BOSTON (MA)
Boston.com
JANUARY 10, 2016
BY ALLISON POHLE
Stan Doherty didn’t believe what he was reading when he opened his copy of The Boston Globe on January 6, 2002. He saw the first article in a series about the widespread and systemic abuse of children by clergy members in the Catholic Church—a church he was part of. He closed the paper, incredulous.
That month, hundreds of his fellow parishioners began to gather outside the 11:30 a.m. mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston to demand the resignation of one of the church’s clergy members, Cardinal Bernard Law. The Globe found Law had kept abusive priests, including Rev. John Geoghan, in the ministry for years despite allegations of child sexual abuse. (Geoghan was accused of abusing more than 100 children.)
But Doherty couldn’t bring himself to join them. He didn’t want the allegations to be true.
That all changed after he read a story on one of the victims who killed himself because he couldn’t recover from the abuse he had experienced.
“After that, I went out in front of this church and decided I wasn’t going to let them get away with this,” Doherty said. “Well, turns out, they did.”
Doherty and a group of about a dozen survivors and advocates, who informally call themselves the “sidewalk family,” have held a vigil of hope in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross for more than 14 years. This Sunday was the last for Doherty, and fellow advocates Ken Scott and Paul Kellen, both of whom have been present for more than 650 Sundays.
They’ve run out of hope.
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