PENNSYLVANIA
Washington Post
Story by Karen Heller
WILLOW GROVE, PA.
A statue of the Virgin Mary, bordered by mums, graces the verdant lawn of the McIlmail residence. In the driveway and on the suburban street are three Chevy Impalas, one of them formerly owned by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, long the family’s spiritual home and refuge.
The split-level is crowded with crosses, over doors and beds, and a swarm of butterflies adorns everything from shower curtains to a changing table. These are symbols of the McIlmails’ abiding faith, the cross from their decades as cradle-to-grave Catholics, the butterfly an emblem of comfort adopted in the wake of catastrophic loss.
Each night, Debbie, 59, a former hospital administrator whose employers included Catholic-run medical centers, spends 40 minutes reciting her prayers from a worn folder of cards. There is always a prayer for Sean, her middle child, who had a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on his back and a cross inked on his left arm.
In early 2013, Sean reported to the archdiocese that he had been sexually abused from ages 11 to 14 by a parish priest, Robert L. Brennan, since retired, who had been removed from priestly duties years earlier because of previous allegations.
Brennan had been named in a 2005 grand jury report alleging “inappropriate or suspicious behavior . . . with more than 20 boys from four different parishes,” cases that never made it to court because of a statute of limitations.
Sean, who alleged that he had been abused from about 1998 to 2001, came forward soon enough to meet the law’s requirements. But days before he was scheduled to testify at a preliminary hearing, he died of a heroin overdose. He was 26. The criminal charges against Brennan were soon dropped.
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