They want the world to know. And they want the church to do better.”

Discovery in the case is supposed to begin this fall, with a trial scheduled for November 2016, though the church has historically settled cases before they go to trial.

“The drug piece is unbelievably common,” says David Clohessy, national director of SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests). “The indirect disclosures are surprisingly common. The law enforcement involvement is painfully rare.”

The McIlmails’ anger is directed more toward the church than the priest they accuse of damaging their son.

“I’m not mad at him, because I think he’s sick,” Debbie says. “I’m angry at the church for letting him serve so long and covering it up.”

The McIlmails aren’t sure anything will bring them back to participation in the formal structure of the church. Their faith, however, remains resolute.

“We were never mad at God,” Mike says. “I pray nightly that Brennan lives a nice long life. I also pray that other victims have the courage to come forward.”

Debbie plans to be out of the region when Pope Francis visits. “If they had asked if anyone who had a child who was a victim would meet with the pope,” she says, “I would have met with him.”