{"id":1642,"date":"2007-07-30T08:10:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T08:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/its-not-just-priests.html"},"modified":"2007-07-30T08:10:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T08:10:00","slug":"its-not-just-priests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/its-not-just-priests.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s not just priests"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Here’s a small but significant detail that many have overlooked in writing about the mammoth sex abuse settlement in LA: a number<\/a> of those who committed abuse were not priests: <\/p>\n

Church teachers, sports coaches and even unpaid parochial school volunteers make up as much as 10 percent of the assailants, lawyers say.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press does not normally identify victims of sexual abuse, but in this case the brothers agreed to have their names released.<\/p>\n

The Livingston boys, (Paul and Joe), were 6 and 7 when their mother sent them to Catholic school in the 1970s. She worked several jobs to pay tuition after their father left when Paul was two months old.<\/p>\n

Joe, 11 months older, can still see the janitor’s face and hands. He also remembers times when the trailer door slammed in his face, leaving him standing outside with his little brother trapped inside.<\/p>\n

“I remember feeling so bad because it was my younger brother and I couldn’t do anything,” he said. “I remember thinking ‘God, all grown-ups, all old people, are like this.’ Since then, I’ve been running scared.”<\/p>\n

The brothers, who now live in San Diego, both dropped out of high school and lived for years in a fog of alcohol, drugs and depression. They were homeless together in the late 1990s, living in a stolen car in San Diego for months and camping on beaches in northern Mexico.<\/p>\n

In 2002, Paul saw a newspaper article about clergy abuse and they contacted a Costa Mesa attorney. When Paul spoke to the lawyer about the abuse for the first time, he was so upset he vomited.<\/p>\n

In 2004, they shared in a $100 million settlement against the Diocese of Orange. They were also plaintiffs in the suit against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which controlled Orange County parishes at the time.<\/p>\n

The janitor, who was never arrested, died in 1985.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s a horror, whoever was behind it. But this serves to remind us that this story is more complicated than just the usual “pedophile priests” headline. <\/p>\n

Photo: interior, Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, Los Angeles <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a small but significant detail that many have overlooked in writing about the mammoth sex abuse settlement in LA: a number of those who committed abuse were not priests: Church teachers, sports coaches and even unpaid parochial school volunteers make up as much as 10 percent of the assailants, lawyers say. The Associated Press…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's not just priests - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/its-not-just-priests.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It's not just priests - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a small but significant detail that many have overlooked in writing about the mammoth sex abuse settlement in LA: a number of those who committed abuse were not priests: Church teachers, sports coaches and even unpaid parochial school volunteers make up as much as 10 percent of the assailants, lawyers say. 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