December 17, 2019 • 28 mins
Stephanie spoke with advocate Shaun Dougherty earlier this season about masculinity and faith and moral leadership, but their full conversation was much deeper. In this bonus episode, Shaun shares more about how and why advocacy for child sexual abuse victims has become his life’s work, and why focusing our anger at the institutions that propagate harm may be more effective than pinpointing it on the individuals who do harm.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode includes discussion about sexual abuse and suicide that
some listeners might find disturbing. Listener discretion as advised. You're
listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and I
Heart Radio. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor and NBC News correspondent,
and this is a special bonus episode of Modern Rules. Ye.
(00:30):
I had a couple of conversations this season that you
didn't get to hear all. But those conversations stuck with me.
They sat with me over the last few weeks and months,
so much so that I wanted to share more. I
sat down with Shawn Daugherty, and I want to share
more of that conversation. Earlier this season, he and I
(00:51):
talked about masculinity and faith in more leadership, but we
covered more. Shawn's a Navy veteran, a restaurateur, and a
prominent advocate for survive vers of sexual abuse. Back in
the nineteen eighties, between the ages of ten and thirteen,
he was abused by a Catholic priest, and earlier this year,
his activism on behalf of others took him all the
(01:12):
way to Rome to share his story at Pope Francis's
summit to discuss the church wide generation's long history of
sexual abuse. I had a long talk with Seawn about forgiveness,
what it takes, what it means, and the power it
can have. One of the reasons we decided to start
(01:32):
this podcast is because we are surrounded by conflict right now.
We are surrounded by conflict. Lack of forgiveness arise in anger.
But this is also a time when more people are
telling their stories. So I would love it if you
would share yours. Beginning when I was ten years old
in my hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in my Catholic school
(01:53):
of St. Clement's Parish, my religion teacher, who is also
my basketball coach, began sexually assaulting me and classmates above
me and below me, and continued with me progressively for
three years until one incident went too far in a
(02:14):
shower after a racquetball match and after shooting a very
stern look, no words were spoken and it just ended
with me. When you were a boy and this was
happening to you, did you think it was just you
or did you think it was happening to other boys?
Did you think it was normal? When I was ten,
I thought I was isolated. I thought it was just me,
(02:37):
but you know, I'm the eighth and nine kids. You
catch on the things quickly, figure things quickly out. Why
didn't you tell anyone? Or did you no? When I
was a kid, no one? And when I was young.
You know, even though there were nine kids in my family,
we didn't talk about sex, and we didn't It was happening,
but we weren't talking about it. And in the faith
(02:59):
it Irish Catholic. My dad is a good man, but
he was a hard man. He was a steelmaker. You
literally made steel for Bethleem Steel. That was my father.
And if you said something against the priest, you just
you just don't. You're not there to question what the
(03:19):
teachers and the priests and the nuns are doing. You're
there to learn, You're there to obey, You're there to behave.
When did you tell people? When did you tell your
parents you're sibling? When I was one? I joined the
Navy when I was one, and right before they ship
you off to boot camp, you were in what is
called a maps station. It's a staging station before they
(03:42):
send you the air portnight maps station. They swear you in,
they give you the oath, and if you take that
oath honestly, or any oath honestly, you have to say something.
You feel a sense of duty that I know this guy,
is it John Lester. I know my parents when I
(04:03):
came home from boot camp. What did they say? It
was at the time too hard for them to believe.
I'm at at the church hierarchy. I'm at at the
district attorneys, I'm at at the police. You know, we
all seld a movie spotlight. I'm mad that that these
other people that swore Ose two didn't hold their oath,
didn't hold up their end of their oath, and didn't
(04:25):
protect the people in the communities that they swore an
oath to protect. If they apologized, If he apologized, could
you forgive him? I forgive him a long time ago.
When it all comes down to it, regardless of whether
I'm a practice in Catholic or I believe in God
or I believe in whatever I was raised to forgive,
(04:46):
you know, that's part of the thing. And if sorry,
it doesn't matter. I'm my rule is to forgive him,
give him the opportunity to be sorry. You know, if
he is unchangeable, I don't think you ake up one
day and decided to be a pedophile. I think you
are a pedophile. I don't think you wake up one
(05:07):
day and beside to be heterosexual or homosexual, or bisexual
or transgender. I don't think you choose that. I think
that chooses you. So I believe he needs help just
as much as his victims do. He needs treatment now,
he needs to be punished. He's done horrific, horrific things.
(05:28):
And in when I told my parents when I came
home from boot camp, I was mad that night, and
I found the rectory that he was at and I
sat in front of it for three hours. It was
Christmas Eve of and what did you do? And I
just sat there and talked myself out and going up
to the door and going inside and confronting him. I
(05:48):
thought of his mother. Had I known in what I
know today about everything that happened and to who and
what was done, and the fact that people in the
diocese and in the church hierarchy knew that he was
a pedophile and didn't talk to any of us, didn't
(06:09):
go to my parents and say this is what he's
doing to you know, we know this. They didn't do that.
You know so had I known then in the mood
that I was in that night, I don't know. I
don't know what I would have done. You truly understand
the value of forgiveness when you look at the rise
and hate and the anger around us right now? Do
(06:34):
you think an injection of forgiveness is what we need? Yeah?
Do you know what really helped me solidify my forgiveness
from him? South Carolina? The Charleston Church Baptist That floored me.
Why immediately without hesitation? The church shooting, the church shooting.
They were damaged, broken people, but yet they have a
(06:56):
strong faith. Is that the most powerful thing you can
have the power to forgive? I haven't seen much more
powerful than that. I mean in all of the things
that are going on in the world today. I mean
tear gas being shot across the river, you know, a children,
separation of children, sexual abuse of children, and custody. Somebody
(07:18):
coming into your church and just murdering in cold blood
for nothing more than rage and hateful fueled reasons. To
immediately forgive that person takes a very strong person. But
what an example if you were unable to forgive, whether
it was the priest or the church, could you live
(07:40):
a productive life. I forgive I'm gonna struggle to liver
productive life. Now, are you kidding me? This is a
hard setting to live in. This is a hard This
is a hard time to live. This is a hard
time to imagine. Imagine being a victim of abuse. And
it's in the news constantly. You know, be careful what
(08:01):
you wish for, you wish your whole life. You like,
I want this in the news all the time. I
want this in the news, And now it's like, this
is the news all the time. So it's wonderful on
one extreme, but on the other stream, it's like, oh
my god, I'm going out of my mind. So that's
very interesting because I think you experienced this abuse decades ago,
and now it's only in the last year. Here we
(08:23):
are right back in it. You went to the Vatican
in February. Is that a positive that you're dealing with
it and addressing it, or do you simply want this
to go away so it stops plaguing your life. Both.
I want the ladder. I want them to absolutely address this.
I want the church, the organization's, the federal government, the
(08:45):
state's governments to address this once and for all, and
protect the children, and I want this to all go
away as an issue. At the same time, it is
overwhelmingly in the news constantly without doing this. If I
wasn't doing this, for the people listening to me doing this,
I understand what they're going through, For the ones that
(09:07):
are really struggling to go outside, really struggling just to
go out and get a cup of coffee, you get
the morning paper, come back in. You know. Doing this
right here is the only difference between me and them.
If I wasn't doing this, I would be literally going
out of my mind right now. But I still don't
understand why you're not angrier with the institution because right now,
(09:31):
victims like you have found one another and come together
and given one another strength, and really, in terms of
the church, they've barely scratched. I am in raged at
the church. The church. I have not forgiven the hierarchy.
I will not forgive until they stop. The organization are evil.
(09:52):
They are the worst, worst kind of evil. They are
taking the most vulnerable o their followers. They are manipulating
their faithful followers, children, They're manipulating the communities that they
live in. They're manipulating through confessionally. Imagine the amount of
(10:15):
information that is if my mom had nine kids, right,
My father was an Irish steelmaking drinker like I mean,
boiler makers like you couldn't imagine, I mean, and one
after another after the shift the bars at seven am,
after the seven a chef. It might as well have
been a Friday night. You know. She did the island
(10:36):
on meeting. You know, she had nine kids to raise,
you know, and it was a rough life style and
and that was her you know sanctuary. That was where
she found grace. That is where you know, she would
go into confession and talk about things that were going
hard on their life. And instead of giving her hope
and helping, they manipulated that and took that out on me.
(11:00):
Why did an institution allow itself to do something like this?
You went to the Vatican as the Pope a bad man.
I didn't meet him. I mean I would have liked
to have. You know, the twelve victims that met with
the Vatican Summit committee chairs. I was one of the twelve,
and we were all hoping to see the Pope come in,
which he didn't do. I think he's a bad person.
(11:22):
I don't know that he's a bad person, but I
think he's protecting the Church and the institution and the
secrets and the system um more than he should. And
a few takeaways that I got from the Vatican meeting
that I did have is, you know, the US is
(11:42):
a very young country by comparisons to the other countries
that the Catholic Church has had very very deep roots
in for a very very long time. We're moving at
a pace that makes the Church very uncomfortable, and they
don't like it, not one bit. However, what I found
unique is that while in Europe, so many European victims
(12:06):
kept coming to the American victims saying, you have to
keep doing it. To them, We're still the American cowboys
from World War two, errors world. We're like, not in
this country, you know. And that's what they're hoping for.
They're hoping for the US to continue to drive this
because we think that the Catholic Church has deep roots
(12:26):
in our country, they have deeper roots in other countries.
Hold on a second, because we have so much more
to talk about. We'll be right back after a quick rate.
Welcome back to modern rules and where's your faith in humanity?
(12:47):
Where it's even harder to have that these days, isn't it?
But I feel you are a soulful person. I feel
you're an optimistic person in spite of all of this.
So I want to understand where it comes from at
a time when so many people, well, I have many
people of faith tell me that I am faithful. I've
had the Bishop of Altoona, Johnstown tell me that I
(13:08):
believe in God. I'm just on leave, you know, I'm
on break right now? Can I say that I pray? Yeah?
Do I say that? Our father? And how Mary? No,
I couldn't recite one right now. You would have to
lead it. And if you let it, I could probably
jump in. But I couldn't do it on my own
right now. But they usually in an argument and rage.
And I can tell you if God exists, I've said
(13:30):
some very mean things to him over the years. How
do you manage the rage? I scream? Throughout the years?
I managed in different ways. I self medicated for a
long time. Yeah, anything that would make me take me
somewhere else, you know, conveniently being in the bar and
restaurant business my whole life, especially nightclubs and things. You know,
Cocaine is a magical tool you feel you fork and
(13:55):
all of the alcohol, everything you know, it's magnificent until
you get addicted cocaine and now you have two problems.
But they don't help you forgive, they help you run.
I was a pro at running until I got married
two thousand four. If I wasn't married right now, I'd
probably be behind the wheel of a eighteen wheel or
(14:16):
truck or on some cargo ship to see. Are you
at peace? No, not even close. Are you angry? Yeah,
I'm incredibly angry. This has gone on long enough. What
would make you not angry? If the federal government and
the state individual state governments brought this issue up immediately,
(14:39):
and we have separation of church and state, regardless of
how much money that contribute to your campaign, we're supposed
to be separated. And we have official state investigations from
across the board in Pennsylvania that every single diocese in
Pennsylvania is doing this, and now forty six other state
attorney general world are inquiring at least say it that
(15:02):
they are going to look into this. So but going
to look into this? If we were talking about dozens
and dozens of men of teachers of welders over the
last fifty years that were abusing boys, they'd all be
in jail. Are you kidding me? If this was a
bike gang, if this was the Hell's Angels, Are you
kidding me? Absolutely? But I alluded to it before campaign
(15:25):
the power connection wealth. These reports said that these people manipuate.
Why am I not upset at my parents now in
the community now because they were groomed just like me.
They were groomed before me. You have to groom them
first in order to get them to hand you their children. Well,
they're the people you're supposed to trust and look up
(15:46):
to in your community, and we're finding out that you
can't do that to everybody. So there have to be
safeguards in place. And that is the role of our
government to protect and serve these citizens in their communities,
and they need to put better safeguards in to protect them.
My statutes of limitation. When I was a kid, I
had two years the end of my abuse. I told
(16:07):
you earlier. I was thirteen years old, so I had
to say something by the time I was fifteen years old.
Talk about the power of the individual voice. Today it's changed.
I'm one of nine kids from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Three years ago.
I came out for the first time publicly. I did
my first public interview at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
(16:32):
and I am one of twelve people in the world
that got a meeting with the Vatican Summit Committee chair people.
One person's voice can do a hell of a lot
if you just keep My mom used to say, squeaky
(16:53):
will get the oil first. If you're tenacious, system works.
If you're tenacious, you got right on your side. You're tenacious,
and you have the I don't give an attitude. You
can't hurt me. I don't care if I lose everything,
You're not taking me now I'm I'm walking away. I
(17:15):
don't care. I don't care. Then, as crazy as this
sounds on some level, as horrible as this is what
happened to you, do you ever think in the last
few years that maybe, in some way this was your purpose.
Look at what you've done, look at all of the
people that you've helped. Just think about this for a moment.
(17:38):
A few months ago, you into the Vatican. The Vatican
brought every church leader from around the world. And I'm
not saying it's solved, but for the first time the
Pope has actually addressed this. Do you think, in some
crazy way maybe this was your purpose? Yeah, I have
(18:00):
found my purpose in this. It didn't kill you, and
you have made the world. I tried to kill myself
and it didn't kill me. I swallowed three hundred pills
here in New York when I was a young cook
in the city. I didn't tell my brother I was
flipping on, flopping on his foots on. But none of
(18:20):
this killed you. And now you've done work that has
saved people's lives. When you're in Rome, you were outside
walking towards the Vatican with your wife and someone of
Polish descent recognizes you from an article that a Polish
magazine did and follows you on Twitter and Facebook. Comes over,
(18:45):
says you're shot, ask you to keep it up. You're like,
tells you you have to because we can only go
so far. We're going to be right back after a
quick break. Welcome back to modern rules. But think about that, Sean.
(19:09):
If this never happened, you may have lived a regular
life in Pennsylvania and it's been a brutal road. But
now you've actually lived an extraordinary life where you're walking
down a street in Rome, and a Polish person says
to you, thank you for what you're doing. Don't you
(19:29):
think that's amazing? It's incredible. It is the amount of today.
When those feelings come up, there are things happening, things
aren't buried. I have a very strong support group, a
network of friends. Social media is incredible, the people like
the person from Poland. I get phone calls all the time.
A seventy six year old woman from Brooklyn called me.
(19:50):
She was sitting next to her ninety six year old
mother just a few months ago, bawling their eyes out
because the mother was abused as a child by a nun,
and the family always thought mom was nuts. They only
learned two years ago the mom wasn't not she was
abused and they were bonding over that. Me about the
(20:11):
beautiful power of social media, because right now all we
do is talk about the toxicity and the hate that
it spreads. And you have had the comfortable amazing this
can be the most amazing powerful told this being my phone.
I told Bishop Barchek, I told in that Vatican summit
meeting that I was in. On my desk, I had
(20:32):
my copy of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, and I
had four pictures of deceased victims from Pennsylvania, right. And
I told them, whether you like it or not, whether
you agree with any of this that has happened in
to you, whether you are going to change anything or not,
you just are no longer the most powerful entity on
(20:54):
earth that belongs to social media now. And social media
is demand that you do something about it. And if
you don't, you can choose to do whatever you want.
But social media is demanding you don't, and if you don't,
you're going to get run over. I said, I'm one
of nine children. I told them in this Vatican meeting.
(21:14):
I said, I am one of nine children. They don't
come more Catholics, the Novena's, the rosaries, the stations of
the Cross. You know, I said, by rights, you should
have had at least one none or one prise down
in my family. Not only did you not get one,
you only have one of my siblings coming to Mass,
none of their children. That tells me, as a business person,
(21:34):
as somebody that's following this very closely, you are the
largest landowners in my country. And if you don't get
ahead of this, and I mean properly, get ahead of
this within one generation, my mother's generation. When my mother's
generation is gone, you are going to have the largest
yard sale in American history. And it's true, that's true.
(22:00):
What has social media done for you? Though? In terms
of reach? If Twitter didn't exist, if Facebook didn't exist,
you could write an op ed in a local paper
that maybe would get printed. It's incredible all of these things.
You think you're alone, you're not alone, and now no
longer are you alone. You're connected. And it doesn't matter
what time. If you're up at three in the morning
(22:22):
because the monsters are in your head and your nightmares,
you're kicking the bed off and you're rolling out of
bed because you had raged. You can get on now
the social media, if we allow it, it could be
the worst tool in the world too, because as people
like me are finding it comfortable to talk about the
(22:42):
most horrific incidences of their lives, people are also finding
it very comfortable that they might not say to somebody
personally that they will just rip off in a tweet
or in a thing. And we have to go through
a phase where we learn you can't just throw tone
through a tweet. You know, a person sending a tweet
can have one meaning and it could be received in
(23:05):
a totally different way. So there's gonna be a learning
curve there, But I think in the end we all
were very similar. Do you consider yourself a victim or
someone living a blessed life both. I'm a survivor. I've
survived to this point, sexual abuse, sexual assault. At times,
(23:29):
I allow myself to feel the victim, probably sometimes too much,
but in comparison to what I know now, I'm very fortunate.
If I could change this what I yes, but it's
part of my life story. It's formed who I am today,
the good, the bad, and the ugly. You feel good
(23:50):
about the world today, don't you know? I'm nervous as
hell about the world today. I mean, but yeah, I've hoped.
I mean it's gonna come out. Okay, we have elections.
You know, people come another better senses. But on an
individual basis, you feel good about humanity individuals one on one.
I think if you would break it down to a
one on one conversation, you would find more in common
(24:11):
with the person sitting across from you. If you start
adding more people into the conversation, you're only as strong
as the weakest, most ignorant person In the room. So
is that what's going to solve it for us? Because
if you take the tribalism that we're living in right now,
it's faceless, right. You know, one group is watching one
set of news, one group is watching another. You're only
(24:33):
following this group on social media and that group. But
if more people sat at the table together on an
individual basis, you think we can solve more. How are
we gonna get to that table in towns all across
the country. I think that's already happening naturally on social media.
You know, the national divide as far as the world
(24:54):
national press goes. And I'm not putting this on the
presson I'm saying you have the national press, and you're right,
you have the divide following this and following this well
in each town you have Democrats and Republicans. You have
people that are following one or the other, but they're
still shopping and pulling lemons off the same shelf every
Monday together at the grocery store or you know, and
(25:16):
the right and they're like, what do you think about this?
And wow, that's crazy? You know. I have conversations on serious,
serious topics with people that I know from back home
on both sides. Now, that are really good conversations that
we can always end agreeing to disagree. But the conversation happened.
(25:37):
Still it still happened, which means you've broken that ground,
and I am begging you to keep having that conversation.
The reason I wanted to do this podcast is that
of a fear that more and more people aren't having conversations.
We need more people like you having them because if
you have respect and at the end of the day
can respectfully disagree, you can still live together. Well, I
(26:00):
don't always respectfully to disagree, but we're having the conversation.
It's happening. You're gonna see elections happen, things change. I mean,
think about some of the times. Can you imagine if
Martin Luther King had a Facebook page? I mean, can
you imagine if Congressman Lewis had a smartphone when he
(26:23):
crossed the bridge? And so back then, you know, you
only had that little slot on the evening news. Now
we're moving much faster than the church likes. I'll tell
you what everybody thinks. We're not moving forward as the church.
If we're moving forward as the church, if the United
States is stuck right now, and we're not moving forward
to them. We're moving way, way, way, way too fast now,
(26:47):
and I'd like to move it faster. And that's why
we're having conversations like this. This is exactly why we
are having conversations just like this one. What I'm hearing
from Sean is that no matter what happens to us,
or what circumstances we find ourselves in, we can forgive
you know what else we can do speak out, we
(27:09):
can make a difference, and if we listen to others,
we can have some empathy, and we can focus our
anger not at an individual, but at the institutions that
propagate or protect those who actually do the harm. And
if we do that, then then maybe we can make
those advance as a whole lot faster than we might think.
(27:30):
Thank you for listening to today's bonus episode, and thank
you for bringing an open mind and helping us create
what are hopefully modern rules. That's it for today's episode.
(27:50):
I'm your host, Stephanie Rule. A very very special thanks
to the extraordinary people who made this happen. My producers
Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and and bar arc Audio, Michael
Biett for booking and wrangling the amazing guests who joined us,
Julian Weller for editing and bill plaques, Michael Azar and
Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise. Special thanks to Steve
(28:12):
lick Tide, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald, Marie Dugo, Holly traz
Nikki Etre and Christina Everett are Executive producers are Conald
Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door And of course, the men
who brought us all together, Chairman and CEO of I
Heart Media Bob Pittman and Chairman of NBC News Andy Lack.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
(28:33):
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
This episode includes discussion about sexual abuse and suicide that
some listeners might find disturbing. Listener discretion as advised. You're
listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and I
Heart Radio. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor and NBC News correspondent,
and this is a special bonus episode of Modern Rules. Ye.
(00:30):
I had a couple of conversations this season that you
didn't get to hear all. But those conversations stuck with me.
They sat with me over the last few weeks and months,
so much so that I wanted to share more. I
sat down with Shawn Daugherty, and I want to share
more of that conversation. Earlier this season, he and I
(00:51):
talked about masculinity and faith in more leadership, but we
covered more. Shawn's a Navy veteran, a restaurateur, and a
prominent advocate for survive vers of sexual abuse. Back in
the nineteen eighties, between the ages of ten and thirteen,
he was abused by a Catholic priest, and earlier this year,
his activism on behalf of others took him all the
(01:12):
way to Rome to share his story at Pope Francis's
summit to discuss the church wide generation's long history of
sexual abuse. I had a long talk with Seawn about forgiveness,
what it takes, what it means, and the power it
can have. One of the reasons we decided to start
(01:32):
this podcast is because we are surrounded by conflict right now.
We are surrounded by conflict. Lack of forgiveness arise in anger.
But this is also a time when more people are
telling their stories. So I would love it if you
would share yours. Beginning when I was ten years old
in my hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in my Catholic school
(01:53):
of St. Clement's Parish, my religion teacher, who is also
my basketball coach, began sexually assaulting me and classmates above
me and below me, and continued with me progressively for
three years until one incident went too far in a
(02:14):
shower after a racquetball match and after shooting a very
stern look, no words were spoken and it just ended
with me. When you were a boy and this was
happening to you, did you think it was just you
or did you think it was happening to other boys?
Did you think it was normal? When I was ten,
I thought I was isolated. I thought it was just me,
(02:37):
but you know, I'm the eighth and nine kids. You
catch on the things quickly, figure things quickly out. Why
didn't you tell anyone? Or did you no? When I
was a kid, no one? And when I was young.
You know, even though there were nine kids in my family,
we didn't talk about sex, and we didn't It was happening,
but we weren't talking about it. And in the faith
(02:59):
it Irish Catholic. My dad is a good man, but
he was a hard man. He was a steelmaker. You
literally made steel for Bethleem Steel. That was my father.
And if you said something against the priest, you just
you just don't. You're not there to question what the
(03:19):
teachers and the priests and the nuns are doing. You're
there to learn, You're there to obey, You're there to behave.
When did you tell people? When did you tell your
parents you're sibling? When I was one? I joined the
Navy when I was one, and right before they ship
you off to boot camp, you were in what is
called a maps station. It's a staging station before they
(03:42):
send you the air portnight maps station. They swear you in,
they give you the oath, and if you take that
oath honestly, or any oath honestly, you have to say something.
You feel a sense of duty that I know this guy,
is it John Lester. I know my parents when I
(04:03):
came home from boot camp. What did they say? It
was at the time too hard for them to believe.
I'm at at the church hierarchy. I'm at at the
district attorneys, I'm at at the police. You know, we
all seld a movie spotlight. I'm mad that that these
other people that swore Ose two didn't hold their oath,
didn't hold up their end of their oath, and didn't
(04:25):
protect the people in the communities that they swore an
oath to protect. If they apologized, If he apologized, could
you forgive him? I forgive him a long time ago.
When it all comes down to it, regardless of whether
I'm a practice in Catholic or I believe in God
or I believe in whatever I was raised to forgive,
(04:46):
you know, that's part of the thing. And if sorry,
it doesn't matter. I'm my rule is to forgive him,
give him the opportunity to be sorry. You know, if
he is unchangeable, I don't think you ake up one
day and decided to be a pedophile. I think you
are a pedophile. I don't think you wake up one
(05:07):
day and beside to be heterosexual or homosexual, or bisexual
or transgender. I don't think you choose that. I think
that chooses you. So I believe he needs help just
as much as his victims do. He needs treatment now,
he needs to be punished. He's done horrific, horrific things.
(05:28):
And in when I told my parents when I came
home from boot camp, I was mad that night, and
I found the rectory that he was at and I
sat in front of it for three hours. It was
Christmas Eve of and what did you do? And I
just sat there and talked myself out and going up
to the door and going inside and confronting him. I
(05:48):
thought of his mother. Had I known in what I
know today about everything that happened and to who and
what was done, and the fact that people in the
diocese and in the church hierarchy knew that he was
a pedophile and didn't talk to any of us, didn't
(06:09):
go to my parents and say this is what he's
doing to you know, we know this. They didn't do that.
You know so had I known then in the mood
that I was in that night, I don't know. I
don't know what I would have done. You truly understand
the value of forgiveness when you look at the rise
and hate and the anger around us right now? Do
(06:34):
you think an injection of forgiveness is what we need? Yeah?
Do you know what really helped me solidify my forgiveness
from him? South Carolina? The Charleston Church Baptist That floored me.
Why immediately without hesitation? The church shooting, the church shooting.
They were damaged, broken people, but yet they have a
(06:56):
strong faith. Is that the most powerful thing you can
have the power to forgive? I haven't seen much more
powerful than that. I mean in all of the things
that are going on in the world today. I mean
tear gas being shot across the river, you know, a children,
separation of children, sexual abuse of children, and custody. Somebody
(07:18):
coming into your church and just murdering in cold blood
for nothing more than rage and hateful fueled reasons. To
immediately forgive that person takes a very strong person. But
what an example if you were unable to forgive, whether
it was the priest or the church, could you live
(07:40):
a productive life. I forgive I'm gonna struggle to liver
productive life. Now, are you kidding me? This is a
hard setting to live in. This is a hard This
is a hard time to live. This is a hard
time to imagine. Imagine being a victim of abuse. And
it's in the news constantly. You know, be careful what
(08:01):
you wish for, you wish your whole life. You like,
I want this in the news all the time. I
want this in the news, And now it's like, this
is the news all the time. So it's wonderful on
one extreme, but on the other stream, it's like, oh
my god, I'm going out of my mind. So that's
very interesting because I think you experienced this abuse decades ago,
and now it's only in the last year. Here we
(08:23):
are right back in it. You went to the Vatican
in February. Is that a positive that you're dealing with
it and addressing it, or do you simply want this
to go away so it stops plaguing your life. Both.
I want the ladder. I want them to absolutely address this.
I want the church, the organization's, the federal government, the
(08:45):
state's governments to address this once and for all, and
protect the children, and I want this to all go
away as an issue. At the same time, it is
overwhelmingly in the news constantly without doing this. If I
wasn't doing this, for the people listening to me doing this,
I understand what they're going through, For the ones that
(09:07):
are really struggling to go outside, really struggling just to
go out and get a cup of coffee, you get
the morning paper, come back in. You know. Doing this
right here is the only difference between me and them.
If I wasn't doing this, I would be literally going
out of my mind right now. But I still don't
understand why you're not angrier with the institution because right now,
(09:31):
victims like you have found one another and come together
and given one another strength, and really, in terms of
the church, they've barely scratched. I am in raged at
the church. The church. I have not forgiven the hierarchy.
I will not forgive until they stop. The organization are evil.
(09:52):
They are the worst, worst kind of evil. They are
taking the most vulnerable o their followers. They are manipulating
their faithful followers, children, They're manipulating the communities that they
live in. They're manipulating through confessionally. Imagine the amount of
(10:15):
information that is if my mom had nine kids, right,
My father was an Irish steelmaking drinker like I mean,
boiler makers like you couldn't imagine, I mean, and one
after another after the shift the bars at seven am,
after the seven a chef. It might as well have
been a Friday night. You know. She did the island
(10:36):
on meeting. You know, she had nine kids to raise,
you know, and it was a rough life style and
and that was her you know sanctuary. That was where
she found grace. That is where you know, she would
go into confession and talk about things that were going
hard on their life. And instead of giving her hope
and helping, they manipulated that and took that out on me.
(11:00):
Why did an institution allow itself to do something like this?
You went to the Vatican as the Pope a bad man.
I didn't meet him. I mean I would have liked
to have. You know, the twelve victims that met with
the Vatican Summit committee chairs. I was one of the twelve,
and we were all hoping to see the Pope come in,
which he didn't do. I think he's a bad person.
(11:22):
I don't know that he's a bad person, but I
think he's protecting the Church and the institution and the
secrets and the system um more than he should. And
a few takeaways that I got from the Vatican meeting
that I did have is, you know, the US is
(11:42):
a very young country by comparisons to the other countries
that the Catholic Church has had very very deep roots
in for a very very long time. We're moving at
a pace that makes the Church very uncomfortable, and they
don't like it, not one bit. However, what I found
unique is that while in Europe, so many European victims
(12:06):
kept coming to the American victims saying, you have to
keep doing it. To them, We're still the American cowboys
from World War two, errors world. We're like, not in
this country, you know. And that's what they're hoping for.
They're hoping for the US to continue to drive this
because we think that the Catholic Church has deep roots
(12:26):
in our country, they have deeper roots in other countries.
Hold on a second, because we have so much more
to talk about. We'll be right back after a quick rate.
Welcome back to modern rules and where's your faith in humanity?
(12:47):
Where it's even harder to have that these days, isn't it?
But I feel you are a soulful person. I feel
you're an optimistic person in spite of all of this.
So I want to understand where it comes from at
a time when so many people, well, I have many
people of faith tell me that I am faithful. I've
had the Bishop of Altoona, Johnstown tell me that I
(13:08):
believe in God. I'm just on leave, you know, I'm
on break right now? Can I say that I pray? Yeah?
Do I say that? Our father? And how Mary? No,
I couldn't recite one right now. You would have to
lead it. And if you let it, I could probably
jump in. But I couldn't do it on my own
right now. But they usually in an argument and rage.
And I can tell you if God exists, I've said
(13:30):
some very mean things to him over the years. How
do you manage the rage? I scream? Throughout the years?
I managed in different ways. I self medicated for a
long time. Yeah, anything that would make me take me
somewhere else, you know, conveniently being in the bar and
restaurant business my whole life, especially nightclubs and things. You know,
Cocaine is a magical tool you feel you fork and
(13:55):
all of the alcohol, everything you know, it's magnificent until
you get addicted cocaine and now you have two problems.
But they don't help you forgive, they help you run.
I was a pro at running until I got married
two thousand four. If I wasn't married right now, I'd
probably be behind the wheel of a eighteen wheel or
(14:16):
truck or on some cargo ship to see. Are you
at peace? No, not even close. Are you angry? Yeah,
I'm incredibly angry. This has gone on long enough. What
would make you not angry? If the federal government and
the state individual state governments brought this issue up immediately,
(14:39):
and we have separation of church and state, regardless of
how much money that contribute to your campaign, we're supposed
to be separated. And we have official state investigations from
across the board in Pennsylvania that every single diocese in
Pennsylvania is doing this, and now forty six other state
attorney general world are inquiring at least say it that
(15:02):
they are going to look into this. So but going
to look into this? If we were talking about dozens
and dozens of men of teachers of welders over the
last fifty years that were abusing boys, they'd all be
in jail. Are you kidding me? If this was a
bike gang, if this was the Hell's Angels, Are you
kidding me? Absolutely? But I alluded to it before campaign
(15:25):
the power connection wealth. These reports said that these people manipuate.
Why am I not upset at my parents now in
the community now because they were groomed just like me.
They were groomed before me. You have to groom them
first in order to get them to hand you their children. Well,
they're the people you're supposed to trust and look up
(15:46):
to in your community, and we're finding out that you
can't do that to everybody. So there have to be
safeguards in place. And that is the role of our
government to protect and serve these citizens in their communities,
and they need to put better safeguards in to protect them.
My statutes of limitation. When I was a kid, I
had two years the end of my abuse. I told
(16:07):
you earlier. I was thirteen years old, so I had
to say something by the time I was fifteen years old.
Talk about the power of the individual voice. Today it's changed.
I'm one of nine kids from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Three years ago.
I came out for the first time publicly. I did
my first public interview at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
(16:32):
and I am one of twelve people in the world
that got a meeting with the Vatican Summit Committee chair people.
One person's voice can do a hell of a lot
if you just keep My mom used to say, squeaky
(16:53):
will get the oil first. If you're tenacious, system works.
If you're tenacious, you got right on your side. You're tenacious,
and you have the I don't give an attitude. You
can't hurt me. I don't care if I lose everything,
You're not taking me now I'm I'm walking away. I
(17:15):
don't care. I don't care. Then, as crazy as this
sounds on some level, as horrible as this is what
happened to you, do you ever think in the last
few years that maybe, in some way this was your purpose.
Look at what you've done, look at all of the
people that you've helped. Just think about this for a moment.
(17:38):
A few months ago, you into the Vatican. The Vatican
brought every church leader from around the world. And I'm
not saying it's solved, but for the first time the
Pope has actually addressed this. Do you think, in some
crazy way maybe this was your purpose? Yeah, I have
(18:00):
found my purpose in this. It didn't kill you, and
you have made the world. I tried to kill myself
and it didn't kill me. I swallowed three hundred pills
here in New York when I was a young cook
in the city. I didn't tell my brother I was
flipping on, flopping on his foots on. But none of
(18:20):
this killed you. And now you've done work that has
saved people's lives. When you're in Rome, you were outside
walking towards the Vatican with your wife and someone of
Polish descent recognizes you from an article that a Polish
magazine did and follows you on Twitter and Facebook. Comes over,
(18:45):
says you're shot, ask you to keep it up. You're like,
tells you you have to because we can only go
so far. We're going to be right back after a
quick break. Welcome back to modern rules. But think about that, Sean.
(19:09):
If this never happened, you may have lived a regular
life in Pennsylvania and it's been a brutal road. But
now you've actually lived an extraordinary life where you're walking
down a street in Rome, and a Polish person says
to you, thank you for what you're doing. Don't you
(19:29):
think that's amazing? It's incredible. It is the amount of today.
When those feelings come up, there are things happening, things
aren't buried. I have a very strong support group, a
network of friends. Social media is incredible, the people like
the person from Poland. I get phone calls all the time.
A seventy six year old woman from Brooklyn called me.
(19:50):
She was sitting next to her ninety six year old
mother just a few months ago, bawling their eyes out
because the mother was abused as a child by a nun,
and the family always thought mom was nuts. They only
learned two years ago the mom wasn't not she was
abused and they were bonding over that. Me about the
(20:11):
beautiful power of social media, because right now all we
do is talk about the toxicity and the hate that
it spreads. And you have had the comfortable amazing this
can be the most amazing powerful told this being my phone.
I told Bishop Barchek, I told in that Vatican summit
meeting that I was in. On my desk, I had
(20:32):
my copy of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, and I
had four pictures of deceased victims from Pennsylvania, right. And
I told them, whether you like it or not, whether
you agree with any of this that has happened in
to you, whether you are going to change anything or not,
you just are no longer the most powerful entity on
(20:54):
earth that belongs to social media now. And social media
is demand that you do something about it. And if
you don't, you can choose to do whatever you want.
But social media is demanding you don't, and if you don't,
you're going to get run over. I said, I'm one
of nine children. I told them in this Vatican meeting.
(21:14):
I said, I am one of nine children. They don't
come more Catholics, the Novena's, the rosaries, the stations of
the Cross. You know, I said, by rights, you should
have had at least one none or one prise down
in my family. Not only did you not get one,
you only have one of my siblings coming to Mass,
none of their children. That tells me, as a business person,
(21:34):
as somebody that's following this very closely, you are the
largest landowners in my country. And if you don't get
ahead of this, and I mean properly, get ahead of
this within one generation, my mother's generation. When my mother's
generation is gone, you are going to have the largest
yard sale in American history. And it's true, that's true.
(22:00):
What has social media done for you? Though? In terms
of reach? If Twitter didn't exist, if Facebook didn't exist,
you could write an op ed in a local paper
that maybe would get printed. It's incredible all of these things.
You think you're alone, you're not alone, and now no
longer are you alone. You're connected. And it doesn't matter
what time. If you're up at three in the morning
(22:22):
because the monsters are in your head and your nightmares,
you're kicking the bed off and you're rolling out of
bed because you had raged. You can get on now
the social media, if we allow it, it could be
the worst tool in the world too, because as people
like me are finding it comfortable to talk about the
(22:42):
most horrific incidences of their lives, people are also finding
it very comfortable that they might not say to somebody
personally that they will just rip off in a tweet
or in a thing. And we have to go through
a phase where we learn you can't just throw tone
through a tweet. You know, a person sending a tweet
can have one meaning and it could be received in
(23:05):
a totally different way. So there's gonna be a learning
curve there, But I think in the end we all
were very similar. Do you consider yourself a victim or
someone living a blessed life both. I'm a survivor. I've
survived to this point, sexual abuse, sexual assault. At times,
(23:29):
I allow myself to feel the victim, probably sometimes too much,
but in comparison to what I know now, I'm very fortunate.
If I could change this what I yes, but it's
part of my life story. It's formed who I am today,
the good, the bad, and the ugly. You feel good
(23:50):
about the world today, don't you know? I'm nervous as
hell about the world today. I mean, but yeah, I've hoped.
I mean it's gonna come out. Okay, we have elections.
You know, people come another better senses. But on an
individual basis, you feel good about humanity individuals one on one.
I think if you would break it down to a
one on one conversation, you would find more in common
(24:11):
with the person sitting across from you. If you start
adding more people into the conversation, you're only as strong
as the weakest, most ignorant person In the room. So
is that what's going to solve it for us? Because
if you take the tribalism that we're living in right now,
it's faceless, right. You know, one group is watching one
set of news, one group is watching another. You're only
(24:33):
following this group on social media and that group. But
if more people sat at the table together on an
individual basis, you think we can solve more. How are
we gonna get to that table in towns all across
the country. I think that's already happening naturally on social media.
You know, the national divide as far as the world
(24:54):
national press goes. And I'm not putting this on the
presson I'm saying you have the national press, and you're right,
you have the divide following this and following this well
in each town you have Democrats and Republicans. You have
people that are following one or the other, but they're
still shopping and pulling lemons off the same shelf every
Monday together at the grocery store or you know, and
(25:16):
the right and they're like, what do you think about this?
And wow, that's crazy? You know. I have conversations on serious,
serious topics with people that I know from back home
on both sides. Now, that are really good conversations that
we can always end agreeing to disagree. But the conversation happened.
(25:37):
Still it still happened, which means you've broken that ground,
and I am begging you to keep having that conversation.
The reason I wanted to do this podcast is that
of a fear that more and more people aren't having conversations.
We need more people like you having them because if
you have respect and at the end of the day
can respectfully disagree, you can still live together. Well, I
(26:00):
don't always respectfully to disagree, but we're having the conversation.
It's happening. You're gonna see elections happen, things change. I mean,
think about some of the times. Can you imagine if
Martin Luther King had a Facebook page? I mean, can
you imagine if Congressman Lewis had a smartphone when he
(26:23):
crossed the bridge? And so back then, you know, you
only had that little slot on the evening news. Now
we're moving much faster than the church likes. I'll tell
you what everybody thinks. We're not moving forward as the church.
If we're moving forward as the church, if the United
States is stuck right now, and we're not moving forward
to them. We're moving way, way, way, way too fast now,
(26:47):
and I'd like to move it faster. And that's why
we're having conversations like this. This is exactly why we
are having conversations just like this one. What I'm hearing
from Sean is that no matter what happens to us,
or what circumstances we find ourselves in, we can forgive
you know what else we can do speak out, we
(27:09):
can make a difference, and if we listen to others,
we can have some empathy, and we can focus our
anger not at an individual, but at the institutions that
propagate or protect those who actually do the harm. And
if we do that, then then maybe we can make
those advance as a whole lot faster than we might think.
(27:30):
Thank you for listening to today's bonus episode, and thank
you for bringing an open mind and helping us create
what are hopefully modern rules. That's it for today's episode.
(27:50):
I'm your host, Stephanie Rule. A very very special thanks
to the extraordinary people who made this happen. My producers
Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and and bar arc Audio, Michael
Biett for booking and wrangling the amazing guests who joined us,
Julian Weller for editing and bill plaques, Michael Azar and
Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise. Special thanks to Steve
(28:12):
lick Tide, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald, Marie Dugo, Holly traz
Nikki Etre and Christina Everett are Executive producers are Conald
Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door And of course, the men
who brought us all together, Chairman and CEO of I
Heart Media Bob Pittman and Chairman of NBC News Andy Lack.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
(28:33):
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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