ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post Dispatch
July 18, 2020
By Jesse Bogan
A narrator’s voice on a show about the Sistine Chapel triggered John Doe’s memories of horror he experienced as a 9-year-old altar boy. He survived being gang raped and other abuses by Roman Catholic clergy that were so traumatic they took some 50 years to resurface.
Doe ultimately wanted the Springfield Diocese in western Massachusetts to know what had been done to him in the early 1960s — not just by rank-and-file priests, but by the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon, whose reputation was still untarnished from leading the diocese from 1950 to 1977.
Doe’s quest for justice, however, would victimize him even more. It took six years for his story to be validated, and only after initial investigations by church officials were found to be rife with mistakes and possible deception.
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