SAN DIEGO (CA)
The San Diego Tribune
August 6, 2018
By Peter Rowe
In 2010, a Catholic priest from the San Diego diocese sexually assaulted Rachel Mastrogiacomo.
This story would be all-too-familiar except for one fact: Mastrogiacomo was 24, a grown woman.
For years, the clergy sex scandal has focused on abused children. Now, the #MeToo movement and a growing recognition of the pervasiveness of sexual power plays is encouraging victimized adults to come out of the shadows.
“Finally,” said Esther Miller, who led an adult victims workshop at last month’s national convention of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), “women are coming together and saying no more.”
Going public, though, can mean facing skeptical questioning. Women and men endure many of the same pressures that discourage children — shame, confusion, the unwillingness to confront a spiritual leaders who are admired and even revered.
Another question is posed only to victimized women and men: why are sexual encounters between two apparently “consenting” adults considered crimes? But in many states, including Minnesota where Mastrogiacomo took her abuser to trial, it’s a crime to have with sex with adults who are incapable of voluntary consent “due to a particular vulnerability or due to the special relationship between the actor (perpetrator) and the victim.”
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