PHILADELPHIA (pa)
Philadelphia Inquirer
October 26, 2017
Excerpts from an Interview by Maria Panaritis
[Note: See also the major article Lost Childhoods.]
“The only thing that I get to control is how I tell my story.” – Gerad Argeros
Gerad Argeros, 46, says he was raped at age 11 by the Rev. James Brzyski at St. Cecilia’s in Philadelphia. In these interview excerpts, he describes a lifelong struggle with trauma and grief, and why he is choosing to speak publicly for the first time. He unsuccessfully sued the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and testified secretly before the Philadelphia grand jury that in 2005 uncovered decades of local clergy sex abuse. Brzyski, it said, sexually assaulted possibly more than 100 young boys. Argeros says decades of therapy saved him from suicide.
He had kept quiet for years about being abused at the parish.
“To get through, I started the biggest lie of my life.”
What was the lie?
“That nothing happened. That I just walked out of nothing. That I just walked out of church. … I remember when Oprah [Winfrey] came out and said she was sexually abused. I remember saying in my heart and in my body, ‘That does not happen.’ Cut to me running out of rooms screaming because I was convinced that everyone in the room was dead. When being in bed with a woman and her reaching around me in a particular way, and I would rip the room apart. … Waking up from dreams for years and years and years in a full rage. This is what kids have to do to survive. They have to disappear from themselves. And that becomes a habit.”
On the criminal statute of limitations that prevented prosecutors from charging Brzyski:
“I’m still ‘alleged.’ I’m an ‘alleged victim.’ I’m alleged not because it didn’t happen. I’m alleged because it’s never seen the light of day in court. I’m still a guy with a story. That’s all I am.”
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