BUFFALO (NY)
WGRZ-TV [Buffalo NY]
November 20, 2024
By Charlie Specht and Sean Mickey
2 On Your Side’s Pete Gallivan says he wants others to feel empowered.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — As we continue to follow the fallout of the crisis in the Buffalo Catholic Diocese, we find ourselves in the unusual position of telling the story of one of our own.
Over the last six years, we’ve brought you many stories about sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.
But 2 On Your Side’s Pete Gallivan has never read those stories when they appear on your screen. That’s because Pete, when he was an 11-year-old altar server, says he was abused by a monsignor in Buffalo who he trusted.
Until recently, he never told anyone about his claim of abuse. But his lawsuit is one of more than a dozen test cases expected to move forward if a judge lifts a stay on the lawsuits to move them ahead in state court. That means Pete’s name is likely to become public in the process. So he wants to explain his story before someone else does.
Pete is breaking nearly five decades of silence as he tells his story to Channel 2 Investigative Reporters Charlie Specht and Sean Mickey.
We also want to issue a warning. This story includes descriptions of sexual abuse.
Pete’s story
Pete Gallivan had a typical upbringing on Mariner Street in Allentown in the 1970s.
The youngest of three kids in a Catholic family, Gallivan attended Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and School and proudly served as an altar boy for Msgr. Michael Harrington.
“Most of the memories are kind of not really there anymore,” he said on a recent morning as he gestured toward the now-shuttered parish. “The body does amazing things to protect itself.”
Harrington was known for taking parishioners on “pilgrimages” to visit the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. Each year, he would select one altar server to accompany him on the trip. It’s what happened during one of those pilgrimages in 1977 — when he was 11 years old — that changed Gallivan’s life.
“I woke up one night and my pajamas were wet,” he said, “and I opened my eyes and monsignor was right by the bedside. Now I’m confused at that point. I’m like, ‘Did I wet the bed?’ And he immediately said, ‘Come on, we better get you cleaned up.’ And at that point, I’m like, ‘OK I better go in the bathroom.’ And he insisted on bathing me.”
Gallivan’s story is similar to those from more than a dozen men who have come forward to file lawsuits in State Supreme Court in Erie County alleging that Harrington molested them when they were around 10 years old.
They describe the longtime priest, who died in 1989, as a calculating predator who forced them to drink an unknown liquid out of a flask. The boys would pass out and regain consciousness feeling they had been violated, they said.
“I’m wondering, what was in that flask?” Gallivan said. “You know, here’s a man I looked up to, trusted. He was a pillar of the church, had all the faith and respect. What am I going to think?”
The Diocese of Buffalo in 2018 included Harrington on its list of diocesan priests with substantiated claims of abuse.
“The Diocese of Buffalo sincerely regrets the harm that has come to all victims of abuse, and maintains a zero-tolerance policy for any form of abuse,” diocesan spokesman Joe Martone said in a written statement. “Because the lawsuit AB 136 Doe v. Diocese of Buffalo currently is pending litigation, we cannot comment specifically on this case.”
‘The floodgates just opened’
Gallivan never talked about the abuse, keeping it a secret for nearly 50 years until he was watching news coverage of the Buffalo Diocese abuse scandal that erupted five years ago and led to the resignation of then-Bishop Richard J. Malone.
“And my wife looks over at me and she says, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I didn’t even realize it, I was tearing up and for the first time in my life, I just looked at her and I said, ‘That happened to me.’ And she said, ‘What?’ And I just … four decades, the floodgates just opened, and I told her the whole story.”
“You feel shame. You feel guilt,” he said. “You feel, what are people going to say? So you pack it … you bury it down. And you forget about it. You go on living your life.”
Gallivan’s is one of the more than 900 claims that have been filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court against the diocese alleging abuse by diocesan priests, religious sisters and other employees. His is also one of the first “test cases” that is expected to move forward if Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki lifts the stay on some of the lawsuits and allows them to proceed in state court.
Retired parole officer Angelo J. Ervolina also said Harrington abused him on a trip to New York City. He told The Buffalo News in 2019 that he reported the abuse to Bishop James A. McNulty and that McNulty handed him $5 and said he would “take care of it.”
McNulty died in 1972 but Harrington remained in ministry for another two decades — where he encountered Gallivan and others who say the priest molested them. Harrington’s obituary stated that he sought out poor children and worked with youth.
“That was 1965,” Gallivan said. “That was the year I was born. That they knew … that the bishop himself knew about this. And at that point, you go from this violation of one man that you trusted, that you’ve held onto for 40 years, to a realization that you’ve been violated by a system.”
Gallivan wants to use his voice to encourage other survivors of abuse to speak up. He said he does not want people to feel sorry for him, but instead to take strength from his story and — referring to other survivors — to feel empowered to tell their own story.
“If our mandate as a station is to be a voice for the voiceless, I couldn’t sit by and not be a voice,” he said. “You don’t want to be the story. But I’ve just got to start owning and living my truth. That’s the only way you get past it.”
Gallivan also wants to urge the diocese — four years after it filed bankruptcy — to stop fighting the release of clergy abuse records and to make survivors whole.
“To move forward, you’ve got to get everything out and you’ve got to start from a clean slate,” he said. “And until everything is out there, it’s not a clean slate. It’s a dirty history.”