Quest to Heal Leads Abuse Victim to Face Old Demons

Michael Donovan visits Holy Name School in Northeast Washington, the site of his molestation by a priest in 1956. He reported the abuse in 2003 and has sought help. (By Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)

On a balmy, hint-of-spring day last week, Michael Donovan drove his rented car slowly past Holy Name School in Northeast Washington, where a billboard read, "He who angers you, controls you."

The 63-year-old Vietnam veteran and retired businessman from California was on a mission into his past, a mission to banish his own anger and regain control. A mission of healing.

Almost 50 years ago, during Donovan's eighth-grade spring break, he was sexually abused at Holy Name by Thomas S. Schaefer, then a 30-year-old, newly minted Roman Catholic priest.

Schaefer went on to molest at least 20 more boys in the Washington Archdiocese, according to church officials, before pleading guilty in 1995 in five of those cases. Only one other priest in the archdiocese, Robert J. Petrella, had more known victims, officials said. About 25 people have reported being molested by Petrella. The two priests were responsible for more than a third of the 123 reports of sexual abuse by clergy in the archdiocese's 59-year history.

For decades, Donovan kept quiet about his traumatic experience, confiding only in his current wife. But in 2003, determined to be counted in a national survey of the church's abuse problem, he informed the archdiocese of Schaefer's 1956 misconduct. He learned then that he was Schaefer's earliest known victim.

"It took me 47 years to raise my hand," Donovan said. "These are things that get buried in people's lives. But they don't forget it."

Donovan, who served with the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, recalled that the priests who took his initial calls apologized immediately, which "was really heartfelt by me. Nobody had ever apologized to me for what happened."

He decided that he needed to do two things to "face the dragon I need to face." One was to meet Schaefer. The other was to visit the room at his old school where the abuse occurred.

Psychologists and victims' advocates say it is common for survivors of child sexual abuse to want to meet their abusers, partly because the once-powerless child becomes the empowered adult controlling the encounter.

Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist whose clinic has treated more than 4,000 people abused by professionals, including teachers, doctors, psychiatrists and clergy, said that "at least half of child abuse victims want to physically see or visit with the offender. . . . They feel that any kind of clarity about why those things happened can help healing."

Donovan asked the archdiocese to pay for him and his wife to travel to see Schaefer. In June 2004, the archdiocese sent him a check for $3,000. It has also paid for his psychological counseling, Donovan said.

Donovan has retained a lawyer who is negotiating with the archdiocese for a financial settlement.