They were best
friends, the kind who shared everything but their darkest
secret: sexual abuse at the hands of the same Roman Catholic
priest.
Twenty years
later, their abuse is no longer hidden. The three boyhood
friends will each receive $1.5 million from a $660 million
settlement between the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and
abuse victims.
Yet that money
will never undo the guilt that comes with silence. It will
never replace the innocence the three teens shared before a
new and terrible bond brought them even closer
together.
The stories of
Troy Gray, Jim O'Brien, and Mike Moylan are hardly unique,
but together they give voice to the untold numbers of clergy
abuse victims who thought they suffered alone, only to
learn years later that those closest to
them--sisters, brothers, friends, and
classmates--hid the same secret.
The Associated
Press does not normally identify victims of sexual abuse,
but in this case the three men agreed to have their names
released.
___
When the Reverend
Kevin Barmasse first showed up at St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton in Tucson in 1985, the kids loved him. Barmasse was
''on loan'' from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, but
he seemed to fit right into their world.
He was in his
early 30s and kept his collar in his pocket. ''Rev Kev,''
as they called him, listened to their music--he loved
Air Supply--and drove a custom van with rotating
bucket seats and curtains over the windows.
For Troy Gray, a
16-year-old guitar player, Barmasse's arrival seemed
like a gift from God. The teen dreamed of being a priest one
day; one of his favorite childhood games was reciting
the Mass while dressed in vestments made from a bed
sheet.
''It was like,
'Oh, great, this is cool. God's going to bless us here
because we're in with the priest,''' Gray recalled. ''He was
young, he was really cool and really hip.''
Then, the
trips--and the abuse--started: weekends at
Disneyland, endless summer days at a Southern
California beach house, retreats in desert resort
hotels. The molestation, Gray rationalized, was a small
price to pay for a father figure to replace his own
drunken dad.
''A lot of people
ask, 'Troy, why didn't you throw him out the window?
You're Joe Jock, star football player and track star,'''
Gray said. ''People just don't understand what
religion can do to you.''
___
Jim O'Brien
remembers the ''night prayers,'' long confessionals alone
with Barmasse.
O'Brien knew
other teens, including Gray and Moylan, recited night
prayers with Barmasse too, sometimes disappearing for hours.
But the teen was sure they were just
praying--the priest couldn't possibly be doing to
them what he did to him.
''We were all
best friends, but we never talked about any of our stories.
We all went on little trips with him all the time,'' he
said. ''We had no clue.''
At 18, after
months of abuse, O'Brien abruptly stopped going to
church--but he never told anyone why, not even his
best friends. He was terrified the other boys would
tease him, that he would lose his popularity. He
agonized that the abuse meant he was gay.
''I wish I would
have said something. I don't know if I was the first
one, I don't know if I was the last,'' he said. ''I didn't
want to have anyone look at me in a different way.''
___
Mike Moylan was
younger. He moved to Tucson in 1987, just as his parents
were going through a bitter separation. He found solace at
church, with Father Kevin and his nucleus of cool,
older boys.
Moylan was
thrilled to find himself singled out by Barmasse for special
trips, just like the other boys: camping at Lake Powell,
time at the Grand Canyon and Disneyland and visits to
Barmasse's family in Los Angeles.
Moylan knew the
other boys, especially O'Brien and Gray, also took
special trips with Barmasse. He never dared to ask them what
happened at night.
''The only thing
we had ever asked each other was, 'Oh, are you getting
the back rubs too?''' Moylan said. ''We were teenage
boys--it's not like you'd ever want to admit
that a guy touched you.''
___
A year after Gray
graduated from high school, his mother told him that
people at St. Elizabeth's were saying that Barmasse had hurt
some boys. She asked her son to defend him.
Gray was stunned.
He hadn't told anybody about Barmasse. If people were
talking, it meant that he wasn't the only one.
Had Barmasse
touched O'Brien? Had he abused Moylan? The thought made Gray
sick.
That afternoon
Gray went to O'Brien's house and asked if anything had
happened with the priest. Together, they sat on the porch
for hours.
''I'm crying and
saying, 'I'm sorry to do this to you. I need to know. I
need to know,''' Gray recalls. ''Finally, he broke down and
he said, 'Yes, yes he did.' That's all I ever heard
from Jim.''
Next Gray
confronted Moylan and asked him the same thing, but the
younger teen exploded and stormed out. Gray wouldn't
talk to him again for 15 years.
A month later
Gray tried to hang himself.
___
In 2003 the
Diocese of Tucson released a list of the names of priests
who had credible claims of abuse against them.
Barmasse's name was on it.
The diocese also
acknowledged, in a separate letter on its Web site, that
Barmasse had come to Tucson from the Archdiocese of Los
Angeles after police there dropped a sexual abuse
investigation against him.
Gray, by then in
his mid 30s, read about the list of priests in the local
newspaper and called the reporter, who referred him to a
lawyer. Attorney Lynne Cadigan asked Gray who else
might have been abused and he started listing names.
At the top were Jim O'Brien and Mike Moylan.
Cadigan paused:
Moylan had sent her an e-mail that very same day. Gray
promised he'd call O'Brien and give him her number.
Within days, the
childhood friends were together again, this time sitting
in Cadigan's office sharing the darkest secret of their
lives.
''I was
shocked,'' said Gray. ''I thought I'd never see the day that
these guys would be sitting in the same room with me
again.''
Since that day,
the three have grown close again, but they have never
told each other the details of what happened with Barmasse.
The guilt and shame, they say, is too overwhelming.
Gray, who
believes he was the first of the three to be abused,
agonizes over whether he could have protected his
friends. O'Brien wonders the same thing about Moylan,
who started hanging out with Barmasse just when
O'Brien pulled away.
''To this day, I
sit there and I still feel that guilt. When Mike talks
about things that trigger him, I'm just like...damn it. Why,
why?'' Gray said.
They are focusing
on rebuilding their friendship. They talk frequently by
phone and get together for dinner whenever Gray returns to
Tucson from his new home in Colorado.
They all still
bear the scars of Father Kevin and of many victims of
clergy abuse: alcoholism, depression, troubled
relationships, sexual insecurity, trouble with
authority.
Most of all,
however, the three are overwhelmed with anger at the church
that abandoned them--and, they feel, abandons them
still. The settlement will never mean anything, they
say, as long as Barmasse remains a free man.
''The priests are
out there living their lives--they could be living
right next door to you,'' Gray said. ''It's finished
for them, but it's not finished for me. It's something
I'll live with for the rest of my life.''
Now 55, Barmasse
lives in Westlake Village, near Los Angeles, protected
from prosecution by a statute of limitations that long ago
expired. When reached by phone, he had no comment.
(Gillian Flaccus, AP)