I am here because...
I recognize...
in my life there has been
a major imbalance,
mainly caused by...
what I have done in a criminal way.
I want to promise myself
that this is going to be
the most honest...
confession of my life,
and in doing that,
I need to make
the long journey backwards
to understand what I did,
to acknowledge that,
in some way to make
reparation for it,
and to let those
whom I have offended
know that, if possible.
Basically what I want
to say to them is, you know,
it should not have happened.
It should not have happened.
When I saw him the first time,
oh, I think it was love at first sight.
- I agree.
- I really do.
It was easy to talk to her.
It must be.
We've been together 41 years now.
But he wasn't really practicing Buddhism.
He used to go with me to church.
Yeah. Before I even met you,
I think I used to go to the chapel,
just for peace and quiet,
you know, so...
But then I still had to go to Ireland
and talk to Maria's dad
and ask for her hand.
- By then you were baptized.
- Yeah.
- I think that was a big concern for my family.
- Yeah.
We got married
December 26, 1964.
I told Maria, I said,
"Would you like to go to the States?"
It was a big step,
but, you know, I was willing
to go anywhere Bob was going.
Yeah.
Ann was born May 9, 1966.
Yeah, a bundle of joy, really.
- She really was.
- Yeah.
'Cause Bob was working
12 hours a day.
We'd get dressed up,
and we'd go outside
and wait for Bob
when he was coming home.
Oh, she'd say, "Hi, Daddy,"
and give me a hug
and kiss, you know.
She was a perfect
little lady, you know.
You could take her anyplace.
In her own little way,
she was taking care of me.
So then I went to work
one day a week,
and then we decided
we'd buy a house... this one.
This one here.
The one and only house we got.
I was raised a really
strict Catholic in Ireland.
I mean, that was our life.
Yeah, and...
There is no other religion.
I thought she was a shining example
of a good Catholic
who had faith in her religion
whether I accepted all the beliefs
of the Catholic Church or not.
But I believed something...
And, you know, you raise
your kids that way, you know.
That was part of our life.
- It was our life, actually.
- It was.
I found peace there,
and, you know, comfort, I guess.
Some people are born
to be leaders,
some people are born to follow,
et cetera, you know.
I like helping people,
and, as one of my priest
friends said to me once,
he said, "You're a people person. "
And I think that helped a lot to say,
"Hey, I finally reached what...
or I'd like to do.
"I think this is what I want to do.
I think this is
what I'm called to do. "
I like to be with people.
I felt I was good with people.
I felt I was good with children.
I've often asked myself,
Why did I...
Why do I like children so much?
What do I want to do for them?
I feel compassionate to children
that I see sort of cornered and...
who image what I was
when I was their age
and did not have
somebody to turn to.
I tend to want to reach out
to people like that.
First time we met him was in 1971.
I was so excited to meet
somebody from home.
And I'd only been here,
like, five years at that time.
He would come and spend
his days off here.
He had a really strong Irish accent
at that time,
so we used to help him
with his sermons,
and Ann would go places with him.
Ann Jyono.
Little Ann... Ann was one
of the first people I met there,
or at least her parents.
Her mother was Irish,
father was Japanese...
of Japanese extraction, I think...
and was very welcome
at their home
for many, many years
of my time in Lodi.
I could, and was often
invited, to sleep over there.
Perhaps that's where
some of the problems began
in that... in Ann's situation.
There are two types
of people in the Church:
The hierarchy in the sacred
pastures, as they call them,
who are picked out by God to lead,
and the vast throng
who are the lay people,
and their duty is to be docile,
obedient followers.
It says that.
The system, it's a monarchy.
All power rests in individuals,
and so the system
protects those individuals
because it believes
that that is the will
of the higher power,
of the Almighty:
That He wants those individuals
to be powerful in order to control
this portion of reality called Earth.
And that's, I think, is...
It may sound simplistic
and like science fiction,
but that, in fact, is what it is.
I was...
a student for eight years at Holy Spirit,
which is in the Sacramento Diocese,
and they had some kind
of advertisement to Camp Pendola,
and it was my first time ever
going away to camp.
None of my friends
went to school there.
I didn't know
anybody else there,
and I actually wrote
a letter to my mom
that she had...
On the back of the envelope,
I said I met a new friend,
and his name was Father O'Grady.
I remember him coming
on a sleep-over with the other girls,
and a couple of days later,
the other girls breaking out
with poison oak,
and them telling me
that I didn't have poison oak
'cause I slept with Father.
And I think the thing
that I'm going to regret most
is that I allowed myself to...
just to cuddling alongside her
in bed one night
when she was visiting with me.
I would...
label it love and concern...
hugging, embracing.
That tended to...
satisfy me and...
in a way that took care of my need
to reach out to somebody, you know.
From there, I don't know
how the relationship started,
that he got my address,
that he got in contact with my parents.
He...
came over to the house
a couple of times.
My mother's from Argentina,
so she has more
of a trusting attitude.
She had told him, I think,
that I was pulling away
from the family a little bit.
She thought it was a good idea
for me to spend time with him.
If somebody asked me,
"Where was," you know,
"What...
What kicks the bucket for you?"
Whatever the thing is.
"What triggers things off for you?"
You know, "What areas would be?"
And, if given a variety
of areas to consider,
you know, I'd have to say
certainly on the younger level.
That's where a lot of that surfaced.
And if they said to me,
"Well, do you feel aroused
when you see women?"
I'd probably say no.
"Do you feel aroused
when you see men?" No.
"Do you feel aroused
if you've seen children?"
I'd say, "Well, maybe. "
"How about children who are...
in swimsuits?"
I'd say, "Yeah. "
"How about children in underwear?"
I'd say, "Yeah," you know?
How about...
"If you thought you saw children naked?"
And I'd say, "Mmm, yeah. "
My last memory...
of Oliver...
is severe...
pain...
before I black out.
Years ago, Case was Pastor of St. Anne's,
and the parents called Case,
and said to him,
"You know, when we
picked up our daughter,
"she was not herself at all.
"She was very nervous
and looked very jumpy
and looked extremely anxious. "
I mean, he took me out of the house.
I said, you know,
"Sometimes I get carsick on the road. "
He said, "Put your head on my lap,"
and, boom, the abuse started.
I mean, I was on Highway 12,
you know, two minutes
away from my house, and it started.
And for 96 hours, that abuse
was happening until my parents came
and said, "Did you have fun with Father?"
And I'm, like, "He tickled me too much. "
How do you tell your parents
what you just went through?
They finally got it out of her that,
during the night,
Ollie had come into her room
and had molested her.
I think I tried
to be affectionate with her
by kissing her on the mouth.
And I know that
my hand went down,
and I think I brought up
her night dress
and tried to...
not tried to, I did touch her
in the genital area,
perhaps outside her clothing at first
and maybe, although I can't be specific,
I think I probably tried
to put my hand inside her underwear,
and I think that's about
the time I realized that...
it was not correct to continue,
and, although I'm not...
paraphrasing exactly
what I remember I did,
but I think I want to say
that I stopped shortly afterwards
and...
left the bed,
left the room,
and went back to my own bed.
Case said, "Have you
ever done this before?"
And, "No. "
And... So he told him.
He said, "Ollie, this is outrageous.
"This is the very type of thing
"that people can go to prison for.
I want you to sit down
and write a letter of apology. "
I took, you know, the occasion
to write my letter to the victim,
and to say,
"Hey, I'm sorry. "
"May I say first of all
"that this is a difficult letter
for me to write.
"I have come
to like Nancy very much
"and wanted to express my friendship
and love for her
"by having her come stay with me.
"I also must admit
"that I feel very affectionate towards Nancy,
"as I am sure I have
displayed many times,
"even in your presence.
"Now comes the difficult part.
"Did I touch Nancy in areas
which I shouldn't have?
"I have to admit that I did
on a few occasions.
"I guess I became overly affectionate,
"and took advantage of the situation
"and went a little too far.
"I have already written
for an appointment with my bishop.
"I realize the big responsibility
I have as a priest,
"and the high ideals
which I must uphold.
"But I am also painfully aware
of my own weakness,
"and how hard it is at times
"to keep the ideals of priesthood
"in front of me...
"when temptations
to satisfy one's own ego
present themselves. "
He said, "You need to know
I've already called Bishop Guilfoyle,"
who was the bishop at the time,
and...
"As soon as our talk is finished here,
you're getting right in the car. "
I mean, my mother says
that when she was having
the meeting with Guilfoyle,
he was completely saying,
"Oh, I'm sure Nancy just
misunderstood his actions.
"I'm sure she...
what she says happened
really didn't happen. "
Even though Oliver had
already made an appointment,
Guilfoyle had already talked
to Case DeGroot about it.
My mom's having this meeting,
and he's saying, "Oh, I'm sure
nothing really happened,"
blah, blah, blah.
My mom pulls out this letter,
and she said his face went beet-red.
He was furious because of the letter.
Why was he angry about that?
For legal reasons, I'm sure.
Of the, you know...
I think he was anxious
that the letter be destroyed
or in some way...
disappear.
Case wanted to make sure
that Ollie was going to be
getting counseling for this,
but when he inquired,
the bishop felt that...
he had done his part,
he had brought him down,
and, in essence,
his part was over,
and he should not continue
to be a part of this.
I remember saying
one time to Case...
we were driving somewhere,
and Ollie's name came up
for one or another reason:
What he does on his day off, you know,
and...
when I said, "Well, you know,
he sleeps over at Maria's house,"
and I could see
he got so, like, nervous,
but he didn't say anything to me.
The reasons we asked him
to stay overnight sometimes
is because the church can be hectic,
and, like, a priest
can be on 24-hour duty
because parishioners
may need help,
and it was kind of like a relief
to get away from work.
The duties that a priest
has to perform
shouldn't take up all his time.
And I do remember
one time, I think...
And that was his answer
to non-married priests.
- In other religions they're married.
- Yeah.
It would be so much
easier to help people
in the Catholic religion...
'Cause you know
what a family's like.
...if they had a family of their own,
and he used to say
he couldn't do that.
He couldn't do both.
Yeah, 'cause of the work
with the church
that, you know,
what he says is dedication
to the Church, you know.
You have to have celibacy
because you can't give...
But I says, "How do you know
how a family functions?"
And he would say,
"Well, by education, school. "
You know, looking back
at it now in reflection,
it's more like a power trip
that he would have us robe him,
like he was a deity, you know?
Like he was the king
or something, you know?
He would call us
out of class, you know.
He had total control of us
'cause he was at our school,
he was at our home,
he was at church.
In a Catholic lifestyle,
what else is left after that?
What part of my life wasn't he at?
L... Absolutely, you know.
I mean, there's an awful lot of my areas
that I was ill-equipped
to handle, you know.
Counseling would be one of them.
If I were back in,
I'd never counsel people,
unless I took training
in it, you know.
Because apparently I wasn't
able to spot the differences,
spot the elements that...
There were danger signals
That a therapist, you know,
would know to say,
"Oh, there's transference here,"
you know.
This person is not alone,
coming to me once a week.
This person is calling me
on the phone twice a day.
This person is calling me on the phone
about things that are
insignificant right now.
"My God, what do I have
for dinner?"
Whatever you like.
Why are you calling me?
You've had dinner before.
You'll have dinner again.
But, you know,
what was there about me
that kind of said
"You can call me,"
you know?
This was somebody
that we knew for 23 years,
totally trusted.
We trusted him because...
And now, you know,
I hear, you know,
things he did with other families,
and...
I just feel...
I never saw that side of him.
You know, we were supporting him
up to the very, very end,
'cause he was...
he was the perfect...
example of what you would think
a priest would be
when he was here in our house.
I mean, he was always respectful.
He was... Anything that I saw
with him with the kids,
he was fine.
He would stay here.
I mean, you'd see him
in here in the morning
reading his Bible.
He was everything that I...
I'd go to work and...
He was the closest
thing to God that we knew.
Being Catholic is...
not like being a Lutheran
or a Presbyterian.
The thing that,
for a lot of non-Catholics
is hard to understand is,
the Church teaches
that the only way to salvation,
if you're Catholic,
is through the Church,
and if you're not
in communion with the Church,
you're damned to hell.
And it's not just kind of
like without-God hell.
It's fire and brimstone hell for eternity.
Well, the Eucharist,
as we call it in Catholic theology,
the Holy Communion is the sharing
of the bread and wine
that for some is the body
and blood of Christ,
for others represents
the body and blood of Christ.
No matter what you call...
what words you use,
it's essential to Catholicism.
The power of the Eucharist
is what the Church
has held over people,
that "I, as an ordained person
with an indelible mark,
"can make Holy Communion
"is what separates you from me,
"what separates me
from the average person
going down the street. "
And if you think of, you know,
the earliest church communities,
it wasn't controlled by the clergy.
It was breaking of bread
and passed around to believing people
as a symbol of Christ's presence...
spiritual presence among us.
But then it has become
controlled in many ways,
and politicized.
So, for instance,
if you're married and divorced
and remarried but not by a priest,
you can't go to Communion.
If you're gay and you're not
absolutely chaste and celibate,
you can't go to Communion.
If you vote for somebody
who approves of abortion,
you can't go to Communion,
according to some.
So it's become a kind
of a politicized reward
for thinking the right way,
when, in effect,
it's none of the above.
I can't think of anything more evil
than a priest using his office,
what the Catholics
would call alter Christus,
when the priest raises
that host at Mass
and consecrates that host,
the priest becomes one with Christ.
The Catholics believe,
and we're all taught as little kids,
that it's truly Jesus Christ.
To take that hand,
within moments before or after that,
and place them on a child's genitals
and abuse him...
And I think that was part
of the terrible destruction to the child
that in addition to all the other...
consequences...
long-term consequences
of being sexually abused,
the spiritual abuse...
of being abused by embodiment
of the divine, if you will,
was just devastating.
I asked for a meeting
with Oliver O'Grady in '86,
and they told me, you know,
"Vengeance is wrong.
"He's a virtue of priesthood now.
"He's in counseling.
Check your motives.
"God will delve out punishments.
You don't need to. "
When Nancy Sloan came
to you in the '80s,
she was distressed, correct?
1986, was it?
Was she distressed?
No, she wasn't.
Was she just doing just fine?
She... The first time I saw her
was that day.
I hadn't known anything about her.
She seemed very composed.
He just went on and on,
lashing out all this guilt on me,
when I told him, you know,
I just want him
to understand the depth
of the pain that I suffer
on a regular basis,
that how, when I see a Dodge Duster,
which was the car
that he drove at the time,
how I still pull over and dry heave.
What did she want?
She wanted to know
whether Father O'Grady
was continuing in therapy.
What did you tell her?
I told that I would...
I thought he was,
but I would check
on it for sure.
- Was he?
- Yes.
I told him, "You knew
that I was being abused.
"You knew that the abuse
was happening.
How could you not
have done something?"
So Bishop Montrose knew
O'Grady was an abuser?
He knew that O'Grady
had been accused
of inappropriate touching in '76.
Just like every other bishop after '76.
- Right?
- Yes.
And he said...
"We knew that you were being abused,
"but you were a girl,
"so we thought it was normal curiosity.
"Had you been a boy,
"we would have thought
something was wrong with it.
"That would have been obscene
for him to have abused a boy,
like homosexual. "
The situation is, I'm alone with the boy.
There wasn't anybody else
in the rectory at the time.
I brought him in.
I had been affectionate
with him before,
so being affectionate again with him
wasn't that difficult
a thing to do, which I was.
And I remember...
just holding him and hugging him
and probably saying
some nice things to him,
and he was responding
as well, you know.
And the thought that had gone
through my mind, actually,
was to...
take off all his clothes
and to molest him that way.
And I think I may have
taken off his T-shirt,
and then I was going
to unbuckle his pants,
and there was a feeling...
I didn't know if I wanted to go...
There was a conflict
in my mind about,
"Do I really want to do this?
"Here's somebody that I like.
"Here's somebody that I respect,
"a family I respect.
What would he feel like
at the end of this?"
Yet, at the other side,
there was urges within me
to be sexual with him,
and this is an opportunity
to be sexual with him,
because I wouldn't have
this opportunity again
God knows when.
And so I decided not to be
affectionate with him,
and yet later, I brought him
back into my bedroom again,
and I did unbutton his pants,
take out his penis,
and I began to masturbate him
at that time.
And...
I think what I... In doing that,
I'm not too sure what
he was feeling with all...
I think, looking at his face
kind of told me that he was...
a little uneasy about this.
I thought at one point
he was going to cry, you know.
One of the few times
it had ever happened to me,
I had an orgasm myself...
without him touching me,
and I think that ended it
right there and then.
So I just tidied him up, and...
perhaps I took care of myself, too,
in the bathroom alone,
but I tidied him up
and put on his T-shirt,
and then I made a decision
right there and then.
I was not going to do that again to this boy.
There's Ireland.
Yeah.
He went with us.
Yeah.
There he is
with Grandma and Grandpa.
- That's right. That's you.
- Yep.
- You're standing there.
- Behind the car.
Yeah.
- That's your Communion picture.
- Yep.
With Mahony.
I'm angry at Mahony
for claiming that he had absolutely
no knowledge of this pedophile
who had a file, a sub-secret file,
that had pieces of evidence,
that had, you know,
a father who had...
the Howard father
who had come forward
with his concerns
about the amount of time
that his children were alone
on Oliver O'Grady's days off.
'76 to '84,
that's, I think, when a lot of
the Howards' situation took place,
and, you know,
if I was involved with them,
I was a danger to them,
but I would have been a danger
to others as well.
Were you concerned
about Father O'Grady's conduct
with regard to the Howard
family in 1980?
I called him in and told him
that he was to cease and desist
any more conduct... contact
with Mrs. Howard or the Howard family.
He promised to do so,
and I never had another report
about him and the Howards.
I visited with the bishop,
and we had a conference,
and I had mentioned that perhaps
I should need some counseling
to get an understanding of this,
and the bishop kind of at that time
said, "Okay, go ahead and do that. "
You know, I'd say, "Bless me,
Father, for I have sinned. L... "
Sometimes it's good
to give them a time limit
as to when your last
confession was,
and say, "Well, I'd been with
some friends of mine yesterday,
"and some of them
are young children,
"and I had the opportunity
to be alone with one of them,
"and I did some things
such as to touch his private parts,
"and took occasion
to do that a few times
"when he was alone with me,
"and...
"I want to confess that right now,
ask forgiveness and absolution. "
If it had come to your attention
that Father O'Grady told
your vicar-general
that he had sexual urges
towards a 9-year-old
or 10-year-old or an 11-year old,
is that cause to remove
him from ministry?
No.
And the Church just moved him
to another place where they have kids.
Why didn't they just take him out?
Why didn't they admit it?
There was no action taken
that would remove him from children,
and so when you transfer him
from one place to another,
it's...
just a tragedy waiting to happen.
Like again, the '84 situation,
what brought it up
was, you know, I'm not
feeling right inside.
There's something not right.
I need to take care of this.
When I had mentioned it
to my counselor,
this time a professional counselor...
he was a layman...
He was very helpful, you know?
And he about pulled
the whole tablecloth
out from under me, you know?
And all of a sudden,
I saw this massive...
problem, you know,
that I had,
these tendencies that I had,
and this vale of destruction
that I had created
as a result of that.
And that was very frightening,
very difficult to comprehend,
and even to want to comprehend
at that particular time
that that was going on.
But that's what he did
when he confronted me,
and said, "I need to report this,"
and he meant report it
to the authorities...
police department...
and that really scared me, you know?
That really woke me up.
My counselor suggested
that I now talk
to the bishop's office.
Well, I'm aware right now
that a personnel file
is kept on each person,
so I would tend to think that,
knowing Mahony as he is,
that he would have
gone through all those
and would have seen any references
that would have been in the file
regarding the 1973
and 1976 issues,
and that, I think,
should have told him
that there was, you know,
not just a one-shot deal,
but there was at least
two prior situations
that needed to be dealt with.
I should have been removed...
and attended to,
and he should also,
then, have followed up
by attending to the people
that I harmed.
I'd like if he had done that.
I'd like if all of the bishops had done that.
Now, I didn't talk
to Mahony right away.
I think I talked to the other monsignor
that was there, Monsignor Cain.
Did you think it was important in 1984
that the Stockton Police Department
be advised not only of the information
concerning young Mr. Howard,
but also that there had been
a prior allegation
by Nancy Sloan's family
of inappropriate touching?
No.
Well, how would they uncover
what happened to Nancy Sloan,
unless someone from
the diocese told them?
They wouldn't,
and at the time,
the two just were not related.
They just didn't coordinate.
What do you mean when you say
they weren't related,
they didn't coordinate?
Well, at the time of...
that he came in in '84
to talk about this incident,
certainly...
I knew the one in '76 took place,
but I didn't put the two together.
One was a girl.
It was inappropriate touching.
The other was a boy, he said,
so I just didn't hook them up
in my own mind.
Monsignor Cain then suggested
I talk to the diocesan attorney.
Oh, it was very difficult, yeah,
because I was, you know, kind of...
you know that kind
of unknowing thing?
I could be arrested.
Where could I end up, you know?
This could be...
What will my family think?
What will anybody think
when this happens, you know?
Mahony did call me.
He was out of town with some meeting.
I can't remember where.
But when he did get back,
he did talk to me.
I remember saying to him,
I said, "You know, Bishop,
this whole thing
has been going on for the past"...
and I'd been keeping
a record of the days...
"40 days. "
It was, like, actually 40 days.
I said, "It's"...
I said, "It's been a real
desert experience for me,"
using an analogy from the Scripture
and, you know, the whole
"40 years in the desert" type of thing.
I said, "It's been a real Lenten
experience for me, I guess,"
I said, "even outside of Lent. "
And he was very supportive, you know.
He was very compassionate.
I felt at the time...
I think he was merely calling
to check how I was doing,
because he obviously knew
I had been very stressed out
over the situation,
and I told him that, you know.
And he got back to me.
He said, "This is where we are:
"No charge is being filed,
but we are moving you on,
and here's a couple of other parts
to the package deal. "
The bishop, the attorneys,
and the police department
decided that maybe it was best
to move me on to another situation
out of the particular county
in which these charges will be filed,
and then to...
they'll let me take care
of the business there.
And Mahony's people
promised the police
that he would never
have another parish,
that he wouldn't be around kids,
and they'd take care of it.
In the Vatican Ecclesiastical system,
there's this term that's used.
It's an Italian word
which means good impression,
good image.
One of the aspects,
one of the factors
in a man being successful
in the Church
is that he create a good image,
and that's what Roger was
very much concerned about,
that there be this image
of a very upright, loyal,
orthodox bishop,
soon to become archbishop hopefully,
because he would be the only
choice for the pope
to be the archbishop of Los Angeles.
And the thing he had to do, then,
was to take O'Grady, to avoid scandal,
and any scrutiny on him in particular,
was to move him
to an outlying parish
far away from where the police
would have jurisdiction,
which was in Stockton at the time,
and move him out to San Andreas...
St. Andrew's in San Andreas...
way out there in the hinterland,
and put him out there
in a very quiet little bucolic setting,
where there was no other supervisor,
just O'Grady,
and nobody would know,
and the police wouldn't know,
the public wouldn't know,
the parishioners and the victims
over there wouldn't know,
and Rome wouldn't know.
I'd taken the depositions
of cardinals, archbishops,
and bishops across this country
for 23 years,
and what I've encountered is deception,
perjury, denial, and deceit
at the highest levels
of the Catholic Church.
Somebody has represented
to the police,
in the middle
of their active investigation,
that they are going to transfer O'Grady
out of the parish...
That he will be working
only with adults
and away from children,
and Monsignor Cain has denied
that he was possessed
of that knowledge.
Under oath.
You were the captain of the ship,
the bishop of the diocese,
the ordinary in charge.
Who else, if you weren't
possessed of this knowledge
and Monsignor Cain wasn't
possessed of this knowledge,
do you think could have been,
knowing the way the diocese works
or at least worked in 1984?
I just have no idea of knowing.
I don't know.
I know that Monsignor Cain
knew that last sentence existed,
he certainly would have said something.
He would not have just let us go ahead
and move him to San Andreas.
I know that.
So I don't know who...
When they say
"This unit was advised,"
I don't know who they're referring to.
I have no idea.
To quote the cardinal's
appointment letter, he put him in
"full care of the souls
of that parish in California. "
This... it would have been the first time
that I had the total responsibility
for a parish.
Up to that time,
I was an associate.
It was again working out
in a nice, nice way for him
that another situation
had been smoothly handled.
Do you remember receiving this letter
from Father O'Grady?
I don't remember it, but I recall...
You know, you showed it to me.
I presume I received it.
Okay. Next sentence states,
"I would like to write to you
as one of the first persons
to whom I owe a great deal of gratitude. "
Period.
"I sincerely thank you
"for all that you have done for me
in the past few months. "
What did you think
he was referring to there
when he made that statement?
Nothing in particular. I thought
this was a overly effusive letter.
I didn't really have
that much relations...
personal relationship with him.
He was not a priest
that I would golf with
or have dinner with
or anything else,
so he was, I think,
quite flowery and effusive, basically.
I honestly don't know.
As I say, when I first...
when I saw this again,
and I suspect the time when I got it,
it's just an overly effusive letter
that...
Next paragraph states, quote,
"I am particularly grateful to you
for your sensitivity to me
and my needs at this time. "
What did you think
he referred to there?
I don't remember.
Really, as I say,
I just found the whole letter
terribly overstated,
and I imagine at the time
I read it cursorily
and filed it after...
It probably would have then...
I didn't answer it for some time.
I didn't feel it was...
it was important or...
I have no idea.
At this point, looking back
at this 12 years ago,
I can't remember what I thought
when I read this letter.
When I read this,
I was just very puzzled.
I couldn't imagine
what he was referring to.
I just didn't...
I personally didn't pay
that much attention to it.
You'll notice I didn't answer it
till almost three weeks later.
What Cardinal Mahony did is,
he picked his own career,
and he picked power and glory
over the children.
It's like the scene in the Gospel
where it says that Satan took Christ
to the top of a mountain,
and showed Him
all the cities of the world
and all the glory over the world,
and said, "This all can be yours
if you'll just sit and bow down
and worship me. "
I think that's what Cardinal Mahony did.
It was the only thing he could do
to keep his status,
and ultimately be exalted
to cardinal as he was,
not two years later.
To be married in the Church,
the Catholic Church,
you go through a series of classes
with the priest that you're dealing with.
In our case, it was Oliver O'Grady.
Those classes,
from what I've heard now,
run between six and seven weeks,
or six or seven sessions.
My wife and I went in for our classes.
We met with the...
with O'Grady one time.
He found out that I was
in law enforcement,
and determined
that we did not need
any more further marital training,
and signed us off,
and we were able to get married
in the Catholic Church
with Oliver O'Grady presiding
at our wedding.
And he was the priest
for one of the churches
that encompassed half the county,
so he played a major role
in a lot of people's lives,
a lot of families
in Calaveras County.
He's admitted that he spent
as much time grooming victims
as he did being a priest,
and he was a priest for over 30 years,
spending every waking hour
planning abuse, executing abuse,
thinking about abuse.
So 365 days a year times 30.
He has so many victims,
I don't think he can keep track,
and I think it's in the hundreds.
How young are the molested kids?
One's what, three months, nine months?
That was his youngest victim.
Right.
You know, nine months.
Nine months.
To abuse an infant,
I mean, you really...
Part of what people have to do
when they're talking about this...
and it's so hard,
and no one wants to do it...
is to really try to walk through
and picture a grown man
inserting... forcing his penis
into the vagina of a baby.
Oliver, have you ever been diagnosed
with a disassociative disorder?
I'm sure I fit the category
of a lot of disorders.
Whatever they are,
you name that, I'll jump.
I'm not trying to be flippant here.
And I am. I'm sorry.
That's okay, but what
I'm trying to say is,
has anybody ever told you
you may disassociate from events?
I'm sure they have.
Okay.
Is it...
I mean, to me, as a lay person,
when you molest somebody,
it's sort of black and white:
Either you do or you don't.
What I get from you, Oliver, is,
in some instances,
you're not sure
if you molested people.
Correct.
Do you think that's
because it didn't happen,
or do you think that's because,
either to deal with the trauma yourself,
or to justify it or deal with guilt,
whatever the malady you had was,
do you maybe be disassociating
from the reality
of what actually occurred?
- I think that would be accurate, yes.
- Okay.
He's a very dangerous man,
and an aggressive, assaultive person,
who apparently would do anything
to get to his victims,
including having sex
with their parents.
When I was little,
I was always talking to everybody.
And I feel like I had a lot of...
more hope in me than doubt.
I'm sure you could ask
all my teachers, and they'd go,
"Yeah. Smart guy.
I don't know what happened to him. "
O'Grady saw an easy mark in us
because we're brought up...
I was brought up Catholic,
so automatically you see
a guy with a collar on,
you automatically trust him.
So he moved right in,
and Becky fell
hook, line and sinker.
You know, he was the wolf,
and I was the gatekeeper,
and I let the wolf through the gate.
That's what it's always
felt like to me, you know?
And to know that you could be...
that I could be so wrong.
I mean, how wrong
could I have been?
I mean, to be so horribly wrong...
was absolutely devastating.
His whole thing,
he would get into the family
more than just
with the children, you know,
so my mom had been involved with him,
and I think that was the...
that was the killer one there, you know?
And early on I...
I realized early on
that there was something wrong,
but my upbringing told me,
nah, that can't happen.
I talk with a lot of, like,
female survivors,
and they talk about,
like, little games
to sort of... segue toward it,
but with... it wasn't like that with me.
He just started in.
He started right in:
Grabbing me, touching me,
making me touch him...
telling me that... why would
my folks have brought me here
if they didn't think it was okay?
Why would they
even have thought that?
Those are the things that he said.
I failed them once, and it was huge,
and I'll never do it again.
That will never happen again.
I will not ever...
I will never fail them again.
I was trimming those bushes,
right there,
those little bushes,
the first time it happened.
I went into the house to eat lunch,
and then he just came in
and closed the door,
and he just held me down,
held my head down,
and he fucking sodomized me
right in there.
Right there.
That's not easy to say, you know.
Fuck, for years I never even spoke of it,
and every time I'd get close to a girl,
or every time I'd...
feel like something
was done wrong to me,
I'd go right there.
It would just go in
the bin with it, you know?
That's the kind of...
That's what this shit does.
It doesn't just hurt you.
In July of 1993, we had a family
that contacted the Calaveras County
Sheriff's Department
to report that a priest
in San Andreas in Calaveras County
was molesting members of the family,
specifically two young boys
in the family.
So the next day he called me,
and he said he was having a problem
and he was away from the parish.
And I knew, just talking to him,
that there was something wrong.
Then we told him
we would help him.
I said, "If you didn't do
any of these things to children,
"you have no problem.
There's no way anybody
can accuse you of... "
Even the word molestation
never even entered my mind.
It was just touching.
I said, "If you didn't touch these kids
"in an inappropriate way
or touched them sexually,
"you don't have anything
to worry about.
You don't have a record. "
Then he said,
Well, I had a problem nine years ago. "
When we started our investigation,
we found out that this had not
been the first incident
that he had been involved in.
Going back as far as the mid-'70s
he had been involved
with molesting children.
It appeared that...
to us that there was a lot
of knowledge about that
outside of our community
but none of that information
had reached us.
At that point
we were supporting him.
Yeah.
Then he was concerned
about his family and stuff.
So I talked to his family in Ireland,
and told them
that we would support him
and make sure he got represented
and everything like that.
At that point we obtained
arrest warrants for Oliver O'Grady
for multiple counts of lewd
and lascivious acts with minors.
We served search warrants
at the parish here in San Andreas,
the rectory here in San Andreas,
the diocese in Stockton,
and in law offices...
Not law offices,
but the offices of Cardinal Mahony
in Los Angeles.
Then when he asked for the bail money,
Bob went and got it.
I went to work Monday morning...
And I did.
And everybody at work
knew who he was.
They knew he was my friend.
The newspapers had...
It was kind of quiet.
I remember saying,
"What's the matter with you guys?
How come you're all acting
this way this morning?"
They said,
"Did you read the paper?"
I said, "No, I haven't had time
to read the paper yet.
Yeah.
It was exploded all over the front page
of the newspaper.
I said, "There's no way Ollie
would touch our kids. "
We didn't suspect.
We didn't see anything.
Just no way.
Then I called Bob at work
and told him what I saw
in the paper and everything.
I said... And he said
the same thing to me.
He said, "No way.
There's no way
he would touch our kids. "
Then it was almost like
the fear of God got in me.
I told... He said,
"Well, we have to ask them. "
But then we went...
I called her and I said,
"Ann, did you see the paper?
Did you read about
Father Ollie in the paper?"
She said she didn't
watch the news or something.
I said, "There's all these
allegations against him. "
The boys from...
It was the Howard kids at that time.
And...
I was... When I said it to her
I was expecting a response
like "Who's doing this?"
And it was nothing.
It was just absolute silence.
Then I said to her... I said,
"Ann, I have to ask you. "
I said, "Did he ever touch you
when you were a little girl?"
And she... "I got to go, Mom.
I got to take care of the dog. "
I just knew right then.
I just felt it.
She still wouldn't answer.
I said, "Bob, you have to call her. "
I knew she wouldn't lie to Bob.
So I asked her.
She called him.
You called her.
I asked her if he had molested you.
You said,
"Did he ever touch you?"
Yeah.
"Did he ever touch... "
And she said yes.
And the whole world collapsed.
I could hear him crying.
I could hear Ann crying
on the other side...
I gave her back the phone, and...
She came over,
and Case DeGroot came over.
At that point, it destroyed our lives.
From that day on it just...
Destroyed our family.
Everything.
Then it's like you have flashbacks.
Why didn't I see this?
Why didn't I see that?
Right.
It was like...
It was terrible.
I kind of handed Ann over to this bastard
on a silver platter, just about.
How did he do it?
He just destroyed...
How did we get fooled
by him so much?
I used to go to work
and he'd be here
saying his morning prayers.
Had the Bible in his hand,
and he's saying morning prayers.
I said, "Good morning, Ollie. "
Then he'd be in there
at nighttime molesting Ann.
And during the night
he's molesting my daughter.
Raping her!
Not molesting her!
Raping her!
At five years old!
God's sakes!
How could that happen?
But that's what he did.
It's futile to ask the question,
"How can this be?
Why does this happen?"
The system, the monarchical,
hierarchical governmental system
that the people in charge
of the Roman Catholic Church
from the Pope on down firmly believe
was willed by almighty God
is the reason why Roger Mahony
is believed to be
substantially more important and better
than the children who were ravished
by Oliver O'Grady.
My father won't walk me down the aisle
because he can't step in the church.
He's taken my wedding
away from me,
everything in the future.
I constantly am battling
to regain my life back.
Constantly.
I have never conceived a child.
I'm not married.
I'm 40 years old, almost.
I'm 39.
I'm approaching 40 and...
it's still not over.
When did it stop?
When she was 13?
- 12.
- 12, okay.
And I asked her,
"Why didn't you tell us earlier? Why?"
And her answer was to me
that I used to say that anybody
who tried to hurt you,
I would kill him!
And...
I shouldn't have made that statement.
She told me that...
She wouldn't say anything!
She asked a little girl
what would happen
if your Dad killed somebody,
and they said that he would go
to jail forever and ever
and never come out.
She said that day I decided
I could never tell anybody
because she said,
"I knew Dad would kill him. "
It guess her love for me
kept her from telling me.
And my love for her...
I feel guilty about that,
but I feel betrayed by the Church.
The Church had betrayed me
and my family!
They destroyed it.
By golly, I'm not going
to let it destroy me now.
My name is Tom Doyle.
I've been a Catholic priest
for 35 years.
I've been fired
from two major positions
and sidetracked from two careers
as a priest in the Church
because I've openly advocated
for the victims
of clergy sexual abuse,
and according to some,
been much too critical
and much too vocal
about the source of the cover-up:
The manipulation, the dishonesty
that comes from the top.
When we were serving
the search warrants,
the members of the Church
that were responsible
for keeping those records
threw up a lot of roadblocks
in having to contact their attorneys
to find out what
they had to give to us.
Your duties as chancellor
encompass the entire diocese, correct?
Yes.
If a child had been sexually abused
during those years,
is it fair to say that
that would have come to your attention
as chancellor and/or vicar-general
and/or auxiliary bishop?
Calls for speculation.
During which years?
When you were an officer
of the Diocese of Fresno
in any of those three offices.
Object to the term
"officer of the diocese. "
Go ahead.
I imagine I would have become
aware of that during that time.
Your testimony is that
no such event occurred?
No, my testimony is
I cannot recall
something like that
occurring during that time.
Do you think if a child were raped
during your tenure at Fresno
that that would be something
that you would forget?
Object. Argumentative. Harassing.
Instruct the witness not to answer.
Do you think if a child molestation
allegation had been levied, Your Eminence,
while you were there acting
as an official of the diocese
and it came to your attention,
that would be something
you would forget?
I'm going to object.
Harassing. Argumentative.
Asked and answered.
Instruct the witness not to answer.
He hasn't answered that question.
Yes, he has.
When the diocese was relating
to the police,
and they didn't disclose the fact
that O'Grady had been
previously accused,
do you think they were telling
the whole truth?
Repeat that please.
In '84, when the diocese
was talking to the police, okay?
The diocese did not talk
to the police in '84.
The diocese attorney did.
I didn't know that at the time.
Okay.
Do you think that somebody
should have told the cops, Father...
Or Monsignor, forgive me...
that O'Grady had been
previously accused?
It was in the hands of our attorney.
Now, what should be done
or what should not be done
would be his decision.
So basically you left it
to your lawyer to decide
whether or not to tell the truth.
We left it to our lawyer
to work in the investigation.
At that time, besides
the police investigation that we had,
there was one guy
that could speak the truth
and blow the whistle
on Roger Mahony
having known about
Olive O'Grady for years,
and that was Oliver O'Grady.
The night before he was scheduled
to testify in that trial,
the attorneys for Roger Mahony
went to his jail cell,
cut a deal with him,
a very dark deal that said,
"Oliver, you take
the contempt citation
"and refuse to testify,
even though you've been ordered to,
and we'll take care of you. "
And they did.
Does the diocese of Stockton
or any of its representatives
provide for any economic support
for you right now?
Not at the moment.
Have they in the past?
Not since I left the priesthood.
They didn't buy you an annuity?
I believe they did.
Do you get a check
from that annuity?
No, that will not come into effect
until I'm 65.
Who holds that annuity?
I believe the diocese holds it.
Are you at all concerned, Oliver,
that if you give testimony
that hurts the diocese
that they might revoke that?
I have a lot of concerns
about a lot of things,
and I guess that would
be one of them.
My parents don't get
a pension from the Church.
They lost their whole
financial stability from this.
Yeah.
They will never ever be the same.
My mother is forced into retirement.
My dad has to quit his job
to take care of her.
Because of what?
Because of some jackass
that was running around
juggling 50 kids at a time,
and some raping mothers.
He abused my parents, too.
The Church abused my parents, too.
They took our tithes,
they took our tuition money,
and they haven't returned
any of that back to my family.
They deserve all of that back.
There is no excuse that you'd paid
to send your kid to school
to get raped, you know,
and to be molested in the basement
where you're supposed
to be getting an education
or being called in his office
where he has full reign to do
whatever he wants to you
and send you back to class.
This case, from the start to finish,
was less than two months.
It was strange at the speed
in which that operated.
We just felt that there was
a lot of things
that were left hanging
in this investigation,
but because of the speed
with which it went,
we just weren't able to do our jobs
as effectively as we could have.
But they were afraid that,
through the powers of civil discovery,
the civil attorneys
were going to find out
that the Church knew
prior to Oliver's ordination
that he probably offended.
He got to serve seven years,
and I testified in the case
that convicted him,
and he's over there
living the life of Reilly.
He's having tea and living
like a normal person.
He doesn't even have to report
like people here do.
Seeing Oliver walk around loose
with kids is one thing,
but knowing that
he was set up to do that,
and he's allowed to do that,
and he's going to be paid
to do that by the Church
makes me furious.
I have to agree with Frank Keating.
He was the former governor of Oklahoma.
He compared this diocese
and the cardinal
to La Cosa Nostra.
In 2002, the U.S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops
asked former Oklahoma governor
Frank Keating
to head a national review board
to scrutinize the Catholic Church,
hold bishops accountable,
and guide the Church
in how to prevent, report,
and disclose sexual abuse.
Keating resigned
after making critical comments
about how some diocese,
including Los Angeles,
were and continue to be
less than open with the public
and less than honest
with themselves.
If you take the position that you won't
get anything out of me without a subpoena,
the suggestion is
you have something to hide.
For a faith institution,
that's a terrible suggestion.
In Los Angeles, when ordered
to produce the documentation,
the records...
Where you find the truth,
or most of the truth...
by the District Attorney
of Los Angeles County,
Cardinal Mahony's lawyers
cooked up this myth
called "formation privilege"
which has no basis in canon law,
civil law, history, or theology,
that every communication between a bishop
and one of his priests
is equal to confessional
as far as confidentiality is concerned.
There are a lot of
privileged communications
in the state of California.
One of them is reporters
in news media of sources.
That's a very highly protected
protection that you have.
There are between a husband and wife
testifying against each other.
There are a whole list of them.
Those are protected communications,
and so a priest
talking to his bishop
is a protected communication.
As Christian adults,
Catholic, non-Catholic,
Jewish, whatever,
we should always be in the business
of protecting children.
The one thing
that always stuck with me
that Mahony didn't...
The children...
- He didn't protect them.
- Yeah.
He didn't come clean.
He has presided over...
the wholesale sexual abuse...
of dozens and dozens and dozens
of children in his dioceses.
Let me put it this way.
Cardinal Mahony's argument
about the documents
is an argument
David Koresh would love.
Basically, if doctrine
lets you rape kids,
I guess that makes
the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
an official cult.
The last place we found O'Grady
was living with a family in Thurles
in the shadow of the seminary
he'd attended
with the full knowledge
of the bishop,
with the full knowledge
of the rector of the seminary,
and the family he was living with
didn't know.
And the Garda,
the police in Ireland, didn't know.
I could say that my life has been a failure.
I'd like to think that I can still make
some good decisions
and even bright future
for myself as a result.
So, don't always do the right things.
Obviously not, but...
I think what I'm doing
right now is not alone
the best thing,
but I think the only thing.
I'm thinking of writing a letter
to each person that I have
offended sexually in the past.
I do want to apologize to them.
I am... But I don't want that
to be a simple statement.
I think they...
Basically what I want to say to them:
It should not have happened.
It should not have happened.
If I could invite these people
to come and meet
with me one-on-one
and give them the opportunity
to, again, talk to me,
tell me what I did to them.
I need to hear that,
and I think they need to say that.
I can't say it's hard to do this.
I'm kind of happy that I am doing it,
but it's going to be
a very interesting reunion.
And I really, really,
really, really hope they come.
"I'm writing this letter to you
"to invite you to meet with me.
"I would like to apologize
to you again
"for the wrong I did to you.
"It is my hope that this opportunity
will allow you
"the freedom to continue
with your life
"knowing that I have acknowledged
my actions of the past,
"and hopefully enabling you
to continue your life
in a better way from now on. "
"I need to acknowledge
to you face-to-face
that I have molested you sexually
for many years many years ago. "
"In this way I will be able
to respond and apologize
to all those I have offended
in a sexual way. "
He's a piece of crap, man.
He remembered all of our names.
I get so angry to even think
that that guy's alive.
I would kill his mother.
I won't be quoting Scripture.
It won't open with a prayer,
except if anybody wants to,
be they need a...
It might not even close
with a prayer.
I don't expect people
to hug me when they leave.
I don't expect people...
I hope they might
shake hands with me,
and say, "Hey, yeah,
it's over right now. "
And I let them
get on with their lives,
and I'm sure they'll be happy
to let me get on with mine.
Come on down, you know?
We'll have a barbe... It's stupid.
What the fuck is he thinking
writing these letters?
Yeah, that's what we all need.
To see him?
Are you kidding me?
We don't need anything from him.
I want to know
what his motivation is.
I do not want to go over there
so he can get his jollies off
collecting his little family
of abuse victims.
Yeah, his little whatever.
My motivation of going over there...
If I thought that he had
a heart at all to touch,
it would be different.
But I think he's so far gone...
But it would be to disclose
as much as you can
about what you did
while you were here
and putting the nail
in Mahony's coffin
to get the truth about what he knew.
Those are the people.
Those are the letters,
and all I can say is Godspeed.
I hope to see
all of you real soon.
I think the little girl that's five years old
that's scared and afraid of him
is still afraid to go.
And then I think,
I'm a big girl now...
and what I didn't have the courage
as a child to tell him...
it might be nice
to tell him something.
Healing myself wasn't going to...
It was never pending
on what happened to him.
That's... It's within me to get better,
not based on anything that...
I felt like if I was relying on...
his punishment to heal myself,
it seems like that would be
giving too much clout
to the pain that
I'd gone through, you know?
To say that's what I am
and that's who I am...
That's not who I am, so...
When you were a little boy,
were you ever touched
sexually by a priest?
Yes.
And what was that priest's name?
I can't remember.
Do you know where it happened?
When I was an altar boy
at St. Michael's Church,
the event happened there.
How many times
did it happen, Oliver?
Not many.
I'd say two or three times.
I think we all go through
an exploratory stage of that,
but my older brother
did abuse me.
Again, I find it hard
to say the word "abuse"
because I did not consider
that to be abuse at the time.
I think my older brother
initiated it with me.
I remember in the early stages
being uncomfortable with that.
But later when I found out
that he was also...
being sexual with my sister,
I became curious
and probably got involved that way.
So the incidents with your brother
at a younger age,
the incidents with your brother
at an older age when you were 15?
Yes.
Multiple incidents with your sister
when she was approximately nine.
Correct.
Then you had
at least the two incidents
with the visiting priests
when you were 10 or 11.
Yes.
Have you ever thought, Oliver,
that some of your problems
that you encountered as a priest
that led to your incarceration
may be related to that?
I have thought about it,
but I can't seem to make a link.
I'm never going to get
what I want out of this.
Not from Mahony.
I'm never going to see them all in jail.
So who gives a shit
what they think?
You just do what you want to do
to take care of yourself.
To hell with them.
That's what you got to do.
We're trying to uncover the truth.
We're here to support you
and we're here to support
all of the other kids,
because this is big business
to the Church.
This is money to the Church.
It's like a big corporation.
We have to ask ourselves
who's paying for this nightmare,
for this crisis?
Who is obliged to get involved?
I think we all are.
One of the things that I've seen
in my time with people like yourselves
has been a change in the understanding
of what church is.
Many of us, when I ask you,
"When you hear the word 'church,'
what comes to your mind?"
Most of us will think
of bishops, the Vatican,
the hierarchy, church buildings.
That will be changing,
it is changing,
because church is us.
It's right here in this room.
25 years ago,
Tom Doyle called
the bishops to action
and put a plan before the U.S. Catholic
Conference of Bishops,
a comprehensive plan
to address the crisis
of pedophilia in the priesthood.
Basically, they wrote a report
and said this is going to
be a massive crisis
that's going to cost the Church
a billion dollars unless you do something.
They found that there was
a national crisis
of children being
sexually abused by priests
on a massive scale.
I didn't know what they were doing.
I thought that they would
take it and do something
because they were...
the Catholic Bishops
Conference in the United States
were forever giving
pronouncements on everything
from nuclear war to the Boy Scouts
to animal husbandry to chewing gum.
You name it,
they were giving pronouncements
on the morality
of just about everything.
But on this, they stonewalled.
Cardinal Ratzinger,
now Pope Benedict,
was head of what's called
the Office of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The head of my church,
the successor to Peter,
the Holy Father,
was the person in charge
of making sure
that priests didn't hurt children.
He was in charge of that office
from 1978 until 2005.
He did a very poor job,
and basically was the one person
besides the Pope
who could have stopped it,
and he didn't.
What the bishops did
is they squelched the report...
they went back to their dioceses,
and they carried on as normal.
They knew children
were being victimized,
and they did absolutely nothing
except insure that law enforcement
and the public
and the faithful would not find out.
The bishops have known that bishops,
priests, and deacons
have been sexually abusing children
since the fourth century,
and it's been a severe
major, major problem,
and they've never really
been able to curb it.
Basically, you have a sexualized priesthood.
It's been sexualized for years,
that looks at child sexual abuse
no different than it does
if you're having sex with a woman
because it's all a violation
of clerical celibacy.
If all sex by definition was bad sex
because you weren't supposed
to be having it,
then pedophilia is just
another kind of bad sex.
There is no basis in the scriptures
for mandatory celibacy.
It's not mandated by Christ.
It's not justified
anywhere in the gospels
or in the life and times
and sayings of Christ.
All 12 apostles were married,
with probably the exception of John.
The first several dozen popes
were married and had children.
It's something that the institutional
Church leaders
began to think about
and tried to impose
at least from the fourth century.
Married priests, when they died,
their inheritance
went to their oldest son.
So the institutionalized
Church leaders,
desiring to stop this practice,
began to mandate celibacy
so that when a priest's property
had to pass after he died
it would go to the bishop
or to the Church.
What we have to remember
is a lot of the priests
who have been reported
as offenders
went into the seminary
at a minor seminary
at ages 14, 15, 16.
They may have been thinking
about a vocation even earlier.
They got stopped.
They got literally arrested
in their psychosexual development.
They're nurtured in an attitude of negativity
toward relationships, toward women,
toward marriage,
and toward sexuality,
and they never really
fully understand
what any of these are all about.
So when these men
became unable to be celibate
or when their sexual urges
overpowered them,
they sought out victims
who they experienced at some level
as psychosexual peers.
where the vast majority
of priests in the western U.S.
Went to the seminary,
Perpetrators of children.
that became to be perpetrators,
somebody would take action.
In Boston, after the final
settlements were made
for about $85 million
a couple of years ago,
one of the priests said publicly
at an interview,
"Thank God this clergy crisis is over.
Now we can get back to normal. "
The situation was far worse
than even what the most hardened cynic
thought was going on.
Cardinal Law, who was
the archbishop of Boston,
presided over some
of the worst sexual abusers
in the history of the Church.
It was something that ultimately
caused Cardinal Law to step down.
You would think, if you presided
over the abuse of dozens of children,
that that would mean
you would be sent to a punishment.
You know, the Vatican
didn't even make it a secret.
They thought he was
unfairly accused in the media.
They made him
the cardinal archbishop
of this church in Rome,
and he actually presided
at Pope John Paul II's funeral Mass.
What's happening in Los Angeles
does in many ways dwarf
what happened in Boston.
As of June 2002,
we had over 100 criminal
investigations ongoing,
and that encompassed
over 100 individual priests.
What that tells you is how large
the scope of this problem is.
I think the Vatican is looking for a way
to say "We've solved this,"
and they are scapegoating...
because so many of the victims
were male victims,
they're scapegoating
the homosexual priests
and saying "If we get rid
of the homosexual priests,
then we'll be rid of this problem. "
Most men who abuse children
are heterosexual.
The Bishops' Conference, I think,
would like to project that this problem
is now over with.
It's taken care of.
They have solved it,
and it's now under control,
which is a normal corporate approach
to something of this nature.
I'm sure that the guys
in Enron thought that, too,
when they were discovered.
Every day, every week,
I learn of another child, young adult,
offended by a cleric
who hasn't been disclosed
before this day,
and my fear is, my belief is,
that there are not hundreds,
but there are thousands
of offenders
yet to be exposed and disclosed
still roaming the churches
in the landscapes in this U.S.,
and tens of thousands...
tens of thousands worldwide.
What is a good Catholic?
A good Catholic traditionally
is someone who kept
their mouth shut,
their pocketbook open,
you know...
Paid, prayed, and obeyed,
was docile, went to Mass,
obeyed all the Commandments,
went to confession
on a regular basis.
For the most part, was ritualized,
obedient, and quiet.
But a good Catholic
is not that at all.
A good Catholic is a Catholic
in the model of Jesus Christ:
A revolutionary,
someone who's not afraid...
Someone who's not afraid
to get up and speak the truth.
Remember, the only time
Christ ever got angry
was when He went to church.
And as we speak,
Tom Doyle goes to Rome,
not because the Pope's
gonna hear him,
but because he has to do
what they should be doing,
and making those known offenders,
such as Oliver O'Grady,
who now resides in Ireland,
known to the community
as an offender.
I think a lot of the people in Rome
are in deep denial
about just how serious this issue is.
Never attempted this before, honestly.
I'm calling Father Tom Doyle,
who is in America.
Yes, you know Father Thomas?
Yeah. He will be coming to Rome.
As far as I know, he's in Rome,
trying to help two victims,
one of whom's our client, Ann Jyono.
They have an appointment
with somebody at the Holy See
to hear their complaint.
I'm doing this for my daughter,
but I said to her,
"if you do it for the other victims
and the children...
"or...
the kids... "
"I'll help. "
By golly.
People got to know!
It's not right.
They haven't a clue, you know,
if it hasn't happened to them.
Nobody has a clue.
They have no idea
what it does to people.
And we're not victims...
Destroys you everywhere.
...in that sense,
but Ann was a victim.
She was raped by this priest!
People understand,
he's isn't a pedophile, he's a rapist!
My anger's so hard.
Right now, I'm in Rome,
and I'm waiting to meet
with the Jyonos,
a family whose children
have been sexually abused
by Oliver O'Grady.
I've not met them.
I'm going to meet them,
and my purpose
is to hopefully help them
begin a healing process.
Good morning.
How are you, dear?
Good morning.
I'm glad to see you.
How do you feel?
This is Ann.
And what I'm gonna do is,
if we preface this one
with a short sentence
and say...
"Bishops, archbishops, and cardinals
have consistently lied
to us and to the public
and to law enforcement agencies
about the cover-up
of sexual abuse
by the clergy, period. "
We'll address it to the Pope,
and it'll be from you specifically,
but speaking in the name
of all those
who have been
victimized and molested,
and I'm gonna put it
in language that they will...
direct language they'll understand.
A lot has changed
in the Catholic Church this year,
but it's still having trouble
responding to the victims
of sexual abuse by priests.
Today, two American women
came to the Vatican
hoping to deliver a letter
to the new Pope.
The guards wouldn't let them in.
Since we are survivors
of clergy abuse,
it has been a very difficult journey,
and we have come
thousands of miles
to try to plead for some sort
of mercy and assistance
with our journey
of pain and healing.
We seek to regain our faith.
And instead of...
embracing them,
reaching out to them,
the institutional church
not only rejected them,
but they revictimized them.
They abused them
by pointing them out to be...
making them out to be
an enemy of the Church.
I got them alone at one point
and expressed a sincere apology,
my profound regrets
as to what had happened to them,
and I apologized to them
in the name of the institution,
the clergy, and the priests,
which I am still legally a part of.
And both of them said,
"No one has ever said
this to us before. "
I made up my mind.
There is no God.
I do not believe in a God, all right?
All of these rules, everything...
they're made up
by man, you know?
I've tried to find...
what it is that...
brought religion
to where it is today,
why, you know,
what differences in them...
the similarities in all of them,
and I think that that's
a big thing for me
is that they all...
share some common theme
or philosophy at some level,
and you can't say
"This one, not that one"
without alienating someone, so...
And that's not...
That wasn't the message
of Jesus or Buddha
or Mohammad or anybody,
so what's...
They're already off-base
at that point,
and that happened
a long time ago,
so... I think it's just all...
all where...
the only place it could have gone
is the wrong direction.
What we need to do as a Church
is to acknowledge our good days
and our bad days,
our good times and our bad times.
Somehow we always seem
to look back
and say, "Well, there were
dark moments and times
"in our history.
We would rather
not dwell on them. "
In a very poetic way, you see?
And that's very nice.
But it's not reality.
What I'd like to hear,
to say, "Hey,
"you know, we had one
heck of an awful time
there in the Middle Ages.
But you know what?
We're still here. "
And that's the point,
if the Church could see it.
And I'm here speaking
on behalf of Brandon...
with his parents today
because this offender...
is still in ministry.
Subtitled By J.R. Media Services, Inc.
Burbank, CA