Parents are often forgotten victims of Catholicism's sex abuse scandal

By Mike Kelly
North Jersey Record
March 01, 2019

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2019/03/01/catholic-priest-sex-abuse-leaves-parents-forgotten-victims-kelly/2944469002/

A photograph from the late 1980's show Hanratty. During this time in his life (ages 10-14) he was being abused by Rev. Gerald Sudol of St. Francis of Assisi Church, in Ridgefield Park. Sunday, February 24, 2019 Photo by Kevin R. Wexler

Ed and Phyllis Hanratty hold a photograph of their son. The image was taken during the years (approximately 1986-1990) when he was being sexually abused by Rev. Gerald Sudol of St. Francis of Assisi Church, in Ridgefield Park. Their son was 10-14 years old at the time. Sunday, February 24, 2019 Photo by Kevin R. Wexler

When she talks about the Catholic Church, you can hear the sound of Phyllis Hanratty’s breaking heart.

Hanratty’s son, Edward Jr., said he was abused by a Catholic priest for several years in the late 1980s when the family lived in Ridgefield Park and were loyal members of St. Francis of Assisi parish.

Edward Jr., now 42 and living in West Milford with his wife, kept his secret to himself until last summer. And when he finally told his parents — and the world, in an NBC news interview — Phyllis felt her faith crumble.

“My church lied to me,” she said in a recent interview at the apartment in Lyndhurst that she shares with her husband. “I’ve been robbed of my faith in the Catholic Church.”

Amid the wash of news of Catholic priests abusing children — including the disclosure last month by church authorities of the names of nearly 200 New Jersey priests suspected of abuse — the stories of what happens to parents are often overlooked.Experts say abuse of children has a ripple effect within families. Many parents are consumed by guilt, weighed down by questions of whether they did enough to protect their children, and spiritually crushed that the church — and faith — they trusted had become a home to so many abuser priests for so long.

This is the emotional dilemma now facing Phyllis Hanratty, 67, and her husband, Edward Sr., 68.  

“You have blinders on, and all of a sudden a bomb goes off,” Edward Sr. said. “When it explodes, the shrapnel rips us apart.”

“The good father comes into my home and molests my son?” Phyllis added. “That is something I’ll never forgive myself for. I put my son in that situation. I wanted my children to have my beliefs. I put my faith in this organization that I thought was holy and close to God.”

Robert Hoatson, a former priest who now runs Road to Recovery, a counseling service based in Livingston for victims of clergy sexual abuse, describes parents as “secondary victims” who are often forgotten.

“They don’t experience the significant amount of post-traumatic stress disorder as the victims themselves,” Hoatson said. “But they do go through that whole guilt-shame period, asking: 'Why didn’t I protect my children?' or 'Why did I invite the priest into my house?' ”

Jason Berry, a New Orleans-based journalist who was one of the first to draw attention to the culture of abuse within Catholicism with his 1992 book, “Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children,” said the suffering of parents is a largely forgotten subplot within the larger narrative of the Catholic sex abuse scandal.

“When you realize a priest abused your child, it is an altering experience,” Berry said. “Some parents walk away, cold and angry. Others struggle to hold on to their faith. What it does to everyone is it forces a radical rethinking of the past. You think of all the times you went to church and listened to all the sermons, and now you realize that behind the church, behind the curtain, there’s a criminal underground.”

The Hanrattys say they never imagined their son might be a target of abuse. In large measure, they fit the mold of a classic Catholic family — one that seemed drawn from a movie script.

Phyllis, an Irish immigrant, grew up in Hackensack, the daughter of a carpenter. Edward Sr. grew up in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium, the son of a New York City police detective. When they married, Phyllis and Edward Sr. honeymooned in Dublin.

After having children, the couple readily joined their local parish, St. Francis of Assisi in Ridgefield Park. Soon, they enrolled their two daughters and two sons at the parish school and encouraged all their children to become altar servers.

Between shifts on her job as a health aide, Phyllis put in time as an unpaid aide in the St. Francis school cafeteria and library. Edward Sr., an accountant, donated $500 for new robes for altar servers. With a team of other parishioners, he worked almost every weekend for two years to help remodel the school’s classrooms. And he joined the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus, eventually rising to the title of Grand Knight.

Phyllis and Edward Sr. also volunteered to work parish bingo fundraising events. They donated time to help at the parish’s annual carnival — another fundraiser.  And if the parish held a dance, Phyllis and Edward Sr. were usually part of the team to help organize it.

“I devoted my children and myself to St. Francis parish,” Phyllis said.

Then came their son’s revelation last summer that he had been abused by the Rev. Gerald Sudol, a seemingly charismatic and energetic priest in his 30s who came to St. Francis in the mid-1980s and quickly became popular with many young families.

"He was this breath of fresh air that everybody wanted to be around,” said Edward Jr. “All the families wanted him for dinner.”

Edward Jr. said Sudol would show up at school recess and toss Nerf footballs to some of the boys. Or he would drop into classrooms to tell jokes. Within months of his arrival, Sudol was the parish’s most popular priest — a sharp contrast to an older, more reserved pastor.

“It felt like the whole school was in a competition to get his attention,” Edward Jr. said.

What developed was something that went far beyond just personal friendships — or even adolescent boys vying for the attention of a popular priest.

Edward Jr. and other victims say that Sudol was drawn to a group of altar servers, including Edward Jr. Most of the boys were in fourth or fifth grade. After Masses, they said, Sudol would routinely bless the male altar servers, then kiss them, sometimes forcing his tongue into their mouths.

Edward Jr. said he was 10 years old when Sudol kissed him the first time. For the next four years, Edward Jr. said Sudol regularly tried to hug, kiss and rub against him — once in the Hanrattys' backyard swimming pool, where Edward Jr. says the priest had become sexually aroused while pushing himself against his back while the two were swimming.

Looking back now, Phyllis and Edward Sr. say they had grown concerned that Sudol had become too close to their son — and, indeed, to another half-dozen boys in the parish. But in the late 1980s, few Catholics suspected that their priests were regularly abusing boys. 

By the early 1990s, Sudol was abruptly transferred to another parish. Catholic officials never said why.

Edward Jr. moved on to Ridgefield Park High School, then Ramapo College. He married a woman, Jaime, he met in kindergarten class at St. Francis, then went on to a career with a firm that archives video footage for television news outlets. 

But as he grew older, his parents noticed he became increasingly angry whenever they mentioned anything about Catholicism or their parish.

“We’d see his anger,” Edward Sr. said.

But neither he nor Phyllis knew what it was about.

“I kept thinking it was a phase,” Phyllis said. “Maybe it will pass.”

Looking back, she recognizes that she was growing more concerned that something terrible might have happened to her son. But she also struggled with how to resolve her turmoil.

“It’s like an oxymoron type of thing,” she said. “You know there is something wrong. But you didn’t think there was anything wrong. Because what could be wrong?”

Meanwhile, Edward Jr. said he struggled for years with the emotional pain he felt from being molested by Sudol. He dropped hints to his wife, but never explained everything. Last summer, amid reports of abuse by 300 Pennsylvania priests and by Newark’s former archbishop, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Edward Jr. decided to go public with his story. 

First, however, he telephoned his parents.

“They didn’t know the depth of what I had gone through,” Edward Jr. said.

Phyllis remembers dissolving in tears. Edward Sr. recalls how angry he felt. In a way, both parents felt abused, too — not physically, as their son was, but emotionally, because they had placed so much trust in their church.

 “I’ve been robbed of my faith in the Catholic Church,” Phyllis said.

They never saw Sudol after he left St. Francis for another parish. When Edward Jr. told his story last summer to NBC News and wrote a more detailed account on the Reverb Press web site, Sudol was quickly removed from his post at Our Lady of Czestochowa parish in Jersey City. 

In releasing names of allegedly abusive priests last month, the Newark Archdiocese said Sudol abused “multiple” victims and that he had been “permanently removed from ministry.” But the archdiocese declined to offer any additional information about Sudol, including how many boys he allegedly abused and where he is now living.

“Due to ongoing investigations, we are not at liberty to disclose this information,” said archdiocesan spokeswoman Maria Margiotta.

Soon after learning about their son’s abuse, Phyllis and Edward Sr. stopped going to Mass. Merely walking into a church now and meeting any priest is difficult, they say. If they worship at all, they watch Catholic Masses that are broadcast on TV.

“We failed our son,” Edward Sr. said.

“Somebody said you can’t stop going to Mass,” Phyllis said. “I’m sorry. I do believe in God, and I do believe that God is very angry.”