NEW YORK
WSAV
BUFFALO, N.Y. – (WIVB) – Two Western New Yorkers who were alleged victims of sexual abuse are hoping Pope Francis will learn of their stories when he visits the United States.
When Vanessa DeRosa of Niagara Falls was thirteen years old she says she was sexually touched and stalked by her Catholic school teacher Christian Butler. He later served time for abusing children.
Venessa, who is now twenty-six, says “I don’t trust anybody who is supposed to be trustworthy, anybody who is of authority.”
Tino Flores, now fifty-two years old, has required psychiatric care for decades.
Flores, of Buffalo, says beginning at age ten he was sexually molested for five years by the family’s Franciscan priest.
Father Linus Hennessey has since died, but Flores says he rejected a fifty-thousand dollar offer from the Franciscans to take care of his medical needs, although some of his medical expenses have been paid.
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