Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Tales of Catholic sexual abuse

I recently watched Twist of Faith, a documentary cover the abuse case of firefighter Tony Comes. I thought I’d pass it along as a interesting look inside an actual abuse case. One of the primary responses from the Catholic church and it’s defenders is that those raising abuse allegations are doing so for financial gain. What if you find that the priest that abused you as a child is now living a few house down the road ? Would you act to protect your kids? I would.

Tony Comes, a firefighter from Toledo, Ohio, who was first sexually abused by a Catholic priest when he was a fourteen-year-old student at a Catholic high school.

Feeling ashamed, Comes kept his secret for nearly 20 years but was forced to confront his past after discovering that the priest, Dennis Gray, was living on the same street as Comes, his wife, and their two young children.

Comes decided to go public and bring a lawsuit against the priest and Church leaders who had neglected to take action after reading a series of investigative stories in The Toledo Blade revealing sweeping patterns of abuse and cover up in the diocese—including interviews with other Gray victims.

Why did you go into the seminary? <chills>