OKC Man Shares Story about Priest's Abuse

By Carla Hinton
The Oklahoman
August 18, 2019

https://oklahoman.com/article/5638815/okc-man-shares-story-about-priests-abuse

The "monster" that haunted Nick Yascavage for decades didn't come creeping out from under his childhood bed.

It wasn't some faceless stranger that his parents had warned him about.

The Oklahoma City man's nightmare walked into his parents' Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, home one afternoon as a revered guest of honor.

The "monster" came wearing a clerical collar and eventually asked his mother and father if 12-year-old Nicky wanted to go with him to get ice cream

This was no troll or bogeyman. The nightmare was real.

It was the new priest in town.

Yascavage, 53, has spent more than 40 years trying to repress the memories of his encounters with the man who started out as his youth pastor only to turn into his abuser.

The U.S. Army veteran and one-time restaurateur told only one person, a spouse, about the experiences that tainted his childhood.