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Street Roots • Aug. 24-30, 2018
News
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BY A D A M SENN O TT
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
hen a Pennsylvania grand jury
recently released its findings on
child sex abuse in the Catholic
Church, the conclusions - and the numbers
- were staggering: more than 1,000
identified children abused at the hands of that the
'
more than 300 “predator priests,” occurring
first wave of victims
over decades under a systemic cover-up by
the church.
usually empowers the
The report, released Aug. 15, suggests,
second wave of victims,
that the real number of victims is much
higher, with some records lost to time and
which continues for
many people too scared to come forward.
years."
While the report is unprecedented in its
MITCHELL GARABEDIA
scope, attorney Mitchell Garabedian
A T T O R N E Y R E P R E S E N T IN G V IC T II
O F C H IL O S E X A B U S E B Y PRIES
believes it’s just “the tip of the iceberg.”
“There’s many more victims in
Pennsylvania, and many more abusing
priests,” Garabedian said. “And many more
light on decades of abuse in the Boston
supervisors who allowed the sexual abuse to archdiocese. The investigation was depicted
occur.
in the Academy Award-winning movie
“It’s been my experience over the
“Spothght”
decades that the first wave of victims
The Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its
usually empowers the second wave of
reporting, which led to a flood of thousands
victims, which continues for years.”
of sexual abuse allegations against clergy
Garabedian has represented thousands of members from around the world, including
victims who were sexually abused by priests
in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Belgium and
in the Catholic Church over the past two
France, according to the newspaper.
decades. In 2002, he helped reporters in
Garabedian said he’s been contacted by
the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team shed
victims as far away as Haiti, Germany and
■
• IS T O C K / G E T T V
England.
“You name it,” Garabedian said. “It’s
unfortunate.”
Garabedian said that when he began
working with victims who had been abused
in 1994, not many people believed him.
“People were highly skeptical of me,” he
said. “And of the victims.”
It all started when a single mother living
in Boston’s housing projects came to him
worried about changes in the behavior of
her three children, Garabedian said.
“One was washing his hands every day
until they bled,” Garabedian said. “Another
one was taking two-hour showers, and
another was being violent towards his
brothers, which was not characteristic of
any of them.”
Garabedian said he started investigating
the children’s odd behavior and discovered a
common thread.
“I came to find out, after investigating,
that Father John J. Geoghan had been
putting them to bed every night, and had
been sexually molesting them,” Garabedian
said.
Other mothers in the housing project
started sharing similar stories, Garabedian
said. He soon uncovered 86 children who
had been abused by Geoghan.
After the number of victims reached
See G A RABED IA N , page 5