View from the Parishes

By Martin C. Evans and Karla Schuster
Long Island (NY) Newsday
February 11, 2003

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lireax113126228feb11,0,5095726.story?coll=ny%2Dlinews%2Dheadlines

For some parents, the scathing grand jury report detailing alleged abuses by parish priests on Long Island came as vindication, giving credence to allegations they had made years ago.

For some priests, the report by a Suffolk grand jury was a veil of shame. But many Long Island worshipers, while voicing concern for the greater Catholic Church, said they remain confident in their own parish priests.

"The grand jury report is a blistering indictment of a system that was in place but was not enforced," said the Rev. Gerald Twomey, co-pastor of St. Anne's Roman Catholic Church in Brentwood.

Twomey said he knows firsthand what families of abuse victims endure because he has a cousin who was molested years ago at age 11 while serving as an altar boy in Brooklyn. "People are devastated, not only by the sins of the priests but the denial and the lack of attention to the true victims, these minors who were sexually abused," he said.

Anne Marie D'Angelo, a psychiatric nurse whose husband, Frank, is a deacon at St. Peter of Alcantara Catholic Church in Port Washington, said the report may help speed the healing process by validating the feelings of victims, but for most the scars are painful and enduring.

"I think it is helpful to victims to begin to see these things identified by a body not related to the church," said D'Angelo, who has three children in Catholic schools. "But I think survivors have been so victimized they will take a more wait-and-see attitude. The predator abusers were treated so much better. They were given homes, their bills were paid, and the hierarchy was giving as little as possible to victims and trying to shut them up at the same time."

Despite the report's unsettling details, which tell of abuser priests being transferred from parish to parish and of victims hushed by cash settlements, many among Long Island's 1.3 million Catholics express confidence that their own churches have not been touched by abuse.

"Of course I find it upsetting, but it really hasn't been a situation in our parish," said Noreen Thompson of Kings Park, who attends St. Joseph's Church there. Her son, Patrick, 12, will make his confirmation this spring.

"I feel it's important for my children to have a religious base," she said as she picked up her youngest, Liam, 3, from the YMCA in Bay Shore yesterday afternoon.

For many Long Island Catholics, parish churches have been centers of trust throughout their lives.

Melissa Esposito has been attending St. Mary's Church in East Islip since she was born. She was married at the church and sent her two children, now grown, to the parish school. She still attends Mass on Sundays, still plops her envelope into the basket, still attends the Rosary Society meetings.

"The way the church is responding to this is wrong, but I still give. You just do," Esposito said.

But recently, her mind has wandered to places she never expected, even as she listens to the pastoral homily on Sunday mornings.

"Nothing can shake my faith, but now I sit in Mass and sometimes I look up and I think 'Geez, you never know,'" she said. "You don't walk away from the church, but it really makes you wonder."

The Rev. Larry Duncklee, of St. Luke's Church in Brentwood, said he believes the church is capable of regaining the confidence of congregants.

"If people can see holiness and touch holiness, in two years this will have no effect," he said. "But if people look at a priest and can't see a striving for holiness, then we are in trouble. And the people will be in trouble. Because they won't have shepherds to lead them."