MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: JON TEVLIN , Star Tribune
Patrick Marker has run a website dedicated to exposing abusive priests and offering a platform for victims for more than 10 years, so he’s used to getting mail.
Some e-mails are like the one he received Monday, in which a victim told him of being sexually abused by a brother at St. John’s University in 1960, but never getting a response after he reported the incident to the abbey.
But Marker was shocked to get an e-mail last week filled with obscenities.
“I hope you die in a car accident,” the e-mail said. “You are more of a victimizer than any of them. … Die a hundred deaths you worthless crap stain of a human being.”
Even more surprising, Marker was able to determine the note came from St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., where he had been sexually abused as a youth. He finally determined the person who sent it and wrote to the man, suggesting the e-mail was threatening.
Brother Peter Sullivan, a member of the abbey’s Peace and Justice committee, wrote back: “I’m sorry for what I said. And I’m sorry for what happened to you. I just got really mad when someone told me I was on the website so I checked it out and there I was.”
It was that kind of week for the Catholic Church in Minnesota, from the St. John’s incident, to the archbishop’s odd news conference, to his announcement that he would step down temporarily because of an allegation he inappropriately touched a child, a claim he vigorously denies.
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