Multi-Generational Incest in the Catholic Church

BALTIMORE (MD)
Podles.org

August 28, 2018

By Leon J. Podles

A significant portion of sexual abusers of boys in the Catholic Church – I would estimate half – fall into the pattern of multigenerational incest.

One case which I witnessed from various angles over forty years exemplifies this pattern.

In 1964 I entered Calvert Hall College High School in Baltimore, an all-boys’ school. So did Jeff (Jerome) Toohey. He was not in the advanced class, so I did not know him well, but we had many mutual acquaintances.

After high school Toohey entered the seminary for the archdiocese of Baltimore. He studied at St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park, near where I live. At that time Richard Sipe, a psychologist and later an expert in clerical sexual abuse, was teaching there. Years later Sipe told me that he witnessed Toohey being seduced by a member of the seminary faculty. The faculty member, whose name Sipe never told me, told Toohey that he had to get in touch with his sexuality etc. Toohey succumbed.

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