BRONX (NY)
New York Daily News
October 27, 2017
By Laura Dimon and Rich Schapiro with Stephen Rex Brown
Jimmy Halpin grew up an ace student who was so devoted to his Catholic faith that he slept on the floor the night before exams.
“So Jesus could sleep in the bed,” said Halpin, who attended the St. Raymond’s Boys School in the Bronx.
At the age of 15, the Rev. Joseph Theisen entered Halpin’s life.
It was summertime in the early 1980s and Theisen quickly took a liking to young Jimmy. After that, Halpin’s slide into tragedy did not take long.
By the fall, the spark inside him had been snuffed, replaced by a darkness that led to years of substance abuse.
“I’m not going to be in denial about this anymore,” Halpin, now 52 and a third-grade teacher in Harlem, told the Daily News. “I was practically a child and I did nothing wrong.”
Halpin is the latest priest abuse victim to step forward after collecting a settlement from the church’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program for victims.
Roughly 180 victims have received payouts since the program was launched late last year.
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