BAYONNE (NJ)
SNAP - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests [Chicago IL]
July 30, 2026
Snared by obsession
Not everyone has experienced the terrifying grip of an obsessed lover who won’t let them go. But imagine going through that as a 14-year-old, and that your parish priest was the one with the obsession. That’s what Mark Crawford endured from 1977 to 1983 in suburban New Jersey and what he tried to escape and recover from for decades afterward.
Picture a devoted middle class family with nine children, whose parents both volunteered extensively in their parish: Mark’s father as a bingo caller and chaperone at CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) events and his mother taking care of the liturgical linens and altar flower arrangements. Their modest house was Grand Central Station, with kids from all over the neighborhood constantly flowing in and out.
Into this warm and loving environment came the new priest, Father Kenneth Martin, who met Mrs. Crawford setting up for Mass. A train enthusiast, he learned of the large model train display set up in the Crawford basement and promptly became a fixture at their home. Mark says Father Martin came over 3-5 times per week. He was there constantly, praying, saying Mass, swimming in their pool and even inviting his own extended family over to visit him there.
As soon as he learned of Mark’s calling to the priesthood, Father Martin became his mentor, giving him chores and duties, such as creating the altar boy schedules. On the cook’s day off at the rectory, Father Martin would request that Mark deliver a home-made dinner. Then the priest would invite Mark upstairs, frequently checking to make sure no one was up there.
Essentially, this was classic familial sexual grooming, where predators gain the trust of an entire family before making advances on their target.
“Any predator has to groom not just the child, but the whole family,” Mark explains.
Father Martin also took groups of youth on day trips to the beach and other excursions, so when he proposed a long train trip to Colorado with Mark, it didn’t raise any concerns. As Mark and Father Martin caught the train, all Mark felt was excitement for the adventure.
It wasn’t until they climbed into their shared sleeper car the first night of the trip that the abuse started. There, Martin explained that “this is what people who love each other do” as he reached under Mark’s pajamas. After that shocking start, Mark recalls the sexual activity occurring multiple times a day.
“Father Martin became obsessed with me–my feet, my body, my athleticism,” Mark said. “I was very confused and didn’t know what to think.”
So when they returned home from the trip, Mark didn’t say anything to anyone. But he did try to avoid the priest, which was unsuccessful due to his constant presence in their home. In fact, if Martin complained that his back was sore, Mark would be called over to rub it. And when the Crawford living room was too busy for the priest to properly relax, Father Martin would suggest they repair to a quieter room where he would close the door and soon become naked and start molesting Mark–just steps away from the rest of the family going about their daily lives.
And Mark would be tasked with walking Father Martin back to the rectory, as if the grown man couldn’t make it on his own. The neighbors often witnessed Mark accompanying the priest home–even at 1:00 in the morning.
“How could adults not see this?” Mark asks even now perplexed at their ignorance. “How could they not see what was going on?”
Relentlessly, Mark tried to evade the man, but he said the priest was always watching him, and would get upset when Mark avoided him. So Father Martin continued to have his way and took Mark on trips, acting extremely possessive of him. In a classic display of controlling behavior, the priest would become unhinged when he couldn’t have Mark beside him, exploding with over-the-top emotion.
“All the time I was terrified,” Mark said. “I truly lived under constant pressure and fear that he’d hurt himself if I told–and me too.”
There was no escaping the cycle of intimidation. The only time Father Martin didn’t sexually abuse Mark was at church.
And amidst it all, Mark says his faith was a part of the equation, another element for the priest to exploit.
“Father Martin insisted that I go to him for confession,” Mark said, “Just reinforcing that I was the one who was sinning.”
Yet despite all that was happening, the betrayal and manipulation, Mark still believed that he wanted to become a priest himself. And Father Martin used that to his own advantage. Knowing that the cost of educating nine children was burdensome to the Crawfords, he went to the Brothers at Mark’s high school and asked them to waive tuition for the next three years because of Mark’s calling to the priesthood. Thus, Father Martin played the family hero, further securing his place in their home.
So it’s no surprise that when Mark graduated high school at 17, he again tried to escape by going off to a seminary in Newton, the Salesian College of Don Bosco. But Father Martin continued the emotional pressure, with other parishioners questioning Mark about Father Martin’s drastically changed appearance, having lost weight and acting withdrawn while Mark was away at college. He wrote letters to Mark frequently of his undying love for him. And when Mark didn’t reply, he’d come to campus and then they’d fight, sometimes with the priest striking out at Mark with his fists over the relationship.
The neverending violence and abuse came to a head during Mark’s second year of seminary. When Father Martin pressured Mark to go to Europe with him, Mark sought out confession at Lourdes, the international site known for intercession and healing. As he put words to what was going on, the priest’s reply in the confessional stunned him. He told Mark that the sex needed to stop. No mention of culpability. Nor concern for safety. Mark was still on his own.
Soon thereafter, Father Martin initiated a transfer from the diocesan priesthood to become a Franciscan, the same order where Mark was training, so he could be closer to him. Mark was beside himself, thinking, “I’m never going to be free of him.”
The sense of powerlessness Mark felt continued as he told a series of priests about the sexual activity, from Father Martin’s best friends to fellow Franciscans at the seminary. In fact, Mark learned when his mother was dying that Father Martin’s friend Father Anthony had asked Mark’s mother not to let Father Martin be alone with Mark or his brother anymore (whom he also abused when Mark was away at seminary).
After his second year, Mark left the seminary for good and went to live with an uncle in Ohio. There, he told his relatives what had happened and stayed there for months, finding refuge at last.
“I didn’t know where my head was,” Mark recalled. “I was thinking I’ve got to forgive him and move on, but I was constantly troubled.”
Mark managed to tell a deacon at his family’s parish what had happened in mid-1982. The deacon encouraged him to tell the bishop, which helped validate Mark’s conviction that something finally needed to be done.
However, yet again, events did not play out as they should. The bishop accused Mark of making up the entire story. Father Martin remained at the parish.
For the years that followed, Mark tried to put the abuse behind him, but it was a long road to recovery. The abuse tormented him, eating him up inside while he dated his wife in an on again/off again relationship, because he felt so conflicted.
When his brother David began to melt down over his own abuse by Father Martin, their sisters came to Mark and insisted he do something. At the time, Mark was married with his first child, and he had never told his wife about Father Martin. But he could see that what was at stake was bigger than his own emotional turmoil.
“Things would trigger, and I couldn’t control my emotions,” Mark recalled. “My life had come off the rails.”
In 1996, Mark sought counsel to make sure the diocese took steps to help his brother. and take the issue of Father Martin’s abuse more seriously. Aiming to make sure no one had to face the long tunnel of confusion and isolation he experienced, Mark insisted that he be able to speak with seminarians to say what they should do if someone tells them they’re being abused. He met with Archbishop McCarrick and Bishop Bootkoski, who feigned surprise and offered promises that they would make sure Father Martin wouldn’t have access to children. Nevertheless, Mark refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, despite repeated requests from the diocese.
But in 1999 Mark ran across an article in the Catholic Advocate with a photo of Father Martin and Archbishop McCarrick surrounded by children. Furious, Mark wrote letters to every cardinal and the Vatican about Father Martin’s abuse and that he was promoted despite Mark’s testimony. He also met with his senator, who joined him on a quest to make changes in the New Jersey legislature.
That turned out to be a 20-year odyssey, which began with an advocacy campaign to raise awareness about sexual abuse nation-wide. He testified before the New Jersey State Senate, spoke at colleges and universities such as Fordham, Princeton, Penn State, UCLA, and even appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to get the message out. From 1998 to 2019 he lobbied for bills to eliminate the statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse and hold institutions accountable for failing to protect children.
“This is my life’s work. I’m not going to stop until the law is changed,” Mark now says. “The only thing the church understands is to be held accountable through money. It’s a matter of taking back and protecting others so they don’t have to go through it.”
And even though Father Martin was never defrocked and was allowed to retire, now living quietly in a private home at the Jersey shore, Mark feels comfortable enough in his own skin, having transformed his personal trauma into a lifelong mission: to expose institutional wrongdoing and elevate the voices of male survivors. He serves as the New Jersey director of SNAP, helping support others as they work through their own personal journeys. After more than three decades of struggle, he’s discovered something quite profound for himself.
“My personal healing cannot depend on where anybody else is,” he says. “We’re in charge of our own healing.”
He believes that listening — truly listening — to survivors who reach out, often for the first time in their lives, to speak their truth is the most powerful advocacy possible. He is adamant that no one else needs to face these struggles alone; that together, we can heal and make change happen.
RESOURCES
- Learn about legislation Mark has been instrumental in moving forward, including:
- Ending Charitable Immunity protections that shielded religious institutions
- Reforming the Statute of Limitations and creating a civil look‑back window for survivors of childhood and adult sexual abuse victims
- Read about the internationally distributed documentary Boys and Men Healing (Video 2010) – IMDb, where Mark was one of three protagonists.
- Find resources at MaleSurvivor.org, one of the first national networks of support for male survivors, where Mark was a longtime Board member.
- Explore helpful information at the New Jersey Governor’s Advisory Council Against Sexual Violence, where Mark continues to serve today, shaping statewide policy and survivor‑centered initiatives.