Silent Struggles: Mark Berkery

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

As state lawmakers debate a plan to make it easier for victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek justice, abuse survivors are coming forward to tell their stories.

When Mark Berkery was a boy, he was raped by a family friend, and afterward his parents knew he’d need good counseling to heal.

So they introduced him to the man they trusted most to help, the Rev. Stanley Gana, a priest at Ascension of Our Lord Church in Kensington.

The Berkerys were Catholic and lived in that north Philadelphia neighborhood, and Gana convinced them he could help the boy more than a private counselor.

Gana’s archdiocese bio included “youth counseling” among his talents and interests.

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