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	Woman Tells Story of Alleged Abuse by Priest in Order to Effect Change By Elizabeth Kenny Portsmouth Herald [Portsmouth NH] June 19, 2005 Eleven-year-old Rachel Dellea climbs the branches of a tree in her family's Florida yard, and listens to a conversation between her father and their family priest below. The priest, over a few drinks, tells her father how pretty she is: blue-eyed, red hair. Rachel remembers her father, who had been abusing her since she was age 3, responding with further "sexually explicit things." The priest rises, walks to his car and removes a six pack of beer, before telling Rachel's father, "The nuns could use some help in the convent." From that day forward, for the next five years, the "family priest" would stop by the house each week with a bottle of whiskey or a six pack of beer and Rachel's father would send her with him to "work" at the church. And so Rachel's story begins. 'I'll never forget' Rachel, a wife of 29 years, a nurse and mother of four, wears glasses now. She still has long hair and still remembers that summer day in 1966 as if it were yesterday. "I'll never forget what happened," she says sitting inside her Kittery home. "It was a sick, sick situation." Dellea is seen in a family photo wearing her First Communion gown. Courtesy photo The alleged abuse stopped when her family moved to Lewiston, Maine, when she was 16 years old. It wasn't until Rachel was in her 30s - when she woke from vivid nightmares of the days that followed when she climbed down from that tree - that she began to talk about the abuse and all that happened. Ten years of therapy followed. When dozens of other victims of the clergy abuse scandal began telling their story, Rachel read the papers in awe, but she wasn't surprised. She knew she wasn't the only one, but she couldn't believe the "courage" the men showed when telling their story. She never thought she would have that courage or want to share her story. Until recently, only her immediate family knew the ugly details of her childhood. But as the scandal continued to unfold, and the Catholic Church seemed to ignore the problem, Rachel says she realized she was given two options: to be a part of the community that denied and ignored the accounts or step forward and take some action. "I chose to be on the side of justice and healing," she says. "There must be hundreds of other people out there. If people stop talking about it, it will go away from the church's point of view. So people have to just keep saying stuff and not let them forget ... I'll never forget." Missed opportunity Hundreds of priests across the country have been accused of molesting children. For every victim who has spoken out, another sits at home - silenced by fear, shame or denial, Rachel says. According to a study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, and commissioned by the National Review Board of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 10,667 individuals have made allegations of child sexual abuse by priests as of 2004. The study collected information from 99 percent of all dioceses, eparchies and 60 percent of the religious orders. In Boston alone, more than 550 men and women reportedly filed abuse claims. When Pope John Paul II died in April, Rachel says a door opened for the Catholic Church to "acknowledge" the problem. Pope Benedict XVI, former German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has taken the reins of the Catholic Church, but nothing has changed, Rachel says. He has not made the necessary steps to allow for the healing process to begin. "This was such a good opportunity for the church to step up to the plate, gotten angry, and taken really bold steps to find priests," Rachel said. "But instead, they're treating the injustice with more injustice." Pope Benedict XVI has reportedly said the Vatican will continue to evaluate American seminaries, as well as addressing whether gays should become priests. But it is not enough, Rachel says, adding the definition of pedophile does not mention the word homosexual and she is living proof the sex-abuse scandal is not a "gay issue." "There's no evidence that homosexuals, people who are identified as gay, are more likely to sexually offend against children," says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. According to Finkelhor, 75 percent of the church abuse victims were male, but that statistic may exist because most priests had more access to males, who often served as alter boys. Rachel made a conscious decision not to be part of the statistics. She has not pressed charges against the priest she has accused in Florida and she has not filed a lawsuit. She does not think less of those who have, but for her, she says healing will only begin when the church says it will try to make a change. Even if all the abusers are put behind bars, she is still angry with those who allowed it to continue. "They are just as guilty as the perpetrator," Rachel says. "My parents are just as guilty." When Rachel was still a child and told her mother she was being abused by the priest, her mother blamed it on Rachel for her "pants being too tight and breasts being too big." It was a different time, Rachel says, a time when priests were an authority figure, "priests were like God." Each month, Rachel would sit behind a screen for confession, where parishioners meet with a priest to confess their sins. Rachel calls it "sick" that she would have to confess her "sins" to the priest who was abusing her. 'Grace of God' "It's not my fault." It's a phrase that took Rachel years to accept and even longer to say out loud. But with supportive friends, children and a husband of 29 years, she has survived. Rachel calls it the "grace of God" that allowed she and husband Charles to have such a successful marriage and raise four children. "Marriage is hard work," Charles says while sitting with his wife in their Kittery home. A picture of the four children he adopted hangs on the wall behind him. When he married Rachel, he adopted two of her children she had from a previous marriage. Later, the couple adopted two more children. All four were raised Catholic. Charles has remained active in the church, while Rachel calls her own relationship with Catholicism "on again, off again." Charles says he looks at the abuse as a "bad man who did this thing to her ... I don't see all Catholic priests as that, but it's terrible because the church seems to be peppered with them." It was a "network" of people - including doctors, parents and others - who allowed abuse to happen in Rachel's case, says Charles. Once the abuse began in Florida, Rachel would be rushed to the doctors at odd hours for problems typical teenage girls would not have, she said. "The doctor should have known," she says, shaking her head. When Rachel was in her 30s, and the nightmares of her past began, her family's life was altered. But it is talking about the situation with her devoted friends and family that get her through the tough times, she says. She's stuck a bumper sticker on her car, which reads, "Some days the dragon wins." But as she moves forward, those days are fewer and farther between. The next step in her healing process was to publicly address the issue and the hope others like her will have the courage to do the same and, hopefully, make a difference. "People want this issue to go away," Rachel says. "But if a lot of people keep talking about it, the church will see it's not going to go away. ... It's going to take a lot of people before there is any action. ... I've taken this side now. I'm taking some kind of action." She says if someone had asked her to publicly tell her story months earlier, she would have said no. She didn't have the courage. But as life goes on, her childhood memories remain, but she wakes each day ready to make new memories. Now, Rachel teaches her grandchildren how to climb trees, safely.
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