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Opinion: Ken Trainor
Tuesday, August 19th, 2014
By Ken Trainor
Staff writer
Last week I spent a lot of time thinking about the sex abuse accusation leveled against Ascension’s Monsignor John Fitzgerald, the iconic pastor of my childhood. Decades later, I learn that the man I respected may have had a darker side.
We don’t have hard-and-fast proof that he committed a sexual assault that left a 17-year-old girl traumatized, and we don’t have his side of the story because he died in November of 1984.
What we do have is a compelling account by Gail Peloquin Howard, who says she was the victim of that assault. Read it for yourself in the LifeLines section, starting on page 29.
When I first heard about the accusation, I hoped it wasn’t true – and if it were true, that it was an isolated incident, perhaps exaggerated. Then I read Howard’s account and, in spite of my misgivings, I found it plausible.
I’ve been a journalist for 30 years and though I’ve been fooled before, I have some experience with “B.S. detection.” I look for “red flags” when people tell their stories. I reserve my “willing suspension of disbelief” for films and theater, and even then they have to earn it.
Gail Howard earned it. She is a convincing, articulate spokesperson for victims of sex abuse – and not in that slick, polished style where you feel you’re being “worked.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.