HAWAII
Honolulu Civil Beat
APRIL 13, 2016 · By Chad Blair
The fact that more lawsuits were filed Wednesday against the Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii alleging sexual abuse may not elicit much shock.
Such legal action against the church in Hawaii and everywhere else has been widespread in recent years.
So Kailua attorney Mark Gallagher, who filed the three latest lawsuits in 1st Circuit Court in Honolulu, shared information with reporters at a brief press conference to illustrate just how terrible child sex abuse can be for the young victim.
Here’s that information, claimed in a lawsuit and an August 2015 report written for Gallagher by Thomas Patrick Doyle, a Catholic priest now living in Virginia:
The sexual abuse of a victim identified as John Roe 2 began in 1973, when the boy’s family joined St. Anthony Parish in Kailua. That’s where Roe met two men who would become his alleged abusers, Fathers Joseph Henry and Joseph Ferrario.
Henry exposed himself to the 9-year-old victim, pushed him face down on the carpet and raped him, according to Doyle and the lawsuit.
A year later, Ferrario was named pastor of St. Anthony’s. The victim asked to speak with the priest about Father Henry and the sexual assault. As the victim spoke, Ferrario became sexually excited and forced the boy to perform oral sex, according to Doyle and the suit.
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