US clerical abuse survivor implores Pope to act
Shaun Dougherty is "sick and tired of being conned." On the eve of Pope Francis's visit to Ireland, the US survivor of clerical sexual abuse wants the head of the Catholic Church to finally help victims get justice. Dougherty, a 48-year-old New York restaurateur with Irish roots, says he was molested and sexually assaulted from the age of 10 to 13 in a Catholic school in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Like countless other survivors, he is fed up with church leaders bemoaning the abuse without taking decisive action to hold the perpetrators responsible, such as the pope's most recent condemnation, on Monday, of "atrocities." "The Vatican and the pope, and the previous pope and the pope before, have put out statements on this," Dougherty told AFP. "The man who sits here today is tired of the statements. I am sick of being conned... I want to see actions." Pope Francis visits Ireland this weekend, where he is set to address the catalogue of abuse that has dramatically eroded the Church's authority in a country where a new generation are shedding traditional mores. "Stand in the open in Ireland and speak from your heart, and tell us what you as the pope are going to do!" said Dougherty, who cuts a dynamic figure with a greying beard and trendy spectacles. Campaigning to change US laws on child sex crimes, he wants the Vatican to stop lobbying against extending the statute of limitations and imposing the law retroactively, and to give victims "what they need to survive." "The whole irony in this whole situation is if you embezzle money as a priest from the church, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent," he told AFP. - 'Got away with it' - "Every priest could embezzle $100,000 each, and it won't add up to anywhere near what it is going to end up costing these guys." Dougherty is opposed to any concept of impunity for pedophile clerics. His abuser was his parish priest, religion teacher and sports coach, and he is still alive, now in his 60s. Now retired, he lives a "five to seven minute drive" from the home Dougherty owns in Pennsylvania. He was transferred to another parish after the first allegations against him were made public in 2012 and put on retirement when more accusations surfaced. Other than that, he remains free. "He is not registered as a sex offender. He has never served a day in jail... he still collects Social Security. He is basically a retired priest so he got away with it," says Dougherty. The eighth of nine children in an observant Catholic family, Dougherty waited until he was 21 years old, in 1991, to tell his family about the abuse he and some of his school mates, suffered at the hands of the priest. It took years for his parents to believe him. In 2012, he spoke for the first time to law enforcement, following an appeal for witnesses to come forward when the priest was accused publicly. - 'Jump through window' - Dougherty has worked hard since high school, rising from dish washer to chef, to cafe owner to building a restaurant with his brother. Coming forward six years ago was a tough decision. "I'm like, now? This is going to come out now, and I am about to build a restaurant and jump off a cliff and I am going to go home to Pennsylvania and take on the Roman Catholic Church at the same time?" he said. Now married, he says he has no regrets. Leading a campaign against the church while running a business may be difficult, but he feels "a sense of duty." Each month he organizes a meeting in his restaurant for survivors of clerical sex abuse for the US survivors network SNAP. His public statements have earned him daily messages of support from victims around the world. One Australian, he said, recently congratulated him, saying that while he was old and dying he was "very happy to see new people" fighting for justice. But even if the pope finally acts decisively, Dougherty says he will never return to church. The last time was in 2014 for his father's funeral in his childhood church of Saint Clement in Johnstown. "That was the hardest day of my life. Not because he died, he struggled with health and in my mind I had buried him 100 times," he said. "When they lit the incense, the smell... my skin was crawling, the walls were closing in on me... I wanted to just literally tear flesh from bone and jump through the stained-glass window."
