WASHINGTON (CNS) -- To be a voice for victims of clerical sexual abuse, Father Brendan McGuire realized he had to come to terms with the abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest when he was 18. It was a secret he had held for 35 years.
He told the story of his abuse in a homily delivered at five weekend Masses Sept. 8-9 at Holy Spirit Church in San Jose, California, where he is pastor.
In a Sept. 18 interview with Catholic News Service, Father McGuire said that although he always writes his homilies for distribution via email and social media, it was the first time he read it word for word from the pulpit so he wouldn't overlook anything he wanted to say.
Parishioners responded with "thunderous applause" at two Masses and "three standing ovations" at the others -- atypical post-homiletic behavior, he said.
Since the homilies, Father McGuire said, he has heard from 45 men who told him they also had been abused. Five of the men were priests, he added, and four of those had been abused while they were seminarians.
"One man was 95 years old. He'd been holding it for 60-plus years, 70-plus years," the priest said. "I thought 35 was a lot."
Growing up in Bray, Ireland, near Dublin, Father McGuire said he first met his priest-abuser when he was 14, and did not recognize the four years of "grooming" by the priest for his "final play," with the priest saying during the attack that he had waited until young McGuire had turned 18 "so it wouldn't be child abuse."
While the future priest successfully fought off his abuser -- "I was one of the lucky ones," he said in his homily -- others were not so lucky. The priest, who was not named in the homily, had preyed on dozens in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, was imprisoned in 2004 and died in prison two years later.
Father McGuire added he was driven to write his homily after reading the first 400 pages of the Pennsylvania grand jury's report on abuse allegations in six dioceses in the state dating back to 1947. Father McGuire sighed and said, "There was a whole other level of detail that I had forgotten about. Especially grooming." Having read that far, he noted, "I just got so angry about it all over again, how these guys were so systematic about it."
"I just got so angry about it all over again, how these guys were so systematic about it."
Father McGuire told CNS he almost didn't go through with the homily because of the celebrity it would bring.
"I didn't want it. That's one of the reasons I held back," he added. "I'm a man of deep prayer, I pray for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening. … I'm a big discerner. I wrote this homily days in advance. I prayed over it for a long time. I didn't want this to be about me. I really didn't."
Father McGuire wants to be more than merely an effective voice for abuse victims. He wants to see change in the church.
In his homily, he listed ways the church needs to change.
Father McGuire wants bishops to "listen attentively" to victims. "The pain never fully leaves us. That's OK but your acknowledging it helps us heal," he said. He also urged bishops to disclose the names of all accused priests, past and present, and to agree what he called "an attorney general-like investigation."
"Let them verify that you are doing all you can to protect the children now," he added. The priest also wants bishops to perform "some act of repentance, like promising to not wear the miter for a year of mourning."
Father McGuire wants to be more than merely an effective voice for abuse victims. He wants to see change in the church.
He further wants bishops to "work with the pope to reform the governance of the church so that women have a voice of authority. I do not believe this travesty of justice would have happened if we had mothers and fathers at the decision-making tables; they would not have allowed other people's children to be put in harm's way because they would see their own child in them."
Father McGuire asked parishioners to press bishops for accountability and to advocate for victims and "create a place of healing" to build "a community of true belonging where all the wounded are welcomed, as Pope Francis calls it, 'a field hospital' here in San Jose."
In a Sept. 13 letter to Catholics in the San Jose Diocese, Bishop Patrick J. McGrath said the diocese would conduct three "listening sessions" for abuse victims and their families and for Catholics "on the pathway to reform"; release in mid-October of names of all credibly accused priests who ministered in the diocese; and open an independent examination of abuse allegations by a firm headed by Kathleen McChesney, the highest-ranking woman in the FBI before leaving to become the first executive director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection in 2002.
"We cannot defend priest-perpetrators and those bishops and others who enable or protect them," Bishop McGrath said. "The only way that we can address the failed leadership of so many in the Catholic Church in the United States and around the world is for the Diocese of San Jose to do what we know is right and just."
"We've done more than any California diocese. We've gone from nothing to full disclosure to full investigation in a matter of couple of weeks. I'd say that's traction," said Father McGuire, who worked in Silicon Valley before being ordained to the priesthood in 2000.
"I cooperate with God's grace. Fundamentally, that's what I want the church to do," he added. "If the darkness has a hold on me, it doesn't feel good. There's a parallel to that with the church. Let us speak the truth."
"Since the homilies, Father McGuire said, he has heard from 45 men who told him they also had been abused. Five of the men were priests, he added, and four of those had been abused while they were seminarians."
I thought it quite telling that abusive people can just graduate to manipulating adults when they know that minors are off limits. How sad.
Very brave for Fr. McGuire to speak about this. Once again, it is evidence that sexual attraction does not follow neatly into heterosexual, homosexual, ephebophile and pedophile. The abusing priest was clearly a same-sex abuser, and all the priest abuse revelations in the seminaries are the same, seducing young men who go in to give their whole lives to the true God, and not to a seducer of men.
Secondly, the process of grooming, is very devious. It is a part of modern seduction, of trying to get the sex target to be more open to deviant sexual behavior, to say it is no big deal, or that it is natural, part of growing up, part of being cool, not uptight, etc. Our whole society is being groomed ever since the Kinsey Report, and up to Fifty Shades, and beyond, so that many now reject the teaching of our Lord on what is good for us and what is bad for us. Much of what is touted as scientific research in this area is thinly veiled grooming, and has seduced much of modern society. The sin of Pride parades are the culmination of this societal grooming. This grooming has seduced some of our bishops. But it is false, all of it. Choose life, the truth that saves, the only hope of eternal salvation.
This poster states that it was "Very brave for Fr. McGuire to speak about this." And then proceeds to his true agenda, which is the incessant scapegoating of gays ("The sin of Pride parades are the culmination of this societal grooming").
Yesterday, when this same poster commented on Christine Blasey Ford, did he say "Very brave for Prof Ford to speak about this" (i.e. her experience of being abused as a 15 year old girl)? No ... in Prof Ford's case he indulged in a pernicious attack: "On the face of the allegation, we have a 15-year who was drinking beer (!) at a pool party, who was horsing around for seconds or minutes with a 17-year old. No suggestion of any actual sexual activity. No successful disrobing. Says it was unwelcome, was traumatic and fear-inducing. But, didn’t tell her girlfriends, her parents, anyone else. Doesn’t remember the house, how she got there or got home, even the month or year." The whitewashing of a 17 year old boy attempting to rape a 15 year old girl is repulsive in the extreme. ( posted at https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/09/19/brett-kavanaugh-and-toxic-masculinity-lessons-another-all-male-jesuit-high-school ) This exemplifies Frida Ghitis' observation that "accusers are often demonized and humiliated, while the accused are defended or treated as martyrs" ... https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/19/opinions/brett-kavanaugh-scramble-metoo-global-ghitis/index.html
This poster seems to me to be a troll, stalking these comboxes, incessantly seeking to protect conservatives and downplay their malfeasance, and to scapegoat gay people and present them as deviant and the ultimate danger to society and the common good. I find it so depressingly ugly.
As for Fr McGuire, your courage is extraordinary. Speaking out about your experience of being abused seems to have unbound others, allowing them to finally speak about their own experiences of being abused which they have been silently carrying in their interior world for many, many years. Hopefully, being able to speak about it will be a catalyst for inner healing, as well as for healing in the church and the world, where so much work needs to be done to ensure that this evil is eradicated.
Vincent - You want to reverse Church doctrine and don't care about injustice, since you have already convicted Kavanaugh of rape ("whitewashing of a 17 year old boy attempting to rape a 15 year old girl is repulsive.") when nothing is even partially proven, and the motive is political destruction. Fr. McGuire, on the other hand, doesn't name the person, but opens up about it to help others who might be groomed/seduced by homosexual priests. Another America article (Rossetti) shows the Dallas Charter is working for children, but not adults (links below). Just this week, (LA and NY Times, not conservative rags): a bishop in West Virginia is removed, scandals in the Netherlands and Germany, several priests in San Diego, and Galveston - confirm an epidemic of same-sex abuse in the Church. Shouldn't it be the number one object of the LGBT community to rid the world of this abuse, not normalize it or cover it up.
NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/us/bishop-bransfield-pope-francis.html
LAT http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-san-diego-priest-abuse-scandal-20180914-story.html
NYT https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/12/us/ap-us-clergy-abuse-dinardo.html
Rossetti https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/09/20/five-ways-safeguard-children-everywhere
I believe Fr. McGuire, AND I also believe Christine Blasey Ford, but please notice the different reactions from the public to each of these victims of abuse. Fr. McGuire is rightfully receiving praise for coming forward after 35 years of silence, while Professor Ford is receiving death threats and is in hiding with her family.
Letitia - do you also believe that this accusation by itself is sufficient to disqualify Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court? Should he also be impeached from the Appellate court that he currently sits on? Should we have the same standard for the Senators? Kavanaugh has already sworn under oath that this did not happen. So has Mark Judge, the witness Ford is relying on. Should we at least require that each Senator who is judging Kavanaugh swear under oath that they have never perpetrated an unwelcomed groping or sexual encounter as a teenager or thereafter, or else recuse themselves from the vote?