Victim of Child Abuse Beats Priest Who Abused Him

If we had the records, I think we would find this has been going on in the Catholic Church for hundreds of years. Here is another one:

NM diocese sued over sexual abuse allegations
The Associated Press
Nov. 11, 2010, 1:56PM

GALLUP, N.M. — A 70-year-old Phoenix man has sued the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, among others, claiming that he was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest in the 1950s.

The lawsuit filed in Arizona's Coconino County Superior Court accuses longtime Diocese of Gallup priest Clement Hageman of abuse and the church of covering up and hiding the abuse. Hageman died in 1975.

The lawsuit seeks monetary compensation and punitive damages. The archidiocese, the Diocese of Gallup, the Diocese of Corpus Christi in Texas, Hageman's estate and a Holbrook, Ariz., church were named in the lawsuit.

Hageman was assigned to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Holbrook in 1942, where the alleged victim served as an altar boy. A group of men from the church confronted Hageman a decade later, accusing him of sexually abusing boys and informed the bishop, the lawsuit stated.

The defendants "covered up and deliberately tried to hide and deny the specific incidents of Hageman's sexual abuse, Hageman's history of sexual abuse, and Hageman's propensity for sexual abuse," it said.

The Diocese of Gallup released Hageman's name as a credibly accused pedophile priest in 2005. During a healing Mass for victims, the late Bishop Donald Pelotte called Hageman one of the "most abusive priests in the diocese."

Robert Pastor, an attorney for the plaintiff, said the abuse has damaged his client's personal life and he wants to reveal the truth about Hageman. The lawsuit sought a jury trial.

Officials with the Gallup diocese declined to comment. A victim assistance coordinator at the Texas diocese told the Gallup Independent there had been no allegations against Hageman.

According to the complaint, Hageman's sexual abuse of boys first was documented in the 1930s in the Corpus Christi diocese, where he was ordained a priest. It said he was "banished" from the diocese in 1939 and unsuccessfully sought assignments in Wisconsin and Connecticut.

The lawsuit detailed allegations that, if true, fill in gaps of missing information about Hageman's life, and his assignments and reassignments with the church in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Hageman left Holbrook by 1953 and was reassigned to a Kingman, Ariz., parish where he worked until 1963. His last assignment was in Winslow, Ariz.

I think it is bad form to go beat him up in a retirement home after having received a financial settlement from him for the crime.

Yeah, I would have beat him up behind the dumpster in the back.

well, I'm not Will Lynch and I never "walked a mile in his shoes" and I certainly understand his motivation but I have to say that in my career working in child protection I all too often came face to face with persons who had done horrendous things to child however, I could not have remained an advocate for children had I not deferred my personal feelings to the judicial system. There are no easy answers but here in the USA we do rely on Law and Order in spite of it's flaws.

I guess he's gonna have to repay that 625k

Why?

Did he sign something saying he'd have to pay back the money if he beat the **** out of the perve?

You were the advocate of the children, he's the now adult, then child. He doesn't have to defer his personal feelings, and doesn't have to give a rat's ass about the judicial system.

If they put Lynch in prison, how would that be worse than the prison he's been in since he was as lad?

Yeah, actually I do give a rat's ass about the judicial system as I'm sure he will after being charged with assault and battery. While it may be a defense in Texas, "he needed killing" really don't fly in the remaining 49 states.

confidential settlement

all bets are off now

I know you give a rats ass.

I'm betting he doesn't care if he goes to prison or not.

Like he said "they've taken everything from me, what else is there to take"

confidentiality agreement.

screw that. spend all the money, let them come try to get it.

I guess it comes down to that my opinion on this is that there are more important things than not going to prison, or money.

But it's hard to see what that is here. Next week, he is in prison and the priest is fine. Is that justice for what happened? Maybe he gets some cathartic release and finds some peace after all these years, but now he's in prison getting new scars. I don't think logic really applies to situations like this but from the outside looking in this doesn't look like a good thing.

Let's ask this victim if he feels justice is served because he finally got to do something.

For all we know, the memory of slamming his fist into the priests face repeatedly will keep him happy.

It's my assumption that both victims suffer from mental illness. I doubt very much that either one has the potential for happiness.

Well, I think he could have been smarter about it, but the best thing would be for him to have spent some of that money healing himself; then he wouldn't be obsessing about it and now facing prison time.

I'm very much in agreement - you said that in a much nicer way than I could have.

I think that Lynch justice is wrong, period. (Pun unintended, but inevitable.)

If I was Will Lynch, I would have rejected the Jesuits' settlement offer and continued pursuing the case in court when it was ripe. To accept the settlement, change my mind twenty years later, and beat the man to a pulp just because I feel like it, is just plain assault. I hope the jury will thwart Lynch's threadbare attempt to change the subject before it, and swiftly hand down his well-deserved jail sentence. Certainly, the whole thing doesn't make me want to cheer. On the contrary: it saddens me to see otherwise-civilized people in this thread applauding this regression into senseless violence.

I was groped in the baptismal pool by a Bible Belt minister when I was a child, maybe 10ish. Talk about mixed messages. I was old enough and already had some savy to know the incident was not about me and the church did get rid of him.

It marked my departure from organized religion

My best estimate of the situation
is that he will not have to repay the amount of the settlement.





David