No, no. I don't think this is abuse.
April 18, 2002

The Miami Hearald is reporting in detail about one of the accusers of Bishop O'Conell of Miami and how the bishop paid for his silence. I was all ready to borrow my brother-in-law's interview enhancement device and ask the good cleric how he could go to town with a defenseless 8 or 11 year old. Then I read this:

In a March 25 statement in his lawyer's office, the Massachusetts man described abuse that began in the late '60s at St. Thomas Aquinas seminary in Hannibal, Mo., when he was a ''naive'' 15 year old...

Well, okay, I've worked with enough 15 year olds over the years to know that they can be terribly naive, especially if they are far from home and dealing with the fact that they are gay in an environment that denigrates them for this. I can see how a priest, the one mentor you have, can take advantage of the situation and get his rocks off by being open and understanding.

So I keep reading:

The abuse continued for a year, until the boy left the school in his junior year after it became apparent the seminarian's crushes on other young men were increasing, he said. But that didn't end the contact with O'Connell, the ex-seminarian said.

He said they would meet in hotels whenever O'Connell was in Jefferson City, the first time in late 1969 or early 1970, when the boy would still have been 16. They met every two or three months through the middle of 1971, he said.

Huh?? At 15 my crush was on Rick(y) Schroeder. And the soccer team. (I wasn't really much for older guys, well unless they were Robert Ulrich.) So if this was happening to me, I would have been so glad its over. But here, the gentleman says that he continued having relations at 16 and 17, and then only when the priest came into town.

College put an end to their physical contact for years, but they resumed a sporadic physical relationship again in 1986, he said. By then, O'Connell had become bishop of the Knoxville diocese.

So at what... 36, an adult with his own career, life, and the physical resources to beat the crap out of someone or to avoid them, he starts up again? And his rational was ``I felt I needed him. He really had a hold on me.''

Then in 1998, he asked O'Connell for $75,000 when he ran into some financial difficulties.

''I was just so depressed and so down,'' he said. ``And I was so worried with all the stress at work and subway stress and commuting stress, and I was worried about losing my job.''

This is where my ire shot through the roof. He tells the local bishop, then decides that that isn't good enough, so he's going to get $75,000 out of the guy? He makes this demand in 1998, as a 40 something adult, and receives various payments over the years in amounts ranging from $200 to $2000 dollars.

Today, he says he has cut all ties with O'Connell. After hearing the accusations of others, he said one thing still bothers him.

''That he was using me just like he used the others,'' the former seminarian told his lawyer. ``That I wasn't really that special to him."

Ire off the chart here. This guy, and the others who've gone after the priest for various amounts of money, aren't in it for the justice. I doubt even for revenge, but merely opportunity. (Well, okay, the guy who was abused by two priests and then complained to a third before that guy too abused him, has a pretty fair reason for revenge) People who are sexually abused don't continue to go back to their abusers, for decades, and then hit them up for cash when times are tough. Doesn't work like that. If they do meet up with people who took advantage of them again, its usually with a make-shift version of the interview enhancement device I described above.

While there is no doubt that what O'Connell did was wrong, and he deserves to be charged accordingly, my faith in the other parties claims for continual abuse is vacated by their actions. 16, 17, 18 year-olds know a good thing when they have it--someone coming into town and agreeing to meet you to hop in the sack isn't some grand con played out on the defenseless. And 20, 30, 40 and now, almost 50 somethings also know good things too. Especially when those good things come loaded with cash and and are part of a highly hypocritical system.

These guys are scorned lovers, jilted and jaded. 15 or 16 and unwanted advances that you couldn't stop for fear of whatever, fine. I'll grant you that. 30 something and still seeking out the advancer across distances and in hotel rooms? That's a love affair. Asking for $75,000 is blackmail, pure and simple.

We continue with the convienent myth that 15-17 year olds are "incompetent adults" who have no idea what they are doing or what is being done to them, provided it has nothing to do with violence. In that case, all blinders are off and we're more than willing to throw them into jail for the rest of their natural lives.) No one in their right mind can excuse what these priests have done to these teenagers. You just don't get your needs met by sleeping with those entrusted to your care. But by continuing to go back, time and time again, when every avenue for escape was available, and then claiming abuse after trying to extort money, makes a mockery of those who are truly to defenseless to stop their victimizers.

Posted by Jody at April 18, 2002 10:13 AM

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