Catharsis

Copyright 2002 Ventura County Star

Ventura County Star

April 28, 2002 Sunday

SECTION: News; Pg. A01

LENGTH: 1529 words

HEADLINE: Abuse victims say it helps to talk

There is less pain, less shame in sharing experience with others

BYLINE: Tom Kisken; Staff writer

BODY:

Richard Kirby tells his story because he thinks it helps. The 39-year-old marketing and sales manager in Virginia e-mailed a journalist after reading about sexual abuse accusations against a Southern California priest. Kirby said he wanted to go public about being molested by a Catholic priest about 25 years ago as a teen-ager living in Westlake Village.

Kirby offered neither formal complaints in a lawsuit nor criminal charges -- just haunting words about overnight camping trips and a relationship he said he was told to keep private because no one else would understand. Kirby said that for years he kept the secret before finally telling a therapist, then his family and then a Los Angeles County sheriff's officer who told him the statute of limitations had expired.

"I didn't think anyone would believe me," he said on a cell phone in interviews conducted on a drive home from work and during a lunch-hour excursion to Washington, D.C. But the scandals that last week led to a Vatican summit have seized people's attention like a roadside pileup, giving Kirby and others an audience.

"It's getting easier every time the story is told. There's less of the pain and less of the shame," he said, later alluding to the growing number of victims telling their stories. "To hear there are other people who went through very similar experiences E in a way, it validates what happened to you. It tends to take responsibility away from you and put it on the priests."

Some people come out to journalists as victims of clergy abuse. Others pass on the names of priests or church employees in the Ventura County area who they believe were once accused, with varying levels of credibility. A spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff's Department said it hasn't heard from any victims. But the leader of a support and advocacy group said it receives a dozen phone calls a day from survivors or their family members. Lawyers who specialize in such cases say they feel at times as if they're trying to plug a flood.

"Every day, I'd say, we're trying to field 200 phone calls," said Jeff Anderson, a nationally known clergy abuse attorney from St. Paul, Minn.

Anderson was interviewed in a Ventura County hotel room Thursday afternoon between meetings with about 10 Oxnard area residents who say they were molested by Catholic priests or were witnesses to the abuse. The lawyer wouldn't name any offenders or parishes but said it's possible lawsuits could be filed as early as this week. Though Anderson said police are involved in local cases, both the Oxnard Police Department and the Ventura County Sheriff's Department said they have no investigations. Because he's been handling clergy abuse cases for about20 years and is often in the news -- he is litigating a lawsuit against the Vatican for covering up scandals -- Anderson hears from victims everywhere. He said he is often the first person to whom they tell their story. "Sometimes they've repressed the events. Sometimes they've lived in secrecy and shame," he said, painting a picture of such a person suddenly confronted with media accounts of others who feel the same pain. "So many victims have said, 'Oh my God, that happened to me. Maybe it's not my fault,' " he said. A Ventura man in his 60s first talked publicly at a support group meeting a few weeks ago about being abused by a priest as a teen-ager in Missouri. He talked about the story again at a Westlake Village parish forum on clergy abuse, his words causing some in the room to stand and applaud.

Asking that his name not be used, the man said he didn't believe anyone would listen to him until news broke of the Boston priest accused of molesting several dozen boys over 30 years. That brought out others from across the nation who said they had also been abused.

"I finally decided I was no longer going to hold it inside and go through the depression I was involved with for 40-some years," he said. "When the mass (of victims) came out, I finally had support. People now are starting to believe."

Credibility questions

Kirby said he cringed upon hearing of credibility gaps involving the Fresno woman who accused Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony of molesting her more than 30 years ago. She acknowledged to reporters she had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and also said she had been molested by fellow students, family members and others. Police dropped her case earlier this month, saying there was no evidence.

"I think any time you have publicity around something like this, you have that chance," said Kirby, who worries how the more suspicious claims affect other victims. "There are a lot of people who worry about being believed. Those false accusations will tend to make others who suffered these kind of things keep quiet."

Thomas Plante, a psychologist at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University, studies clergy abuse and counsels Catholic priests in dioceses throughout California. He said research shows about one or two of every 10 abuse allegations are false.

"It's kind of obvious," he said. "It's a barrage of media. Any time anything just dominates the press, people are going to say, 'How does it relate to me?' "

Some accusations are influenced by mental health issues, Plante said. Others may be driven by the money to be gained in legal settlements.

"Every time there's a report of a big settlement, it's going to encourage some people who are opportunists," said Don Steier, a Los Angeles lawyer who has represented clergy for more than20 years and is dealing with at least one lawsuit accusing a client of molestation.

Emphasizing some allegations are valid, Steier said others are exaggerated or clouded by the decades that have passed since the alleged incidents.

"Over the years, we've had stories where people would claim that they have been taken into dungeons below a church," he said, noting that later inspection of the specific building involved revealed contradicting facts. "There were no basements, let alone dungeons. What do you make of that?"

Some public revelations of clergy abuse involve victims who say they blocked the abuse out for decades. Psychologists say very real memories can be pushed out of conscious memory as a way of coping, with one therapist noting societal denial of clergy abuse may actually encourage repression.

But they also said repressed memories can be influenced by suggestion.

Take that point to Richard Farnell, a Newport Beach attorney representing two clients who say they blocked out memories of abuse for decades.

"Any memory can be false. The notion that all repressed memories are false is just foolishness," he said, noting that courts have to look for corroborating evidence, sometimes found through other victims who describe the exact same pattern of abuse.

Mary Grant of Covina, Southern California director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, offers a different response to the possibility of false accusations.

"I don't think it's very likely, given the trauma the victims have to go through. It's excruciatingly difficult," she said, suggesting such questions about validity miss the point. "I don't think it's so much 'Is it true?' or 'Is it not true?' There are very many legitimate reports of sexual abuse that are not being dealt with. That allows society to never acknowledge the truth and never hold those guilty accountable."

Focusing on damage done

Kirby said his abuse happened in a series of incidents that started when he was about 15 and living in Westlake Village. It ended a year or two later when he broke off all contact with the priest.

The priest allegedly involved faces other similar accusations and was removed from the ministry earlier this year. Kirby said confusion about the statute of limitations has prevented him from pursuing a civil or criminal case.

"I still look at the decision not to talk about it back then as probably being pretty safe," he said. "I don't think I would have been believed. I think I would have been a kid that would have been easy to push away." Kirby said he isolated himself after the abuse and wondered about his sexual orientation. As an adult, he said, he ran away from intimacy for years and has dealt with his abuse in therapy.

Now he is married and has two daughters and a stepson. "It has not ruined my life. It is a defining moment. It's not the definition," he said.

Sharing the story is therapeutic and chips away at the trauma. Kirby said he contacted a reporter and decided to use his name publicly as a way to direct attention where he thinks it is most needed.

"I feel that a lot of time and effort has been spent focused on the church and its issues, which is not bad, but leaves the victims of the problem out of the big picture," he said in his first e-mail, elaborating later on his car phone. "Without the face of victims and their story being out in the press, it's very easy for the Catholic Church to move on to the next page. People don't identify that there's harm done unless people come forward and tell their story."

-- Tom Kisken's e-mail addressis kisken@insidevc.com.

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