Last week, I covered the press conference for the Diocese of Knoxville and shot video & still photos and captured the audio for the event for our website. The allegation is no more and another priest has admitted terrible wrongdoing from many years ago about his involvement as a pedophile, but this time, in our Diocese.
Many years ago, long before I was even born, my Uncle John went to my grandmother and tried to tell her something important. He never got out all he wanted to say as he tried to his Mom about what Fr. Abercrombie had been doing with him on vacations, at camp, and even in their home. He got in big trouble and got grounded for even mentioning anything negative about the great man, the family friend, and holy priest.
My Uncle John was about ten when he tried to tell his Mom, the age that the abuse began for the brave man that came forward last week to offer his experiences that took place a long time ago at the hand of a priest from the then Diocese of Nashville.
My Uncle John grew up and became a fantastic lawyer, fathered three great kids, got on with his life, and forgot all about those dark memories. Then, one night, when he was in his 50’s, he awoke in the middle of the night from a bad dream. The dream kept coming back every night and continued for a long time. My aunt finally asked him to go see somebody, which he did. In therapy, the truth came out quickly, the dark memories came back and a flood of emotion and anger poured from my Uncle. He got mad, and he began to try to find Fr. Abercrombie who had been moved many times, over and over by various bishops in Denver and then in California.
My uncle then reached out to his three brothers who immediately denied having any experience like that. They pushed him away. But a few weeks after my John spoke with my Uncle Ed, he realized he had no explanation for why he couldn’t stand the smell of men’s sweat. He loved to play racquetball daily but always went home to shower and avoided the locker room where he played. Things began to click for him as well and within a short time, my Uncle Ed confided to my Uncle John that he was remembering things as well… things that made him sick.
Eventually, in 1993, my Uncle John began to pursue legal means to go after first, Fr. Abercrombie, and then the Diocese of Denver. He was stonewalled, told to go away, ignored, and it so infuriated him that he began writing letters to Pope John Paul II, asking to be excommunicated. My Uncle John is now a professed atheist and free-thinker.
Finally a settlement was reached between my three uncles and the Diocese of Denver, but this didn’t happen until 2008, many years after the sexual molestation had taken place and fifteen years since my Uncle John began legal means to get attention about Fr. Abercrombie. It wasn’t until immediately after another diocese in California settled in a class action suit for victims of Abercrombie that the Diocese of Denver reached out with their offer to settle.
Fast forward to last week’s press conference… as I sat behind the camera shooting the video, I kept having to wipe tears away from my eyes to focus and shoot. I kept thinking about my three uncles at the hands of Fr. Abercrombie, how wrong he was, how little and innocent they all were when he took advantage of them in the 1950’s, and how much time had passed before the church actually admitted wrongdoing and accepted responsibility his reign of terror over my Mom’s little brothers. But I was also reacting to my own heart hearing the words my bishop was saying. The last two paragraphs, in particular, were a stark contrast my own families’ experience:
“Our first concern is for Mr. Tucker, his family, and anyone else who may have been harmed by Father Casey. We want to help him in his healing process in any way we can. I want to assure you that Father Casey has been removed from ministry and will never again function as a priest in the Catholic Church.”
When I was ordained in 2007, one of the first things I did was to call my Uncle John. Needless to say, he’s not happy about my being a Deacon, but he tried really hard to be happy for me anyway as he knew how important that day was for me. I got him on the phone and I told him that I was sorry. It was an awkward moment between us, especially on the phone. What I actually said to him then, escapes me now, but it was heartfelt, honest, and I was very sad in my demeanor. He accepted my apology quietly and thanked me for my call. It was hard for both of us.
So there I was trying to reconcile my feelings about how we had been abused as a family by the Church, while listening to every word spoken by Bishop Stika with awe. Everything the Bishop said that day and in the days since, have been words full of honesty, truth, humbleness, transparency, genuine sorrow, and his voice has been filled with the firm resolve of a man on a mission to make our kids safer. At the end of the press conference, I was filled with pride at being Catholic, in serving the Church as a Deacon, and especially at my Bishop’s response to Mr. Tucker. I saw some 40 years of heartache in my own family compressed into just 23.5 hours from Mr. Tucker’s first contact with the Chancery to Fr. Casey being stripped of his faculties; this is how long it took to report the abuse by Mr. Tucker, inform the authorities, suspend and finally permanently remove Fr. Casey from ministry, and hold a press conference to totally bring credibility to Mr. Casey’s allegations. It was nothing short of a miracle in my eyes and it felt really good to witness the whole thing.
But at the end of the day, I found myself praying for Fr. Casey as well as Mr. Tucker. Both are in need of our prayers and while each need very different things right now, there is only one person that can supply them all: Jesus Christ. Only Christ can restore lost dignity to Mr. Tucker and offer mercy and forgiveness to Fr. Casey. The cross is the most amazing symbol of God’s love that can heal all wounds and bring about true reconciliation, no matter what we have done. I pray the cross of Christ will allow both men to be freed from all anxiety and fill each of them with the hope of the risen Lord.
- Deacon Patrick Murphy-Racey
