Finding Little Solace in Sharing of Long-Guarded Secret

Moran, who is from Boston, tried immediately to communicate that something had happened, but he was too embarrassed to be explicit. He told his parish supervisor that the priest was gay, hoping to raise red flags. He told a room full of people at his seminary that "there's a problem in that rectory" and that no more interns should be sent. No one followed up. He called rape crisis centers in the Boston Yellow Pages, he said, and was told that only women could be victims.

In the wave of clergy sex abuse cases, the image of priest-as-victim has been mostly absent. An exception is Detroit Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, who made international news in January when he said he had been molested by a priest as a teenager.

But some experts say many priests like Moran won't speak out until they retire. "The wave of clergy victims is just getting started," said Gary Schoener, a clinical psychologist who specializes in clergy abuse cases. As hard as reporting abuse is for laymen, it is even more difficult for clergy because of professional concerns about retaliation, experts say.

Being a priest-victim is complicated, said A.W. Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk who has treated abusive priests and their victims. Priests are the ones who guide people to forgive, and priests may also get mixed messages about what is normal.

"You're preaching that this or that is sinful; but, on the other hand, you know from hearing confession all the time that this is common, and you are forgiving it," he said.

In Moran's case, the young priest forged ahead. The attack reflected not on him but on his abuser, Moran told himself, and he was ordained in 1971 before hundreds of relatives and friends. It was a social network that would soon slip away as he became guarded, moving to parishes around Massachusetts and eventually to military base chapels in California, Japan and Florida.

He had heard that sexual abuse victims were more likely to become abusers, and he kept his distance. "Let's say I wasn't big on visiting people's houses," he said.

Although many priests speak of their shared brotherhood, Moran didn't feel it. "It was God and me."

Moran believed he was suppressing his anger, his memories, his conflict. "I ran it , instead of it running me."

All that changed in 2001, three years after he came to Washington Hospital Center as a chaplain. He was in a pastoral care training class that required intense reflection about one's ability to give. While in that frame of mind one day, he and his teachers argued over something seemingly mundane -- they wanted him to lead an additional service, and he didn't want to. Something about that sensation of authority telling him to do something he didn't want to struck a long-silent chord.

"I feel like I'm being spiritually raped," he remembers blurting out. His trainers picked up on his comment immediately, and from then on Moran started telling people that he had been abused: his family, co-workers, other victims in group therapy. But most people had no idea how deep the conflict in him ran.

Just as he started to sketch the outline of his experience, something happened that he had not anticipated: the Catholic clergy sex scandals. It turned out that he was far from alone, which angered and upset him further.