SANTA CLARA (CA)
National Catholic Reporter
October 20, 2018
By Dan Morris-Young
Priest, abuse survivor stresses importance of listening to victims
Calls for radical structural reform, a more pastoral understanding of clerical sex abuse, and an informed-rather-than-emotional approach to the church’s sex abuse and authority crises were issued by panelists during an Oct. 9 public discussion at Santa Clara University.
Titled “The Catholic Church and the Catastrophe of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” the livestreamed event packed the auditorium of the Jesuit university’s de Saisset Museum with a cross-section of students and community members and drew significant Bay Area media attention.
Fr. Brendan McGuire, first of the four panelists to present, recounted his own sexual abuse at the age of 18 nearly 35 years ago by a priest he knew well.
McGuire, who is pastor of San Jose’s Holy Spirit Parish and the San Jose Diocese’s vicar general for special projects, traced how he had been “groomed” by the cleric for nearly four years until he was 18 when the now-deceased abuser forced his “final play” on McGuire, by then legally an adult
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