DENVER (CO)
Denver Catholic
November 27, 2018
By Moira Cullings
Growing up, Pat was a strong Catholic with a deep passion for her faith.
“I knew all of the responses before Vatican II,” she said. “I knew all of the altar boy responses in Latin. I even knew what they meant.”
That foundation of faith has carried Pat through a remarkable journey of strength and forgiveness. She’s remained in the Church her entire life — despite the abuse she suffered at the hands of a priest at just five years old.
Pat came forward about the abuse in 2002. It took several years, not because she was hesitant to talk about what happened, but because she didn’t remember it.
“I was gifted with repressed memories of the abuse,” said Pat. “I had no [recollection] of it at all until I was 48 years old.”
Psychologists say that repressed memories are unconsciously blocked by the mind because they are connected to a trauma. Although Pat couldn’t remember the experience for decades, its impact lingered. She has dealt with clinical depression her entire life, and, starting in 2001, that depression worsened for a reason she couldn’t place.
The next year, the abuse scandal broke in the Catholic Church and Pat began to realize what had happened to her. While sitting at Mass at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community in Arvada, Pat listened as Monsignor Robert Kinkel, the pastor at the time, read a letter from then-Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput addressing the scandal.
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