Shame and guilt haunt those who say Catholic clergy in Michigan sexually abused them
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2019/02/shame-and-guilt-haunt-those-who-say-catholic-clergy-in-michigan-sexually-abused-them.html
By Cole Waterman | Cole_Waterman@mlive.com and Heather Jordan | heather_jordan@mlive.com
SAGINAW, MI — William C. “Billy” McAlary says he spent decades repressing the memory of a winter morning when he was 12 years old.
That’s when he says a Catholic priest entered his bedroom in Ionia and changed his life, ruining his capacity for trust and imparting in him a pervasive sense of shame and guilt.
“I’ve got 30 years of therapy under my belt and now I can talk about it, I can talk about it without tearing up,” says McAlary, on the phone from his Grand Rapids-area home, adding he still receives therapy weekly.
Today, at age 73, he’s come to terms with what he alleges happened at the hands of a priest who worked in the Grand Rapids Diocese and later in the Diocese of Saginaw. The Saginaw Diocese has acknowledged the priest was credibly accused of sexually abusing minors.
McAlary told his story of being a Catholic sex-abuse victim after MLive-The Saginaw News was put in touch with him through the St. Louis, Mo.-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.
As the Michigan Attorney General’s office pursues an investigation of alleged sexual abuse in Michigan’s seven Roman Catholic dioceses, MLive spoke with three people who say they were victimized by clergy. They include McAlary, a woman from Kalamazoo who says she was victimized as a teen in Benton Harbor, and the head of SNAP, who lives in Tucson, Ariz.