Gleeson's family reported her abuse as soon as they found out.
When Gleeson was a sophomore in high school, her mother found the Winnie the Pooh calendar she kept hidden under her mattress that chronicled the details of her so-called relationship. Every meeting. Every sexual encounter. Her parents immediately went to the parish monsignor, Fr. Cornelius Flavin.
Dixon V.B. Gleeson, a deeply devout man, cried in the rectory. He'd purposefully placed his five children in a school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph because St. Joseph was the protector of families. How could this have happened to his daughter?
Fisher and Gleeson were ordered to stay away from each other. But Gleeson said the police were never called, Fisher remained at Immacolata School and she continued meeting Gleeson in secret until 1977 — almost seven years after the abuse started.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet declined to comment on Gleeson's case, citing a need to respect the privacy of anyone reporting abuse, but told Global Sisters Report in a recent statement that the congregation was "committed to doing everything within our power to prevent the sexual abuse of minors and to bring healing to those who have been abused."
In 2003, Gleeson tried to sue Fisher, the St. Louis Archdiocese and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, but the 69-year-old Fisher died suddenly in 2004, around the time of her scheduled deposition. At that point, Gleeson, depressed and recovering from a serious accident, settled the case. She did not want to disclose the amount of the settlement to GSR but said it did not even cover her therapy costs.
Other abuse survivors told GSR they had similar experiences when they told someone in the church or in a religious community what a Catholic sister had done to them: Their claims were downplayed or dismissed, and the sister in question faced no immediate consequences; if she was ever removed from active ministry, it was not until decades later.
Theresa Camden — Detroit, MichiganTheresa Camden told GSR that she and one other woman were discharged without explanation from the Sisters, Home Visitors of Mary novitiate in Detroit in 1972, after they were sexually abused by their novitiate director, Sr. Mary Finn. Finn would invite the two women to weeklong retreats at secluded cottages, telling them they needed to experience nature or the seasons. There, she would sexually violate them — or at least that's what Camden has come to understand.
While Camden remembers the years of emotional abuse and manipulation she endured under Finn, she has no memory of the actual sexual abuse due to dissociation, a psychological phenomenon in which victims of sexual trauma can detach themselves from their bodies as a coping mechanism. It's only been in talking with the other woman who Finn abused during these trips that Camden says she came to realize what also happened to her.
Camden maintains that all along the rest of the community knew something wasn't right but, by that point, Finn herself was "untouchable."
"[She] was beginning to get a lot of fame in the Archdiocese of Detroit," Camden said, noting that Finn was even appointed to be the archdiocesan delegate for religious — the primary liaison between the bishop and local religious communities. "So she was becoming one of the good ol' boys, you know, one of the protected ones."
Camden and the other woman, who has remained anonymous, went to Bishop Allen Vigneron with their allegations against Finn in the 1990s. They also brought their allegations to the Home Visitors of Mary.
Local media reported that the congregation paid Camden's co-accuser $20,000 (to help cover her therapy costs, the congregation said), but no other action was taken, even as Finn began earning a reputation for being "handsy" at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit where she'd been teaching since 1969.
Finn eventually resigned from the seminary in 2019 — the day before local news outlet Deadline Detroit published a story about the abuse allegations against her. In a statement posted by the archdiocese, Finn apologized for using her position of authority to engage in "inappropriate conduct with two adult novices." Vigneron, now archbishop of Detroit, also apologized, saying he had mistakenly believed the situation had already been resolved.
Camden's co-accuser died of COVID-19 in May 2020, after which Camden said Finn attempted to call her. "She still [didn't] get it," Camden said.
The Home Visitors of Mary have repeatedly declined to comment on the allegations. Finn died in January 2021.
Becky Starr — Milwaukee, WisconsinAnother woman, who uses the pseudonym Becky Starr to protect her family's privacy, said the School Sisters of Notre Dame refused to even engage with her when she told them she'd been molested by Sr. Mary Olivia Reindl.
In 1954, Starr, an enthusiastically religious 13-year-old who used to get up early to sing at Mass every morning before breakfast, was allowed to join the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. But after a decade, she was unhappy and began therapy with Reindl, a psychologist, as she discerned if religious life was right for her.
Sometimes, during therapy sessions, Starr said, Reindl would put her hands up the sleeves of Starr's habit and massage her bare shoulders. Years later, after Starr had left the congregation but returned to Reindl's practice, Reindl began removing her own clothes from the waist up during sessions and nursing Starr like a baby.
Starr assumed these were normal therapeutic practices. "I know it sounds weird now, but she was a therapist and she had a lot of power over me," she said in an interview.
In the 1980s, when Starr finally realized that what Reindl had done to her was sexual abuse, she said she wrote to her former community, asking them to do something. In response, Starr said, she was told that when she left religious life in 1964, she had absolved the congregation of any responsibility for her.
The Central Pacific Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, which includes the former Milwaukee province, told GSR that they could find no report of abuse or accusations of abuse in Reindl's file and, therefore, could not confirm this claim.
Starr also wrote to then Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland and to Pio Laghi, then papal nuncio to the United States. In a written response dated May 10, 1988, Weakland — who was later found to have paid a man $450,000 to stay quiet about their affair — told Starr it was difficult for him to be sympathetic to her when she tossed "all the blame on one party" and assumed none herself.
"My hope and prayer is that you would be freed from this obsession and come to know a loving, forgiving, and caring God," Weakland concluded. In his response, Laghi referred Starr back to Weakland.
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