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.
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 bought.
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 sure 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-- 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-- all 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.
Uh, I felt I was good with people.
I felt I was good with children.
I've often asked myself,
Why--Why did I...
Why--Why do I like children so much?
What--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, um...
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, uh, come and spend his days off here.
Uh, 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, 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--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 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, um...
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.
Um, I didn't know anybody else there,
and I actually wrote a letter to my mom
that she had--
Um, 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 Nancy inside her bed one night
when she was visiting with me.
I would...label it love and concern--
hugging, embracing.
That-- That tended to, uh...
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, um...
came over to the house a couple of times.
Uh, 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.
Um, she thought it was a good idea
for me to spend time with him.
If somebody asked me
"Where was," you know, "What--
"What, uh...
What kicks the bucket for you?"
Whatever, you know. Whatever the thing is.
"Uh, what triggers things off for you?"
You know, "What areas would be?"
And, if given a variety of-- of areas to consider,
you know, I'd have to say
certainly on the younger level.
That, uh, that's where a lot of that surfaced.
And if they said,
"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?
I would--"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, uh, the parents called Case,
and said to him, uh,
"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, uh, 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,
when 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, uh, 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, uh, "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?
Uh, for legal reasons, I'm sure.
Of the, you know-- I think he was anxious
that, uh, 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, uh...
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 would--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?
I 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, uh...
There were danger signals,
that--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 cancall 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, uh...
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, uh, 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 to salvation, way
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 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 rules 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 commun-- church comminutes,
it wasn't controlled by the clergy.
It was breaking of bread
and passed around to believing people
as the 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, uh, 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 callalter 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 and abuse him--nitals
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, um, of being abused
by a--a embodiment of the divine, if you will,
um, 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--she wasn't.
Was she just doing just fine?
She-- The first time I saw her
was that--that day.
I hadn't known anything about her.
Uh, 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, uh, therapy.
What did you tell her?
I told that I would-- I--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, uh,
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 was, 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, uh,
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 to my mind, actually,
was to...
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?
"Uh, here's somebody that I like.
"Here's somebody that I...I respect,
"a family I respect.
Uh, what would he feel like at the end of this?"
Yet, at the other side,
there was urges within me to--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, uh...
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--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-secrete file,
that had pieces of evidence,
that had, you know,
a, um, 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-- uh, 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. I..."
Sometimes it's good to give them a time limit
as to when your last confession was,
and so I'm--"Well, I was 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 a, uh, 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--
uh, he was a layman--
He was very helpful, you know?
And, uh, he about pulled the whole tablecloth
out from under me, you know?
And, uh, 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, uh, 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-- 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--
Ahem--
...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,
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.
There was a 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--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?
Um, 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, uh, 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
and said, "This is where we are:
Uh, "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, uh--
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 called bella figura.
It's an Italian word
which means good impression, good image.
One of the aspects, one of the--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--any scrutiny on him in particular,
uh, 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--
Mm-hmm.
That he will be working only with adults
and away from children,
and Monsignor Cain has denied
that he was possessed of that knowledge.
Mm-hmm.
Under oath.
Uh-huh.
You're the captain of the ship,
the bishop if the diocese,
the ordinary in charge.
Um, 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?
Uh, I--I--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,"
uh...it's--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 way, 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,
uh, receiving this letter from Father O'Grady?
I don't remember it, but I recall--
You know, you show 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."
Uh, what did you think he was referring to there
when he made that statement?
Uh, 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, uh...
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?
Uh, I don't remember.
Really, as I say, I--
I just found the whole letter
terribly, uh, overstated,
and I imagine at the time
I read it cursorily and filed it, uh, after--
It probably would have then--
I didn't answer it for some time.
I--I didn't feel it was, uh...
it was important or...
I--I have no idea.
At this point, uh, 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--I--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, uh, top of a mountain,
and showed Him all the cities in the world
and all the glory over the world,
and said, "This all can be yours
if you'll just 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,
uh, not two years later.
♪ Allelujah
To be married in the Church,
uh, the Catholic Church,
you go through a series of classes
with the priest that, uh, that you're dealing with.
In our case, it was Oliver O'Grady.
Uh, those classes--
From what I've heard now,
run between six and seven weeks,
or six or seven sessions.
Uh, my wife and I went in for our classes.
We met with the p-- with O'Grady one time.
Uh, he found out that I was in law enforcement,
and determined that we did not need
any more further, uh, marital training,
and, uh, signed us off,
and, uh, we were able to get married in the Catholic Church
with Oliver O'Grady presiding at our wedding.
And he was the--the priest
for one of the churches that encompassed half the county,
uh, so he played a major role
in a lot of people's lives,
uh, 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, 3 months, 9 months?
That was his youngest victim.
Right.
You know, 9 months.
9 months.
To abuse an infant,
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 dissociative disorder?
I'm sure I fit the category
of a lot of disorders.
Whatever they are,
you name that, I'll--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 dissociate 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 may be disassociating
from the reality of what actually occurred?
I think that would be accurate, yes.
He's a very dangerous man,
and a--a aggressive, assaultive person,
uh, 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.
Uh, and I feel like I had a lot of...
more hope in me than--than, uh, doubt.
I'm sure you could ask all my teachers,
and they'd go, "Yeah.
Uh, 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, uh, 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, uh, involved with him,
and I think that was the--
that was the killer one there, you know?
And early on I real--
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--little games
to sort of... segue toward it,
but with--it wasn't like that with me.
He just started in-- 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.
No, it 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.
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,
in the family. specifically two young boys
So the next day he called me
and he said he was having a problem.
and he was away from the parish.
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-seventies
he had been involved with molesting children.
It appeared 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 say 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, um...
I was ex-- 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 "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.
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 was her love for me that 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/Vicar General/ 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 that 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 leveled, 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, hat 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, investigationolice
that we had,
there was one guy who 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?
Mm-hmm.
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 pay 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 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 of civil discoveryowers
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 kidsis 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, the documentation,oduce
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.
He didn't come clean.
He has presided over, um...
the wholesale, uh, sexual abuse
of dozens and dozens and dozens of children
in his diocese.
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,
of the rector of the seminary, with the full knowledge
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, do I always do the right things?
Obviously not, but--
Heh heh.
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.
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 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'd 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-- 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 5 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
feeling 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 the fourth century,nce
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.
The L.A. Timesrecently reported
that 10% of the seminary graduates from St. John's Seminary,
where the vast majority of priests in the western U.S.
went to the seminary,
a full 10% since 1960 of their graduates are pedophiles.
Perpetrators of children.
10%.
If Yale was producing 10% of its students
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 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, uh, 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, uh, discovered.
Every day, every week,
I learn of another, uh, uh, child, young adult,
uh, uh, 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,
uh, 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.
Pronto.
Mi chiamo Patrizio Wall.
Uh, I'm calling, uh, 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.
Uh, they have an appointment
with somebody at the Holy See
to--to hear their-- 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 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.
Uh, 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 doing?
Good morning.
How do you feel?
This is Ann.
And what I'm gonna do is,
if we preface this 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.
Uh, 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 in pain and healing.
We seek, uh, 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--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 and, um...
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.
♪ I've heard there was a secret chord ♪
♪ That David played, and it pleased the Lord ♪
♪ But you don't really care for music ♪
♪ Do you?
♪ Well, it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth ♪
♪ The minor fall, the major lift ♪
♪ The baffled king composing ♪
♪ Hallelujah
♪ Maybe there's a God above ♪
♪ But all that I've ever learned from love ♪
♪ Was how to shoot somebody ♪
♪ Who outdrew you
♪ It's not a cry that you hear at night ♪
♪ It's not somebody who's seen the light ♪
And I'm here speaking on behalf of Brandon...
with his parents today
because this offender...
is still in ministry.
♪ Hallelujah
♪ Baby, I've been here before ♪
♪ I've seen this room, and I've walked this floor ♪
♪ I used to live alone before I knew you ♪
♪ I've seen your flag on the marble arch ♪
♪ And love is not a victory march ♪
♪ It's a cold, and it's a broken Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah
♪ Well, there was a time when you'd let me know ♪
♪ What's really going on below ♪
♪ But now you never show that to me, do you? ♪
♪ But remember when I moved in you ♪
♪ And the Holy Dove was moving too ♪
♪ And every breath we drew was Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah
♪ You say I took the name in vain ♪
♪ I don't even know the name ♪
♪ And if I did
♪ Well, really, what's it to you? ♪
♪ There's a blaze of light in every word ♪
♪ It doesn't matter which you heard ♪
♪ The holy or the broken Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah
♪ I did my best, but it wasn't much ♪
♪ I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch ♪
♪ I've told the truth
♪ I didn't come here to fool you ♪
♪ And even though it all went wrong ♪
♪ I'll stand before the Lord of Song ♪
♪ With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah