BishopAccountability.org

Pedophile priest molested boy, then blamed him for it and made him confess

By Jimmy Mccloskey
Metro News
January 22, 2019

https://bit.ly/2FS1YPG

Mark Belenchia was abused by the Reverend Bernard Haddican, with the Catholic priest telling the boy the molestation was ‘self abuse’, and making him confess it to him afterwards

Belenchia’s mother told him on her deathbed that she’d complained about the abuse to senior officials at the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, pictured, only for her pleas to be ignored

A pedophile priest abused a young boy – then blamed the child for making him molest him, and made him confess it as a sin.

Mark Belenchia was abused by the Reverend Bernard Haddican from around 1969, when he was just 12 years old.

Haddican would tell the child afterwards that he had committed the sin of ‘self abuse,’ then order him to confess the supposed wrongdoing to the man guilty of perpetrating it.

Recalling how Haddican escalated his campaign of abuse, Belenchia told the Clarion-Ledger: ‘That was my first sexual experience with another person.

‘I don’t know if you can call it a sexual experience – a nightmare.’

Belenchia was abused while living in Shelby, Mississippi, and says Haddican charmed locals by dressing in casual clothes, and acting in a far more personable way than his precedessors.

He says Haddican began abusing him six months after he arrived, and would invite children over to watch baseball games, before plying them with liquor.

Haddican continued to groom his victims by hosting ‘sleepovers’ at his rectory, before molesting Belencia.

The victim, who is now campaigning for justice said: ‘The actual abuse started off slow. I can’t recall all of it, I just know that I ended up in the bed.

‘He coaxed us in there and, not thinking anything about it, we went in there.

‘Then, the next thing you know, he’s reaching over there, touching you.

‘You’re asleep, wake up and somebody is touching you. I just remember freezing, frozen, kind of out of body.

‘I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what a pedophile was, I didn’t know what molestation was.

‘I never heard those words. I didn’t know what grooming was. I just thought this guy was the best thing since sliced bread.’

Belenciha recalled how he would sometimes black out, then wake up in the rectory covered in the priest’s semen, with no recollection of how it had gotten there.

He was molested an estimated 75 to 100 times over a three year period, and told his mom and uncle what had happened only after it stopped.

Belenchia said he battled low self-esteem and depression as he grew older.

His mother told him on her deathbed that she had complained to a senior church official at the Catholic Diocese of Jackson about the abuse he had suffered, only to be ignored.

He was eventually awarded $44,000 by the church, but never got to confront Haddican before his death in 1996. The pervert worked as a priest until shortly before his death.

Belenchia, who is now agnostic said: ‘I’ve just come to that conclusion and I might be wrong (about God).

‘If there’s a God out there and I get to go to the pearly gates, he’ll say, ‘Well, you get a pass. You had some strong stuff happen. Go on in.’




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