WISCONSIN
Kenosha News
BY JILL TATGE-ROZELL
jrozell@kenoshanews.com
When Peter Isely, the Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, asked Monica Barrett to sit alongside priests and help form a cooperative alliance, Barrett thought “he had lost it.”
Her initial reaction was, “You want me to sit down with a bunch of priests? Are you off your freakin’ rocker?”
“When I went into it, it was half-hearted,” admits Barrett, a victim of clergy abuse as a child. “I really believed they (clergy) were all bad.”
Isely assured her there are priests who will speak out on behalf of survivors. She now works with them as part of the Survivor and Clergy Leadership Alliance, members of which applied for non-profit status in August, nearly three years following the first joint meeting.
“There are clergy of integrity who are in this vocation for the right reasons,” she said. “This is one of the biggest revelations I have had since joining the alliance. I realize that these priests have been lied to as well. They were used, too.”
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