NEW ROCHELLE (NY)
The Journal News
By GARY STERN
gstern@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
A 68-year-old Ursuline nun will speak publicly for the first time tomorrow about being sexually molested by a parish priest when she was a girl, an experience that silently shaped her entire life.
Sister Claire Smith of New Rochelle said that childhood shame was one reason she joined a religious community in 1956.
"I just felt I was used goods," she said. "Who would want me? I had this secret I couldn't tell anybody. These were the days when you didn't say anything."
Smith, who went on to become a noted educator and counselor, will address the Southern Westchester chapter of Voice of the Faithful, a national Catholic lay group that formed in Boston during the sex-abuse scandal of 2002.