'I realized I wasn’t crazy': Victim of Lawrenceville priest reveals abuse after 50 years

By Andrew Goldstein
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
August 15, 2018

https://bit.ly/2w9IBej

Former Pittsburgh resident Rich Westwood remembers attending a Catholic service in Florida a number of years ago when the priest began a homily about forgiving church leaders of sexual abuse. 

Mr. Westwood walked out of the church and never came back.

“When the priest is up there talking about other priests and says nothing about the victims, that’s where I draw the line,” he said. “Unless you walked in my shoes for 40 some years, you don’t know what it’s like.”

Mr. Westwood, 59, who now lives in North Carolina, said Tuesday in a phone call to the Post-Gazette that the Rev. Ferdinand B. Demsher sexually assaulted him in the late 1960s and early 70s when he served as an altarboy at St. Mary of the Assumption in Lawrenceville.

It’s the first time he’s revealed to anyone outside of his family that he was abused.

Father Demsher, who died in 1983, was one of more than 300 abusive priests from six Pennsylvania dioceses named in the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury. The Supreme Court released a redacted version of the grand jury report Tuesday. 

“When I saw [Father Demsher’s name in the report] my eyes teared up,” Mr. Westwood said. “I realized I wasn’t crazy.”

Mr. Westwood’s family was deeply involved in St. Mary of the Assumption; his grandfather helped build the church on 57th Street in the 1890s. 

Father Demsher was appointed to the church June 6, 1966. Mr. Westwood said Father Demsher began sexually abusing him when he was about 9 or 10 years old.

In one instance, Mr. Westwood said, Father Demsher sexually assaulted him under the guise that he was checking for a hernia.  

The grand jury report reveals that at least four other men all accused Father Demsher of sexaully abusing them when they were boys in the 1960s and 70s.

Mr. Westwood said the abuse continued for five or six years, but he never reported Father Demsher to authorities. He never even told his mother because he didn’t think she’d believe him — “It was a different time,” he said.

“It’s out there — his name’s in writing — now people will believe it,” Mr. Westwood said. “It’s a different time.”  

The only person he told about his abuse at the time was his aunt, Dolores Kirby. He said he and his aunt would sit on the back porch of their home and talk about what he went through. 

“She would cry. I would cry.”

Mr. Westwood said his aunt was the only person who knew about the abuse until his sister found out about five years ago. He credits the support of his Aunt Dolores, who died in July, for him still being alive.

Father Demsher gave young Mr. Westwood gifts as the abuse continued. He recalled that Father Demsher gave him a key to the church, and with it, certain responsibilities.

He would open and close the building, and turn on the heat in the winter. Father Demsher gave him a check for $49.95 every three months for work around the church.

Mr. Westwood finally stopped attending St. Mary of the Assumption when he was 16. He began going to St. Kieran Saturday night Mass with his grandmother. 

Mr. Westwood said his faith is “still strong,” and he occasionally attends church in North Carolina. He said he may start to go more often if the Catholic church makes changes in the wake of the grand jury report.  

Mr. Westwood said he doesn’t want anything from the church, and he doesn’t want to be part of a lawsuit. He is just glad to be vindicated after all these years, and he believes there are many victims out there who feel the same way.

“I’m not the only one who never stepped up. If you go down the names on that list,” he said of himself and other victims, “you know you’re not crazy.”