PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Daily Hampshire Gazette [Hampshire MA]
July 14, 2026
By Jay Sefton
Massachusetts was the first state to light the fuse toward transparency about clergy abuse in the early 2000s with the Boston Globe Spotlight series. It changed the world. It prompted former attorney general Thomas Reilly to release the findings of his 2003 investigation into the Archdiocese of Boston. It sparked other investigations, including a probe into the Archdiocese of Philadelphia which resulted in a 400-page grand jury report.
My story of abuse at the hands of a Philadelphia parish priest can be found on page 373. The transparency of that work has been crucial in validating my experience as a survivor and is the single biggest factor in recovering my voice and feeling empowered to use it. The continuing failure of the current Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office to release a five-year-old report about sexual abuse by clergy in the Springfield, Worcester, and Fall River Dioceses inexcusably inhibits that potential healing for survivors in this state.
I now live in Massachusetts, and over the past three years, I have performed “Unreconciled,” a play about my abuse when I was 13-years-old in 1985. This past April, I had the privilege to perform the play in my Pennsylvania hometown, just a short walk from the church where the abuse occurred. The audiences were filled with my family members, grade school classmates, their parents, high school friends, and strangers who have their own stories of abuse.
Childhood sexual abuse happens not only to a child. It also happens to a community. Rippling into every corner of daily life and festering in dark places we would rather not look, it is a communal trauma that requires a path to communal healing. We reckon with not only what happened, but with what couldn’t happen because of the abuse.
When the Philadelphia grand jury report was released over 20 years ago, I couldn’t have imagined returning home to perform a solo play about my abuse. However, without its release, there is no way I would have had the courage to co-write and perform Unreconciled.
Whenever I experience self-doubt or am questioned about my story, I return to page 373 and find in black-and-white ink the validation I need to continue. Choosing transparency over secrecy alters the life trajectory of survivors and saves countless more children from having to deal with the scars of childhood sexual abuse. Refusing to release the findings of a second Massachusetts grand jury report investigating the dioceses of Worcester, Springfield, and Fall River, Attorney General Andrea Campbell is shrouding the issue of clergy abuse in secrecy, robbing survivors of the validation they desperately need to use their voices, and leaving current communities and children at risk for further abuse.