Mother and son reunite — almost 50 years after she says an Omaha priest forced her to give up her baby

By Michael O'connor
World-Herald
June 05, 2017

http://www.omaha.com/living/mother-and-son-reunite-almost-years-after-she-says-an/article_91d6c164-8063-55a3-bc1e-2911182205ac.html

Kathleen Chafin and son Tom Rouse at one of the half-dozen times they’ve gotten together since reuniting two years ago. There will be a hearing Tuesday in Douglas County District Court on a lawsuit Chafin filed alleging an “adoption conspiracy” separated her from her newborn nearly 50 years ago.

Tom Rouse clears the sidewalks in front of his home in Omaha after a snowfall this February.

Rev. Thomas Halley, circa 1979

By Michael O'Connor / World-Herald staff writer

Her hands trembled as she held the letter.

“Hello,” the note began. “I apologize for sending this to your office — it’s the only address I found.”

Her body shook as she read the next words in a message she’d awaited for decades and wondered if she’d ever receive: “I’m the person you were looking for.”

Kathleen Chafin cried at her desk on that April day two years ago. As co-workers came to her side, she assured them she brimmed with joy, not sadness.

There already had been too much anguish in her life. Kathleen is 67 today, but she was just a teenager back when the heartbreak began.

Kathleen never held her baby boy, never saw him, never had a photo. But that wasn’t the toughest part.

The hardest for Kathleen — the part that pounded her heart — was never knowing what happened to him.

As a college freshman in 1968 she became pregnant, and her parish priest counseled her and her boyfriend against marriage. Later, she says, another priest coerced her to give up her baby for adoption.