IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register
January 30, 2019
By Peter Jesserer Smith
After traveling 300 miles by train to Albany, Michael Whelan, a Catholic survivor of sex abuse, witnessed the passage of the Child Victims Act in the state Legislature. Four decades had passed since a Buffalo priest preyed on him as a 13-year-old, taking away his childhood and altering his future forever.
“For us victims, I cried. I absolutely cried. I felt the relief they absolutely heard us,” he said. As he traveled back toward Buffalo by train, Whelan told the Register the sexual abuse he received during a skiing trip cost him many things: a happy first marriage, normal family life and a promising military career, as the trauma kept resurfacing through the years.
“It has been a slow, hard fight,” Whelan said.
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