Will the New York State Senate Protect Child Victims or Powerful Predators?

Altamonte Enterprise
April 26, 2018

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Richard Tollner told us how, when he was at the tender age of 15 and 16, he was sexually molested by a priest he had trusted at the seminary he attended.

“It affected who I was; it affected my confidence; it affected my opinion of people. It affected my sexuality. I wasn’t sure — was this my problem?” he told us.

When Tollner was 17, his father died in a car crash. He realized then that he had to take care of himself, he said, and soon after reported the abuse three times — to another priest, to a teacher, to the head of the seminary. Nothing happened.

It was the mid-1970s, before The Boston Globe’s expose on priests abusing children, before such matters were openly discussed.

Tollner says he came to realize, “I’m not the bad guy. I never was the bad guy.”