SANTA FE (NM)
Santa Fe New Mexican [Santa Fe NM]
September 23, 2024
By Gabrielle Porter
A new plaque outside the Pastoral Center at St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque is meant to serve as an acknowledgment and remembrance of all victims of clergy sexual abuse, both living and deceased, within the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester speaks Monday at the dedication of a plaque dedicated to victims of clergy sexual abuse outside the Pastoral Center on the campus of St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque. “All of us in the archdiocese are keenly aware of the importance and the need to continue to be vigilant,” Wester said. “This is something we can never think, ‘Well, we’ve accomplished that.’ … We have to constantly be looking at our policies.”
Statues of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Joseph look out from under the arches of the entrance of the Pastoral Center on the campus of St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque. The new plaque is installed near the entrance.
A major turning point on Mary Sheppeard’s road to healing came two years ago when she attended Good Friday services for the first time in nearly 60 years.
The 74-year-old Albuquerque resident had struggled for years with the trauma she’d endured after being sexually abused by a priest in Holy Ghost Catholic Church when she was 17.
“I just made a decision: I was done letting that priest run my life,” said Sheppeard, who is now a parishioner at Holy Family Catholic Church in Albuquerque and a clinical social worker. “… I finally got healing.”
Sheppeard got to experience a little more healing Monday morning when she joined a couple of dozen people outside St. Pius X High School in Albuquerque to mark the installation of a plaque commemorating the suffering of victims of clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
The plaque, installed by the archdiocese outside the Pastoral Center on the school’s campus, reads: “In remembrance of all victims of sexual abuse, living and deceased, in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The archdiocese acknowledges your pain and apologizes for our failure to listen, to intervene, and to protect. We are resolved that it never happens again and are committed to the healing process and to reconciling our past with our hope for the future.”
Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester told attendees Monday the sign represents the archdiocese’s commitment to accountability and justice.
“All of us in the archdiocese are keenly aware of the importance and the need to continue to be vigilant,” Wester said. “This is something we can never think, ‘Well, we’ve accomplished that.’ … We have to constantly be looking at our policies.”
Wester on Monday also addressed victims of clergy sex abuse directly.
“I apologize for the terrible harm that was done to you,” Wester said, adding that while the archdiocese’s bankruptcy offered settlements to some victims, there is also a need for healing. “… We know that money is not going to do it. We know that anything we do is going to fall far short. But nonetheless it’s important that we do something, and we do all that we can to somehow communicate our sorrow.”
The installation of Place of Remembrance was one of the “nonmonetary” actions the archdiocese agreed to when it settled with hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Levi Monagle, an attorney who represented many of those victims in recent years, said in an interview Monday he commends the church for following through on that agreement.
“The archdiocese is making ongoing efforts to acknowledge the impact of the clergy abuse crisis here, and that’s a good thing,” Monagle said. “There’s always more to be done, but this is an ongoing effort on their part, so I think that’s positive.”
The church also noted in its most recent compliance report in its bankruptcy case it had ordered and installed anti-abuse plaques at schools within the archdiocese, another of the nonmonetary covenants laid out in the settlement.
Sheppeard, who said the bankruptcy and settlement money she received mostly went toward legal fees, said she was “very touched” by the ceremony Monday. She said she felt lost for years following the attack, which she said occurred when the priest offered to give her a ride to a friend’s apartment.
“I remember feeling like I was being groomed to be a perfect wife,” she said of her Catholic upbringing. “I was a virgin … was all involved into church, and then suddenly I had no value.”
Sheppeard later joined several clergy sex abuse survivors who founded the Survivors of Oppression or Abuse by Religious Authorities support group, or SOAR, which specifically serves women and is based in Albuquerque.
Esther Lucero-Miner, 74, another member of Holy Family Catholic Church, said she was attacked as a young woman in Albuquerque when she went to a priest for advice.
“I went in for pastoral counseling, came out a rape victim,” Lucero-Miner said. “It sent me into what I call a moral black hole because it’s just like everything upside-down.”
Lucero-Miner said she, too, took years to “move away those cobwebs” of pain, and said it was a different era with less understanding of what victims experience.
“You didn’t have the #MeToo movement back when this happened to me, and as a Latina you’re always blamed,” she said.
She also welcomed the new plaque and dedication.
“It’s a start,” she said. “… It’s important to be heard. It’s important to be trusted.”