‘The priest wielded God as a tool to do what he did to me’

By Anna Maria Della Costa
Bulletin
June 22, 2019

https://bit.ly/2xaZnKY

Tim McGuire, 60, of New London, says he was sexually molested when he was 8 by a now-deceased priest in a Noank church. See video at NorwichBulletin.com Photo by John Shishmanian

The anger has hardly subsided.

Nearly 10 years ago, a wooden board ticked off John “Timothy” McGuire – an object entirely too big to take the brunt of his resentment. He tried to throw it, and broke his back.

“The anger that we harbor,” said McGuire, looking out through his front window at St. Mary of the Sea Church in New London. “The level of anger ...we get angry at things that aren’t big enough to get angry about.”

He’s learned to stymie the fits of resentment he’s nursed for 52 years – along with the fears of God hating him and feeling that he’s forever been banished to hell.

They’re the aftermath of four consecutive Sundays when he was an 8-year-old and called after Mass to meet with the late James Curry, of St. Joseph Church in Noank. He figured he was finally going to be told he was an altar boy. Instead, McGuire alleges Curry sexually assaulted him, asking him to strip naked and then fondling him that first Sunday. The alleged assaults escalated by the fourth Sunday to lewd acts.

“After the fourth one, I ran out of the church so fast,” McGuire said, pausing to let tears fall. “I hid behind the fire house. My brother came and brought me home. I still had to go to church after that. I had to look that priest in the eye. I wanted to melt every time.

“I’m not leaving people in the dark anymore. People want to hide from the information. They say, ‘Oh god, here’s another story.’ I’m past that point. I want to shove it down people’s throats.”

McGuire is one of dozens in the state who have accused priests in Connecticut’s Catholic dioceses of sexual assault but are prevented from filing lawsuits because they have passed their 48th birthdays.

He testified before the Judiciary Committee in April in support of Senate Bill 3, which extended the age to file a lawsuit to 51, five years less than the age of 56 in a previous amendment. It also called for a 27-month window in which victims could sue regardless of age and for the elimination of the statute of limitations for anyone now under 48 for incidents that occur after Oct. 1, 2019.

An amended SB 3 passed the state Senate last month and the House on June 1 – without the 27-month window or the elimination of the statute of limitations.

“I’m going to continue to fight and do whatever I need to do,” said McGuire, who is 60 and missed filing a lawsuit by three weeks when he first consulted an attorney just after his 48th birthday. “Let the law work the way it’s supposed to work. I love it when people think no statute of limitations is a hardship for the accused. What’s wrong with your head? You’re going to blanket every person on earth with one date?”

The Diocese of Norwich in February released the names of 43 priests who have served in the diocese since its founding in 1953 and had “allegations of substance” made against them regarding the sexual abuse of minors. Curry was on that list for other allegations, not McGuire’s.

A lawsuit filed in 2008 accused Curry of raping a young girl.

An unhealthy fear of God

McGuire, one of six children, grew up in a strict Catholic family in Noank. Although he went to public school, the family went to church every Sunday. When his father left when he was 5 years old, McGuire admits his home life took a turn for the worse.

“I was drooling to be an altar boy,” he said. “It’s what I clung to. When you’re brought up Catholic, it’s what you did. You were an anomaly if you weren’t. But there I was, the perfect bait. No dad, bad home life. They had me hook, line and sinker. The priest wielded God as a tool to do what he did to me. It was an unfair fight.”

McGuire continued: “Anything I thought I knew about church and sexuality went in the toilet. I thought I was gay. It really screwed me up badly. You’re up against God. You fear him, there’s a place you go if you cross Him. People think, ‘why didn’t you just say something?’ It doesn’t cross your mind, especially when you’re told to do it by the priest. I knew all about hell at age 8. Then the priest tells you you’re not what God was looking for anyway so you need to leave.

“I spent my life apologizing to God, every moment, knowing I was going to hell.”

Beginning at 8, McGuire said the pain was nearly unbearable. He was suicidal. He barely graduated from Fitch High School. Years later, when he tried to tell his sisters, they didn’t believe him and he “crawled right back in that hole.”

McGuire, who bartended and was a carpenter and cabinet maker throughout his life, continued to deal with what happened to him the best he could.

He’s been married twice and has a daughter from his first marriage. He and his second wife adopted two girls, ages 12 and 16, who came from an abusive home.

Still, he kept his secret from the public until he was 48 years old.

“I thought I had dealt with it the best I could,” he said. “How? Well, I’m living. But I was convinced I was going to hell for 40 years. What happened to me has affected me everyday in every aspect of my life.”

A little bit of hope

For McGuire and the people he’s a spokesperson for – they won’t go public with their stories but will allow McGuire to tell their stories without names – the amended SB 3 isn’t good enough, but there is a glimmer of hope.

The amended bill would establish a nine-member task force that would study whether the current statute of limitations should be amended and report its findings and recommendations to the legislature’s Judiciary Committee by Jan. 15, 2020, just before the start of the next legislative session.

The task force must look at the current statute of limitations in Connecticut and other states and review claims that are barred from proceeding due to the current statute of limitations.

Gail Howard, one of the co-leaders of the Connecticut chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said she doesn’t know when the task force will be appointed.

“The bill allows childhood sex abuse victims an additional three years to file a civil suit, from age 48 to 51. While this is a small step forward, it establishes momentum in the right direction,” Howard, who has said a priest in Illinois abused her as a girl, said. “We feel that the removal of the window was unjust and that the Catholic Church had something to do with it. While the rich and powerful in Connecticut have a lot of influence, we believe that the truth will prevail.

“SNAP CT will continue to fight to eliminate the statute of limitations and reinstate the window.”

So, too, will McGuire, who wants the law to change. He’s writing letters, willing to testify, speaking to the state’s Attorney General’s office. He calls anyone who will listen because after 50–plus years, he said, it’s time to speak.

“The church has done everything in it’s power to avoid me, and victims like me who spoke about being abused after we turned 48,” he wrote in a letter to a Connecticut lawmaker. “It has caused our abuse to be perpetuated on a daily basis. Just to wait and see if legislators can figure out what to do, is excruciating. The basis of what we seek is closure. To have a statute of limitations at all is leaving countless victims without justice or religion, while society deems them as fit and able as the next guy. In reality, their lives are immersed in trying to wash away someone else’s sins. The abuse gets in the way of everything; parenting, being a good husband, where to seek religion for my family, and so on.”

McGuire, who has yet to get a response from Bishop of Norwich Michael Cote, has called on the diocese to establish a victims’ compensation fund for him and others prohibited by the statute of limitations from filing lawsuits against the diocese.

Spokesmen with the diocese have said in the past they would not comment on individual allegations and no one from the diocese returned a call for this story.

“I don’t know who Bishop Cote thinks he is, but we’re going to get to the bottom of it, and we’re turning up the heat,” McGuire said. “Life is survival mode. It’s hard. Neglect, Bishop Cote, is an active form of abuse.”

More than 50 years after the alleged abuse, McGuire will only grace the door of a church for a funeral or a wedding.

The anger hasn’t subsided.

“I read an article in the paper about Curry and how he settled out of court – the diocese paid the victim over $1 million. That’s when I started crying. It all came out. This guy did it to me. I thought I had put it away the best I could,” McGuire said.

“Later, we went to Catholic Charities because I needed help. We were struggling and didn’t have anywhere else to go. We needed food. While I was there I talked to someone about what happened to me. They told me to talk to a counselor who was there. I did. No one ever called me. No one followed up. I got a box of canned goods. That was it.”