Aisha Sultan: Priest sex abuse survivor says trauma lingers
By Aisha Sultan, April 20, 2018, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Chris O’Leary started to sweat in church as he moved up the line of parents and kids waiting for a turn at the confessional. When they got to the head of the line, O’Leary was crying and trying not to pass out.
O’Leary’s panic attack hit as his son made his first confession.
He wasn’t sure why, but he wondered if it had something to do with hazy memories from his childhood confessions. Three years later, in 2005, his daughter made her first confession. He had another panic attack.
O’Leary had talked to church officials in 2002 when the New York Times broke a story involving sexual abuse allegations against Father Leroy Valentine, who had been a priest in O’Leary’s childhood parish. The story revealed that . . .
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