Witness in Priest Abuse Trial: 'An Emptiness Where My Soul Should Be'

The Mercury
April 18, 2012

http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20120418/NEWS03/120419444/-1/entertainment/witness-in-priest-abuse-trial--an-emptiness-where-my-soul-should-be-

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A witness in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial says he has "an emptiness where my soul should be" after being raped for years by a now-defrocked priest.

The 48-year-old man says Stanley Gana rotated teen victims each night at his Scranton-area farmhouse, and abused him on trips to Disney World, Niagara Falls and the University of Notre Dame.

He went to the Philadelphia archdiocese in his 30s to seek counseling, money and a meeting with Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. He thought the cardinal should know what was going on.

The witness says he didn't get his meeting for five years, and he came to believe the cardinal "was the ringleader" of the sex-abuse scandal.

Bevilacqua died this year. His secretary for clergy, Monsignor William Lynn, is on trial on child endangerment and conspiracy charges.