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.
Weakland Letter c.jpg
A 1988 response to Becky Starr from Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland regarding her abuse allegations against School Sister of Notre Dame Sr. Mary Olivia Reindl. (Provided photo, with Starr's real name removed for privacy)
Starr wrote to the state Psychology Examining Board in 1985, which, following an investigation, suspended Reindl's license for a year in 1987 after finding that she had "sexual intimacies" with a patient. That same year, Reindl left her position on the provincial council to become a part-time pastoral minister in the small town of Mazomanie, Wisconsin.
The School Sisters of Notre Dame, again, said there is no indication in Reindl's file that she was ever accused of abuse and that she moved to Mazomanie not in response to any accusations but to be closer to her birth family.
Reindl died in 2012.
"The School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province does not tolerate any kind of abuse and takes allegations seriously," they said in an email comment to GSR. "Anyone experiencing harassment, or who knows of potential harassment, are strongly encouraged to file a complaint. … All complaints will be promptly and thoroughly investigated and appropriate disciplinary actions will be taken."
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1987 suspension order for Sr. Mary Olivia Reindl, from the state of Wisconsin's Psychology Examining Board
Marya Dantzer — Detroit, MichiganThe sister accused of abuse by Marya Dantzer, Adrian Dominican Sr. Mary Gael, left religious life in 1971, before Dantzer ever reported what happened to her. But that didn't stop Dantzer from trying to sue Mary Gael — then married and known as Gael Biondo — the Adrian Dominicans and the Archdiocese of Detroit in 1995.
Thirty years earlier, Dantzer had been a shy, only child from a difficult home environment; she told GSR she did not get along with her adoptive mother, and that her adoptive father, though kind, was a binge drinker. She said Sr. Mary Gael, her freshman English teacher, gave her the connection she craved. Mary Gael mentored Dantzer in poetry and in interpretive reading.
She also began kissing and touching Dantzer in sexual ways that became increasingly more invasive, although Dantzer says there was only one instance of sexual penetration — in 1968 when Biondo, who had since been transferred to another high school, organized a field trip to the University of Michigan where Dantzer was then a freshman English major.
When Dantzer filed her lawsuit, thought to be one of the first such suits against a Catholic sister, she was drawn into a series of conversations with the Adrian Dominicans that she described as chilling. Ultimately, a lawsuit seemed too expensive and Michigan's statute of limitation laws were not in her favor, so Dantzer settled out of court in 1996.
In a statement to GSR, Sr. Patricia Siemen, prioress of the Adrian Dominicans, said the sisters' hearts ached for everyone who suffers sexual abuse. "We are committed to taking every measure possible to prevent such abuse, to investigate and report wrongdoing, and to act justly and compassionately throughout."
Biondo died in May 2020.
Cáit Finnegan — Queens, New YorkCáit Finnegan told GSR that Sister of Mercy Sr. Juanita Barto, the jovial Spanish teacher at Mater Christi Diocesan High School* in Queens, New York, molested her regularly over a four-year period, beginning when she was a sophomore in 1966.
It started with little notes. Barto would leave them in Finnegan's locker, asking her to come talk in her classroom. She also invited Finnegan to attend Broadway shows with her. The more they talked and developed a "special" friendship, the more Finnegan began to confide in Barto and come to love her like a family member. Soon, Barto started locking the classroom door during their talks and sexually violating Finnegan.
Finnegan, an aspiring Sister of Mercy with budding musical talent, said she didn't understand what was happening to her ("In my Irish Catholic family, there was no such thing as sex," she said), but Barto told her that God was love and this was how people expressed love.
finnegan and barto at mater christi c.jpgCáit Finnegan, right, and Sister of Mercy Sr. Juanita Barto in Barto’s classroom at Mater Christi Diocesan High School in Queens, New York. Finnegan says her abuse began with Barto asking her to attend special meetings in her classroom. (Provided photo)
In 1970, Finnegan tried to join the Sisters of Mercy but was rejected. She said the vocation director told her it was because they suspected she was in an "immoral relationship" with Barto. Furious, Finnegan accused Barto of ruining her life, and Barto never touched her again, she said.
The following year, Finnegan was accepted into the community, but she sensed that the other sisters were trying to protect her from Barto. Once, at a vacation house, Finnegan recalls that an older sister swapped her black veil with Finnegan's white novice veil so Finnegan could escape to her room without drawing Barto's attention.
Looking back on it as an adult, Finnegan said she isn't sure if the sisters actually suspected sexual abuse or just knew Barto's penchant to develop what she called "obsessions" with people.
Regardless, Finnegan was not allowed to make vows at the end of her novitiate, and she never learned why. Barto, however, continued her teaching career until 1988, after which she worked as the assistant manager in a Catholic Charities home on Long Island for people with developmental disabilities.
It wasn't until she was an adult that Finnegan came to understand that she had been a victim of pedophilia, but by that time, the statute of limitations in New York had run out. In 2003, the Sisters of Mercy agreed to pay for Finnegan's therapy but denied her requests to meet with Barto. In 2014, Barto died without Finnegan ever having the chance to confront and — as she desired — to forgive her.
Two years ago, New York extended the statute of limitations for second- and third-degree rape, and Finnegan considered filing a lawsuit — something she never thought she would live long enough to be able to do. But she said that after a mediation phone call with Sr. Patricia Vetrano, president of the Sisters of Mercy Mid-Atlantic Community, in October 2020, she decided instead to settle with the Sisters of Mercy and the Diocese of Brooklyn.*
The Sisters of Mercy declined to comment on the specifics of Finnegan's allegations, although Vetrano said in a recent statement to GSR that the congregation was "deeply saddened by the disturbing allegations of sexual abuse by one of its deceased members from 50 years ago," and that they had established policies and procedures to help prevent sexual abuse.
Finnegan said her goal has always been restorative justice — not vengeance — and she is optimistic that Vetrano will make good on her word to work with her in showing other communities of women religious how to model the Gospel when dealing with survivors. It's not enough for them to feel sorry, Finnegan said.
"You need to do something about this."
2022/4/6 05:12
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https://www.chinatimes.com/amp/realtimenews/20220406004581-260408
俄羅斯一名知名狙擊手伊琳娜（Irina Starikova）其實曾為一名修女，最終卻選擇拋棄信仰成為殺手。（圖／翻攝自臉書／Інформагентство АрміяInform）
Anne Gleeson at age 13 (Provided photo)