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	Molest Victim's Ex-Wife Talks to Jury Woman Never Knew of Abuse by Priest but Sensed a Barrier By Steve Rubenstein San Francisco Chronicle [San Francisco CA] March 23, 2005 The former wife of sexual abuse victim Dennis Kavanaugh told a San Francisco jury Tuesday that her husband was "very guarded and inaccessible" and had never been able to tell her during their 23-year marriage that he had been betrayed as a teenager by his priest. "He always maintained a protective barrier within himself," Jean Kavanaugh said. "The closeness you expect to have with your partner ... I could only go so far." Jean Kavanaugh, nervously chewing gum, told the jury that her ex-husband was a good father and family provider who had rejected his Roman Catholic upbringing and would not allow their two children to attend church or Sunday school. "He told me he did not believe in God," she said. Last week, the Superior Court jury found that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco knew or should have known that the late Rev. Joseph Pritchard molested Kavanaugh at St. Martin of Tours Church in San Jose in the early 1970s. This week, jurors must decide how much money to award him. James Kavanaugh, the victim's 22-year-old son, told the jury that there was an "opaque wall in my dad's soul" that hid a secret that "was not something I wanted to know." "I don't believe we ever once talked about his faith," the younger Kavanaugh said. "Sometimes we would go down that road, and the subject would change." James Kavanaugh and his mother both said they had learned of the abuse only in recent months. In other testimony, two psychologists who examined Dennis Kavanaugh told the jury that he suffered from guilt and shame that might take years of psychotherapy to overcome. They said he blamed himself for failing to speak up about Pritchard, a failure that enabled the priest to molest Kavanaugh's schoolmates and his younger brother. "He really believed he led these other children to this pedophile," said psychologist Darcy Cox. "He feels a profound sense of shame and guilt, which at times rises to self-loathing." Under cross-examination by church attorney Jim Goodman, Cox acknowledged that Kavanaugh suffered from no mental disorders and appeared outwardly happy and well adjusted. Today, the church is expected to present psychologists to testify that not all of Kavanaugh's problems were caused by priestly sexual abuse. The jury is expected to begin deliberating Thursday. Meanwhile, lawyers concluded five days of jury selection in Hayward on Tuesday and agreed on a panel to hear a potentially costlier lawsuit filed against the Diocese of Oakland in Alameda County Superior Court. Judge Harry Sheppard has already ruled that the two plaintiffs in that abuse lawsuit, brothers Bob and Tom Thatcher, may seek punitive damages if they prove their case against Oakland Bishop Allen Vigneron, the spiritual leader of Roman Catholics in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Attorneys for the two brothers, both former altar boys at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Antioch, unearthed documents indicating that church leaders in the 1970s knew that the Rev. Robert Ponciroli had been suspected of molesting several children at other parishes where he had worked. Sheppard ordered the jury to reassemble Monday morning for opening statements in the Thatcher case. One floor up in the Hayward Hall of Justice, private settlement talks continued Tuesday between church lawyers, insurance company representatives and attorneys for abuse claimants in about 150 outstanding lawsuits known collectively as "Clergy III." Church lawyer Paul Gaspari declined to comment when asked whether any progress was being made.
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