VERMONT
VT Digger
September 26, 2018
By Anne Galloway
The Vermont Attorney General’s investigation into sex abuse in the Catholic church will include the Weston Priory, following a complaint lodged against the monastery by an alleged victim.
Michael Veitch said he was sexually abused by a visiting priest from Cuba who was staying at the Benedictine monastery in southern Vermont. Veitch said he was assaulted shortly after his father, a devout Catholic, died in 1970 when Veitch was 15 years old.
A few months after his death, Veitch and his brother visited Weston Priory, where their father was buried. The two brothers had helped the monks with farming chores for a few weeks each summer, and Veitch struck up a friendship with a visiting priest from Cuba. Veitch said the priest later assaulted him.
Veitch said the experience profoundly affected his academic performance his junior year at Bellows Falls Union High School and his life went off the rails. He was unable to go to college as a young man and despite years of therapy had three failed marriages. Veitch worked for many years as a recycling advocate at Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
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