I devoted the summer of 1992 to writing and reading about clergy sexual abuse in an attempt to get closure on my painful relationship with Father Mike.  I learned about a Lutheran Bishop who brought healing to a congregation where a Pastor had sexually abused several women by listening to their stories, believing them, asking the Pastor to remove his name from the clergy roster, appointing a special Pastor for the Pastor and his family, arranging for the church to pay for the women's counseling, meeting with all the Pastors in the city to let them know what was going on, and first writing to - then meeting with to answer questions of - the entire congregation, breaking the secret and beginning the healing.  I wrote an article about it.  I read and reviewed two books, a pamphlet, and a magazine article.  I watched and reviewed a video.  I wrote "THE STORY OF GOD'S MERCY" and shared a hundred copies at a gathering of three hundred survivors of sexual abuse in Santa Fe.  In Albuquerque, I attended the performance of Night Chant where survivors of sexual abuse told their stories in poetry, song, and dance.  My brother sent me money to attend an ecumenical workshop in Denver, THE SECRET SIN: SEXUAL ADDICTION IN THE CHURCH, where I gave away another seventy-five copies of "MERCY."

 From my reading and talking to people, I came across the concept of dual roles.  Professionals are not supposed to have dual roles.  A doctor does not practice medicine on a family member.  A lawyer does not handle a case for a friend.  A counselor is not to socialize with a client.  Priests eat dinner with members of their congregation, but if two people meet in a counseling situation, modern ethicists agree they cannot become friends.  I wrote to Father Mike asking him how this applied to us since we had met in the confessional and I had gone to him for counseling.

 On May 1st, Father Mike had been given his first job as Pastor in a new diocese.  Before, he had been sending me cards and gifts, leaving prayerful messages on my answering machine, and generally acting like a friend.  After, he told me he was too busy to read my letters, didn't even say "thank you" for generous spiritual gifts I had sent him, and acted as if he were too important to have anything to do with me.  I felt terribly rejected and confused.  I was an a lot of pain.  When I asked him on several occasions what was going on, he was vague and evasive.  I had stuck out painful times with him before simply crying a lot and offering all the pain to God, but this time I kept insisting he tell me the truth about what was going on.  I kept sharing with him how much pain I was in.  Finally, on Wednesday, July 15th, we had a conversation that was memorable for its clarity.  Father Mike said, "I have been sending you double messages because I have wanted your friendship, your letters and your visit, but at the same time part of me knew that to act as a friend toward you was wrong."  WOW!  At last all the insanity of the previous eight and a half years made sense!  While my counselor had said it was dishonest of him to not treat me as a friend, he had believed it was wrong for him to do so.  He'd mentioned his indoctrination against particular friendships, but I had dismissed anything so archaic.  We agreed to continue to pray for each other but to have no other communication than a Christmas card.  What relief and peace and gratitude I felt.

 I was busy mailing out over a hundred copies of "MERCY."  I left a copy for the Archbishop.  I learned that my archdiocese already had a policy on clergy sexual misconduct, and that disclosures by survivors of sexual abuse were being welcomed for healing! I told two close women friends both of who had been sexually abused by Priests in our archdiocese.  One asked me to accompany her as she disclosed her abuse.  I sat and observed as the chancellor listened to her story of being raped by a Priest.  He believed her.  He reminded her it was not her fault.  He commended her courage for telling.  He asked what she needed to heal.  When she said she wanted a written apology and assurance that the Priest will get treatment so he won't abuse anyone else, he promised to contact the Priest's community.  Then he reminded her she needed to look to her own healing.  He asked if she had had counseling.  When she replied that she had been in counseling for four and a half years, he urged her to figured out how much she had spent on it so he could see she was paid.  He said she'd need more and invited her to return to her counselor with the assurance that he would see the counselor was paid.  Learning of the experience of my first friend, the second decided to go to the chancellor.  I had already obtained an apology for her; she is now getting some of her counseling paid for.

 I had some feelings about the fact that no one was offering to pay for counseling years ago when I was spending $5000.00 to deal with my feelings about the abuse I experienced from Father Mike, but I decided what I really needed to finish my healing was acknowledgment from his superiors that they had not been properly trained to hear disclosures of sexual abuse when I had gone to them (His first superior had walked out and left me sitting in office after I told him because he "had to put the vegetables in the soup"!!   Father Mike later told me this superior never even confronted him about it.  Did any of them??!  I wish I could write that they have written me heartfelt apologies and that we all are now living happily ever after, but, as you might guess, that is not how the story goes!

 I remember as I was typing "MERCY" wondering just what the word "revictimization" meant.  Now I know!  The job of chancellor was being transferred to a new person.  I felt so discounted by the first chancellor that I had a visualization of murdering the Archbishop (Believe that is scary for a woman who has taken a vow of nonviolence!)  No one else was available so the Archbishop's secretary, who has not read Rutter's book and understands nothing about incest, talked to me;  he told me, "It is all your fault.  You should have known better.  You should have walked away.

 The new chancellor called my counselor, but did not answer my letter for two weeks, leaving me thinking suicidal thoughts.  He met with me and my counselor and promised to help me communicate with Father Mike's superiors, all of whom were ignoring me; however when he wrote the provincial a letter, he said, "Mary thinks she was abused." My response to that was to wake up my spiritual director, who suggested I sue, and my counselor in the middle of the night and to consider suicide more seriously than I every had before.  I spoke to Father Mike asking him to help me finish this.  He said three times, "You are scaring the hell out of me."  He was concerned I would sue, putting his community out of business, or that the words "sexual abuse" would appear in his personnel file and he might be removed from active ministry.  When I insisted I just wanted an acknowledgment of negligence on the part of his community, he said women make up stories of clergy sexual abuse when Priests refuse to go to bed with them!!!

 I finally received a letter from the provincial.  He said he had spoken  to Father Mike, and although he remembers the counseling sessions we had, he never said anything sexual to me and is dismayed I would say he had.  When I read that, I drove to a store to buy a gun so I could blow my brains out on his altar.  God had arranged for the store to be closed!  The sign in the window read, "Closed Monday (Labor Day) and Tuesday."  I said, "O.K., God, I get the message!"  I went and found a safe place to feel my feelings.  AT 10:30 that night, I told my counselor, "I realize this letter is what I needed, if not what I wanted.  It acknowledges the seriousness of the abuse I experienced (Pastors and provincials don't tell terrible lies without some serious reason, do they???).  I laminated the letter and hung it on my living room wall with a gold ribbon right under the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe where you may view it any time you come to visit.  I also wrote letters to Father Mike, the provincial, and to the chancellor thanking them for the letter.

 Although I am a person who learned years ago and knows in a very deep place FEELINGS ARE TO BE FELT AND NOT ACTED UPON, I came closer to acting on my feelings than I ever had before in my life these past two months.  Pia Mellody says in FACING  CODEPENDENCE that sexual abuse by a religious representative is an act of profound evil and that many "victims at some point hover between life and death in recovery wrestling with the question 'Am I going to make a decision to live or to kill myself?'"  Because I am so good at finding people who know how to listen, and because I am not afraid to feel the pain, I believe I have passed this point.  It has taken hours of sobbing and screaming.  My nearly five year habit of Centering two hours a day gets much credit.  I am grateful for all the prayers and listening with which others have supported me!!!

 All is grace! As always, God has given gifts as God has allowed this new, terrible pain in my life.  Since his second proposition on January 3, 1986, Father Mike had not said anything sexually inappropriate to me.  He had caused me a lot of pain by agreeing to be my friend after he had apologized for the second proposition, only to send me double messages because on some level he believed he should not be while at the same time he wanted to be my friend very much.  Our relationship was never one of equals.  He'd come to the phone when I called him, but mostly he listened to me.  When I asked him questions, he'd say he was too tired to talk.  He promised to write, but I only got letters from him every six months.  Repeatedly I'd ask him if he wanted me to go away;  his nonverbal behavior certainly seemed to communicate that, but he always insisted, "No, that isn't what I want."

 Before he was transferred in May, he had read the long letters I had written him several times a week (with full knowledge and permission of my counselor and spiritual director), and no member of his community ever said anything to him about them!  He'd given me a friendship bracelet, and last Christmas he sent me a plaque that says, "Friendship is God's most perfect gift."  Then when he was named pastor in May, he wanted me to go away with no explanation!  All that is ended!  I have learned so much about emotional abuse, I don't think I can ever be in another emotionally abusive relationship again.

 Before he became so frightened, Father Mike had thanked me for writing "MERCY."  He said he could tell how much healing it had brought to me and that reading it had brought healing to him too.  Years ago he'd agreed with me that the opposite of love is not hate but fear.  I'm sad that he acted on his fear by calling his lawyer when all I needed to end this happily were apologies.  Yet, some part of me believes that the inner work that we did together has to have been beneficial to him, and I am grateful to have done him this service, even at so great a cost to myself.

 When we "said good-by" in July, Father Mike had asked if he might send me a Christmas card every year, assuring me of his love and prayers.  Now that his lawyers won't let him speak to me, he won't be able to do so.  I was surprised that Mimi, the Child in me, was glad when she heard.  "I didn't want him to.  Too many times in the past he has hurt me promising me something then not keeping his promise.  Now he can't hurt me any more!"  The emeshment is definitely ended.  Although I have sometimes acted on my fear, I am having trouble even respecting him.  He smashed the pedestal I had put him on, and I see through his "priestly disguise" to a frightened, wounded child with no integrity.

 I have also finally realized how wounded and dysfunctional his community is.  Most communities these days are promoting healing of victims, not still protecting perpetrators.  All my life I have avoided facing my oppression as a woman.  I am no longer able to deny the sins of sexism and heterosexism as well as lies of clerics.  Whenever possible now, I worship with women clergy.

 I have been able to write letters to all those who have hurt me thanking them and telling how their oppression has benefited me.  Today I retire after having taught English twenty-five years for Albuquerque Public Schools.  My plan is to enter my hermitage.  I do so with a new, deep need to intercede for the terrible evil I have seen in the church and for all those harmed by clerical sins.  I ask your prayers and promise mine.

10/30/92
 
 
 
 

 December 8, 1992, Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Dear Friends:

 JESUS CHRIST IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, A LIGHT NO DARKNESS CAN EXTINGUISH!  May He be born again in your hearts.  May you be filled with HIS PEACE, JOY, HOPE and LOVE.  May you share these gifts with all you encounter.  May Jesus' Mother be yours.  May this Advent and Christmas Season be a time of many blessings for you and for all in your hears! (Non Christian friends, please translate these words into some that make sense to you.)

 In recent years I have mailed Christmas greetings before Advent begin.  This year I was in too much pain to do so.  Today I can write because, by the grace of God, Father Mike and I just made peace.  In October I had gone to the Archbishop and had asked him if he had learned anything since I'd disclosed to him my clergy sexual abuse.  Would he handle it differently today than he had six years ago?  He was able to say, "Yes"!  He told me he wanted my peace and my healing.  I believed I needed apologies.  I got nothing but silence.  I went to a lawyer who told me, as a couple of others had, that I could not sue because the statute of limitations in New Mexico for personal injury cases is three years.  "Would you write a letter saying this is so my perpetrator can apologize?"  She wasn't comfortable with that but offered to write a letter to the Archbishop asking him to pay for my counseling, as he has for so many survivors.  When I took the letter to the Archbishop, he said he believed I was abused and wanted to pay for my counseling.  I explained it wasn't money I wanted.  It was all he could offer.

 These past two weeks I've vacillated between hope and despair.  In better moments, I met with the 12 step group for survivors I started and tried to educate priests about all I've learned.  I volunteered to be a Eucharistic Minister at UNM Hospital and to drive a regular route for Meals on Wheels.  I've been able to cook for myself and to sleep through the night.  At other times, fearing the Archbishop had lied to me too, I have been flooded with suicidal thoughts and missed celebrating Eucharist several days, including last Sunday.  After crying and screaming a lot, I let go of the need for apologies.  These men might be able to give me a piece of the moon; they cannot apologize!  This morning I called Father Mike, whom I had not spoken to in months, since he went to a lawyer.  I begged him not to hang up on me but to just listen.  (Lots of victims are recording conversations with their perpetrators.  I knew he could not talk.)  I told him how much pain I've been in since he lied about what he did.  I told him I love him.  I told him I forgive him for acting on his fear.  If someone had threatened my being able to retire, I would have done the very same thing.  I said I did not want his personnel file to say "sexual abuse;" I would not ask for the money.  I asked him to say "Amen" to the Our Father.  He said he could.  We prayed together.  I wished him a Happy Feast Day and said good-bye.  Now it is finished!  Now I can enter my hermitage.  Please pray daily for all abused and all abusers.  Thank you for all your prayers for me.

  Love and prayers,
  Mary

 In my Christmas letter to Father Mike, I enclosed a note.  One sentence said, "I have worked through my denial and no longer believe I am the first woman you propositioned;  I pray I will be the last."  Before he propositioned me, Father Mike refused to hug me in public.  He told me not to tell the other Priests he lived with that he hugged me.  One night he opened a desk drawer in the room where we were talking to see if there were any hidden tape recorders.  After he had propositioned me, he said he was "capable of rolling on the floor with me."  Having returned from treatment after the first time he propositioned me, Father Mike said he was not to counsel any women alone; I wasn't the only one he was not to counsel.  When I spoke to the archbishop about my sexual abuse the first time, I would not name Father Mike.  I didn't have to.  When I told him my parish and what had happened, the archbishop spoke Father Mike's name!

 Once Father Mike told me he had had a woman yell at him as he was coming out of church; he was afraid I, too, would embarrass him in public.  I never asked him why she was so angry at him.  Now I can guess!  For years I asked Father Mike to tell me what the rules were, what relationship was appropriate and permitted to us.  He didn't answer.  Looking back I can believe that he has feared my suing him for nearly nine years.  I had thought he had prayed not to hurt me again.  Now I think he was being careful not to say or do or write anything that I could use to sue him!  Ours never was a relationship of equality.  I was very open and honest with him; he was not with me.

 I also reassured Father Mike in my letter that I continue to offer to God any opportunities that arise to pass up chocolate as a prayer for him and as a prayer of thanksgiving for all the healing God has done in use.  Several times in the past five months I have contemplated suicide, but I have never considered eating chocolate!  He can feed me some when we meet in heaven.
 
 

 On December 9, 1531, Our Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego with the following message:

 I am a loving and merciful Mother to all who ask my help and trust me.  I will hear their weeping and their sorrows.  I will alleviate their sufferings, necessities, and their misfortunes.

 When Juan Diego told Bishop Zamarraga of Mary's message, the bishop was courteous, but he did not believe him.

 On December 10th, Mary sent Juan Diego to the bishop a second time. He was left waiting in the cold because the bishop had more important matters. Juan Diego was humiliated.  He struggled to have the bishop believe him.  The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego told the truth.  On December 12th Mary again appeared to Juan Diego.  Her message this day was this:

 Do not be troubled or weighed down with any grief.  Do not fear any illness, vexation, anxiety, or pain.  Am I, your Mother, not the fountain of life?  Are you not in the folds of my mantle?  In the crossing of my arms?  Is there anything else you need?  I am the Immaculate Conception, the one who gave birth to God's Son, Jesus, conqueror of Satan, sin and death.

 When Juan Diego returned to the bishop this day, the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on his tilma.  The bishop fell to his knees before it.

 This appearance of the Mother of God occurred ten years after the Spanish had conquered Mexico with much blood shed.  She appeared to an Aztec craftsman and spoke to him in his native language.  She addressed him as if he were a prince.  Mexico City had become the center of Spanish power.  Mary appeared ten miles outside the city insisting that  a shrine in her honor be built among the conquered people.  She sent Juan Diego to the Spanish clergy, who felt they had the truth.  He was to convert them to the message of the Gospel!  These actions restored hope and dignity to the native people, who had experienced so much oppression and dehumanization.  A shrine was built.  About eight million Native Americans became Christians in response to Mary's message.

 Today the institutional Church faces a crisis of clergy sexual abuse.  The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe might well remind the hierarchy that those whom the institution has alienated are the very ones who have the gifts needed for growth and reform:  believe survivors, admit wrong doings, make amends, remember Jesus' example that power is to serve, not to be served.  God hears the cries of the oppressed.  Repent!  Tell the truth.  Stop living lies.
 
 
 

December 9, 1992

 My dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:

 May God's Peace and love be with you...

 Abuse by a clergyman can have deep and disastrous results because it harms people's faith in God and their love for and their trust in one another.  My heart goes out to all victims and their families.  We really want to do what is right in helping those who are suffering to recapture peaceful and productive lives...

 We are indeed members of one family of God and what affects one affects us all.  We must begin the process of healing one another.  Let us pray with great love for all victims and their families, for all who have been hurt because of this crisis...

 I personally ask your forgiveness for all the hurt that has been suffered.  And I especially ask forgiveness from the victims and their families who have been hurt the most...

 Sincerely,
 The Archbishop

 THIS LETTER WAS READ AT ALL MASSES ON 12/12/92. I WROTE THE ARCHBISHOP THANKING HIM FOR THIS LETTER.  IT MEANT A GREAT DEAL TO ME.