MASSACHUSETTS
Voice from the Desert
Hunger Strike for Justice by Clergy Abuse Survivor to Continue: Days 4, 5, and 6 of the Hunger Strike will be at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA
Contact:
Kevin O’Connor, 434-327-6543
Mark Lyman 518-852-7295
A victim of clergy sexual abuse by a Jesuit priest began a Hunger Strike for Justice on March 25, 2012 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. It began there because the victim, although abused by a Jesuit priest, was badly treated by Cardinal O’Malley when she told him about Jesuit non-responsiveness. The Cardinal said the Archdiocese would not get involved because “the Jesuits are working it out with you”. This was false. The victim was sexually assaulted on a study abroad program sponsored by the College of the Holy Cross in 1983.
She tried to report it the same year, but the college did nothing about it. She made several other attempts to report it over the next ten years, but the abuser remained in ministry and teaching. In 2003, the Jesuit abuser was finally removed from ministry and teaching and banned from ministry and teaching forever. The abuser’s family immediately began to harass the victim, because the Jesuits had provided her name. In 2006, the Jesuit abuser breached the ban on ministry; he was on the staff of a parish in Berlin, Germany. He also taught at Georgetown and Fordham. The victim learned this in 2009 after she googled the abuser’s name.
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