A lawsuit by a former alter boy about sex abuse at the hands of Father Ivan Ferguson that took place in the 1980’s, exposes the cover up of the Catholic Church. They think curing alcoholism in Father Ivan Ferguson by sending him to Alcoholics Anonymous will do the trick.
So we don’t just have the problem of the court system sending sexual predators to Alcoholics Anonymous, but the Catholic Church started thinking years ago that sending their pedophile priests to AA was the way to go. This just makes me sick. These poor children. Let’s start protecting the children and stop protecting the pedophiles by covering up their crimes, and hiding in AA granting anonymity.
The suit claims that senior church officers, including former Archbishop John F. Whealon, knew that Ferguson had abused two brothers in the Tarriffville section of Simsbury two years earlier, in 1979, but failed to prevent the priest from having further contact with children.
Church records entered as evidence in the case show that Ferguson was a teacher at Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford when he confessed to abusing the Tarriffville brothers. Whealon removed Ferguson from the high school and sent him, for three months, to a church clinic that noted Ferguson’s pedophilia but existed principally to treat alcoholic nuns and priests.
The records show that Whealon and the clinicians who treated Ferguson at the St. Luke Institute in Holliston, Mass., in 1979 believed his pedophilia could be controlled if he attended Alcoholics Anonymous and controlled his drinking.
Upon Ferguson’s release from St. Luke, Whealon assigned the priest to a Catholic high school for girls in Milford. Not long after his assignment in Milford, the records show that Ferguson was pressing to be assigned to a school for boys.
The assignment to a boy’s school “did not materialize,” according to the records. But by 1981, he had been assigned as the principal of a Catholic grammar school in Derby for boys and girls. It was while Ferguson was at St. Mary’s School in Derby that he is accused of molesting the altar boy, known in his suit as Jacob Doe, and the altar boy’s best friend. The boys were age 13 to 15 when the abuse took place.
The records show that by 1982, Ferguson and the people who treated him at St. Luke were proposing that Whealon assign him to a “teen ministry.” The records do not reflect how Whealon received the proposal.
Ferguson died in 2002.
Dubay’s ruling prevented the archdiocese from calling former Penn State University history professor John P. Jenkins as a witness.
Jenkins is a widely published historian with specialities in the Catholic church and aberrant behavior. In the 1990s, Jenkins wrote, among other things, “Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America” and “Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis.”
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-priest-abuse-0203-20120202,0,91891.story
I was a child and attending St. Bernard’s Church in Tariffville, CT. I was at some sort of church function. I can’t remember what. My friend, who I will call “Jim” (not his real name) and I were playing in the cemetery next to the church. My friend was an altar boy. Another one of our big know it all type friends yelled at us for playing around in the cemetery. I taunted her, and sent her off. Then Jim asked me if I could keep a secret. He said that Father Ivan had done things to him. He told me things I could barely comprehend, and I would rather not say the rest. If anyone else told me this, I would not have believed him/her. But Jim was just so honest. I knew he was not making it up. I told him that what Father Ivan was doing was wrong, and he must tell his parents right away. I told him that if he didn’t tell his parents, that I was going to tell them. After that, Jim stopped talking to me altogether. Soon afterwards, Father Ivan announced in a sermon that he was leaving. He spoke about human flaws and forgiveness. Then, Father Ivan worked at Northwest Catholic High School where my sister was a student. Then he worked at Hartford Hospital. His life went on. Jim’s life did not. He would not talk to me. Or even look at me. I could see he felt like a criminal and he avoided me. As if he sinful, and I knew it. Now Father Pedophile Ivan lies in Saint Bernard’s Cemetery, right with many of my ancestors. Jim couldn’t even look at me, because he was horrified that I knew. Now Father Ivan lies peacefully next to decent citizens next to the church. How does he deserve this? He was a completely disgusting, horrible, evil criminal.
Sexual Abuse Conference At The Vatican. Now when is Alcoholics Anonymous GSO and Narcotics Anonymous World Services going to have their Sex Abuse Conference? How many more children and people have to suffer at the hands of AA / NA / CA members?!
Alleged Child Sex Abuse Victim Speaks Out At Vatican Conference
Experts to bishops: pedophiles lie, trust victims
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press – 20 minutes ago
ROME (AP) — Priests who rape and molest children lie when confronted with an accusation but victims usually tell the truth, psychologists told Catholic bishops at a symposium Tuesday, advising them to listen first to the victims.
The message came during a Vatican-backed meeting on clerical sex abuse that aimed to help bishops draft and enforce tough policies to protect children and root out pedophiles from the priesthood. Priests and bishops from about 100 countries were attending the four-day symposium at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University ahead of a May deadline to deliver their sex abuse policies to the Vatican.
Survivors of clerical abuse have long said that once they summoned the courage to denounce their abusers to church leaders, Catholic bishops often dismissed their accusations and instead accepted the word of their priests, whom bishops consider their brothers and sons in the priesthood.
That pattern led to decades in which bishops shuffled pedophiles from parish to parish, protecting the church’s reputation at all costs, while victims were left to feel like they were to blame for the abuse.
Marie Collins, who was assaulted as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain in her native Ireland, told the bishops that dynamic led to multiple hospitalizations later in life for anxiety and depression. She told her story of abuse and how the church’s response to it — refusing to believe her, telling her it was her fault and taking the priest’s word over hers — made the initial trauma even worse.
Read more-
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h4zpAQsk24Q4ZZk23gV1QT6kYmGA?docId=3b21ed65399f4efdbdd6b963d92d5041
Another priest sued for sex abuse of an alter boy that attended Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous! AA is fully aware of these practices of sending pedophiles to 12 step meetings. Yet they encourage children to come to meetings. THAT IS PERVERTED……..
‘The suit said Farwell was unfit to serve as a priest due to reasons including his attraction to children (particularly teenage boys); his sexual abuse of children (particularly teenage boys); his addictions to sex and alcohol; his inability to obey his vow of celibacy; his inability to observe boundaries; and his participation in support groups such as Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. Farwell also posed a danger to children because of his being rushed to the House of Affirmation for treatment for sexual misconduct and/or sexual abuse in March 1985. He was again rushed to a monastery in 1998 due to sexual misconduct and/or sexual abuse.’
The House of Affirmation is a facility established solely to treat Catholic priests who had issues including sexual abuse issues, sexual addictions and severe psychological problems, the suit said.’
http://www.salisburypost.com/Crime/072111-former-altar-boy-sues-charlotte-diocese-sexual-abuse-qcd#.TjdCI87t_sM.wordpress