WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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- A lot of the abuse took
place inside the church,

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inside the house of God.

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Saying no to him would almost
be saying, like, no to god,

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and when have you ever said no to God?

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(down tempo music)

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I was sexually abused by a Catholic priest

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from the age of eleven
to the age of sixteen.

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- When I was between the
ages of 15 and 17 years old,

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I was sexually abused by a teacher

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at a private Catholic high
school in Southern California.

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(down tempo music)

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- With me it started with long
conversations about my mom

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and how I was alone.

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Then he started telling me
secrets and he wanted me

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to share those secrets with nobody else.

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Then it moved into the
kissing and the touching,

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and within a few months, I was being,

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it was full blown sexual abuse.

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And it was so bad, by the
time that the abuse ended

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I was 17 and I was pregnant and I had

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a sexually transmitted disease.

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- I remember one time I was in class.

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It must have been in the sixth grade,

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or something like that.

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One of the nuns came into
the classroom and said,

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Father Fidensia wants to see you.

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I get to the sacristy, I go upstairs,

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and so he tells me that
he's drawing a picture

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of a rising Christ for Easter.

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He asks me if I wanna model for him.

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And at that point he says,

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well, you gotta take off all your clothes.

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And so he makes me take off my underwear.

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And then he has me lay down on the ground

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and he starts putting me
out in different poses.

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You know, you're a crucified Jesus.

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So I put my arms out, I
put my head to one side,

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put my head to the other side.

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He starts manipulating my
legs, my arms, my torso.

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He reaches down and starts
playing with my penis.

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So then he tells me, well now
you need to start beating off.

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You gotta masturbate.

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I ended up ejaculating and
he takes pictures of me.

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And at that point he
just gives me my clothes,

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get dressed and go back to school.

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(down tempo music)

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- In 2001, and this is
before the Boston Globe

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covered the crisis in Boston,

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which is chronicled in the Spotlight film.

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We had a scandal here in California.

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And a boy who had been sexually abused

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by my high school principal came forward

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and filed a lawsuit.

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He ended up getting documents that showed

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that the diocese knew that
my high school principal

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had been abusing boys for years.

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And they had even sent him to a

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church run treatment facility

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where they send priest
who sexually molest kids.

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- As the go through the seminary students,

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they're very controlled.

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Everything is documented, in
fact the priest who abused me

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has documentation that
goes all the way back

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to the seminary that he was out there

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exhibiting unusual behavior by drawing

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men's penises and all
kinds of other things.

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And walking around naked.

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- I contacted the diosese where I lived,

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and I said, hey this happened to me.

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And I wanna be a part of the solution.

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And they told me, well why don't you

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sit on our lay review board.

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Where you can review cases
where adults have come forward

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and said that they were
sexually abused as children

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by priests and employees and volunteers.

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And I sat on that committee
for about six months,

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and we didn't review a single case.

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And I began to realize that
I was being played again,

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like I had been played in high school.

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They were buying my silence
by putting me on this board.

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(down tempo music)

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In the end, my lawsuit
settled and I got more than

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200 pages of documents, secret documents,

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spotlight documents, in my case.

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And they included the signed confession

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from the man who sexually abused me.

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He confessed to abusing me,

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and he confessed to abusing my friends.

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I got secret documents
from school administrators

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who said, oh yeah, we knew
that this was going on.

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We knew that Joelle was
being sexually abused.

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And we decided to keep it quite,

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because it was better that way.

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(down tempo music)

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The Catholic church is very
good at keeping records.

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In fact, they have a rule book,

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it's called The Code of Cannon Law.

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Those are the rules and regulations

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that bishops, and priests, and employees

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and Catholics have to follow.

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And a lot of those rules have to do with

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documenting sin and
documenting child sexual abuse.

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For victims it's been a lifesaver

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because it's been the proof
that we have needed all along

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to say, hey this really happened.

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(down tempo music)

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- I am still a Catholic.

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I was born a Catholic,
I'll die a Catholic.

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I certainly believe that
in order to take care of

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this Catholic problem it has
to be done by a Catholic.

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The moment that I step outside the church,

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I'm considered an outsider
and I no longer have a voice.

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- Faith is a one on one
relationship you have

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with a supreme being.

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And I don't need a guy in a Roman collar

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to tell me what my relationship
with God has to be.

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(uptempo music)