The Silent Treatment
Fordham Offers “No Comment” To Allegations of 1960′s Clergy Abuse
by Peter Mullin
Co-Sports Editor
with Bill Donahue
Co-Editor-in-Chief
In April of 1994 an 18-year-old freshman walked into the office of the Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, a place that, according to the University’s mission statement, concerns itself with fostering an “environment that celebrates and protects the dignity of the human person.” Inside the confines of that office the young woman started the process of protecting that dignity. She told the Dean a story of how, after a night of drinking in the city, her philosophy professor took advantage of her in his office. By the end of the semester, her professor had resigned.
Ten years later that scene would come to national attention in an article by Joseph Feuerherd published in the National Catholic Reporter. The story detailed the alleged 1994 sexual misconduct of Deal W. Hudson, a top advisor to George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, while he was a tenured professor of philosophy at Fordham.
That July, Fordham spokeswoman Elizabeth Schmalz issued a statement to NCR saying, “Sexual Harassment is not tolerated at Fordham University.” It continued, “Fordham followed its policy rigorously in this case and initiated an investigation into the matter upon receipt of the student’s complaint.”
The Dean in the NCR article, described as “sympathetic” and giving “every indication that he believed [the girl’s] story,” was Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J., Fordham University’s current president. In 1994, it appears that he listened intently to the aggrieved student and quickly iniated actions to remove Mr. Hudson from his position. And in 2004, Father McShane presided over the University when it publicly and explicitly denounced sexual harassment after the allegations against Mr. Hudson surfaced in the media.
Why then, after compassionately and publicly dealing with a case of alleged sexual harassment, did Father McShane and Fordham University take a seemingly different approach in handling another, more recent allegation of sexual abuse on campus? Why have they remained so silent?
* * * *
As reported in the New York Times on October 21, 2008, a pair of advocacy groups for victims of clergy sex abuse say that two Jesuits accused of molesting children were sheltered on campus well after Fordham was made aware of the situation. The groups–the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and BishopAccountability.org–held a press conference on Fordham Rd. outside of Murray-Weigel Hall, the infirmary for the New York Province of the Society of Jesus. According to the organizers, that event was the first time the accusations against Rev. Eugene J. O’Brien, S.J., a former President and Principal of the Fordham Preparatory High School, and Rev. Roy A. Drake, S.J., a former science teacher at the Prep School, were made public.
Murray-Weigel Hall
Father O’Brien is accused of molesting a former Fordham Prep student over a period of several years, starting when the alleged victim was a student at the high school from 1964 to 1966. The alleged victim, a 58-year-old who spoke at length to the paper on the condition of anonymity, said that the priest molested him on numerous occasions, including several of which he claims occurred during a trip through Europe with Father O’Brien and five other Prep students.
“I don’t know if I was raped or penetrated, but I was violated,” Father O’Brien’s accuser told the paper. “He would jump in the bed with me and I would just shut down, close my eyes and go somewhere else,” he said of the man he recalled as “a real father figure.” After the alleged incidents of sexual molestation, the now-middle aged man said he “just repressed it all,” even to the point that he allowed Father O’Brien to perform his marriage ceremony.
The alleged victim also claims to have had an encounter with Father Drake in the Fordham University Seismic Observatory, next to Freeman Hall. Inside the observatory, Father Drake attempted to molest him: “I was literally running around in circles around this table to get away from him until I could escape.”
He repressed the memories until 1997, when he met a counselor for victims of clergy sex abuse who, he says, helped him go through the process of bringing his allegation to the attention of the University. “I was after an apology, some kind of an explanation to what had happened,” he said.
According to a copy of a 1997 settlement available online, the ensuing lawsuit involving Father O’Brien was settled for $25,000. In addition to the Jesuit priest, the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, the Archdiocese of New York, Fordham University, and Fordham Prep were named in the settlement and released from any “past, alleged or actual, current and future liabilities.”
When the paper attempted to confirm the terms of the settlement by contacting the office of Rev. Thomas R. Slon, S.J., the executive assistant to the head of the New York Jesuits who spoke with the Times, he was unavailable for comment. Peter Feuerherd, a communications consultant for the Province who spoke with the paper, said he was not familiar enough with the situation to comment. In the Times article, Father Slon would neither confirm nor deny the terms of the 1997 settlement regarding Father O’Brien.
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, when asked by the paper to confirm the terms of the settlement, said the Archdiocese “could not find anything in the files.”
According to the anonymous accuser, the most emotional day of his life came when he met Father O’Brien again in 1997. At that meeting, Father O’Brien blamed his actions on alcohol abuse and would not apologize. “I wanted an admission of guilt,” the alleged victim told the paper. He says he was never concerned with taking the Jesuits down. “It’s [about] accountability,” he said.
Richard Cerrick, a 53-year-old lawyer from Connecticut, claims he was raped and sodomized by Father Roy Drake in 1968. In extensive interviews with the paper, Mr. Cerrick said Father Drake provided him with alcohol and then raped him in the bedroom of the Jesuit’s apartment on Fordham’s campus when he was 13-years-old. The alleged attack occurred the night before a weekend ski trip to Hunter Mountain that the 8th grader was invited to go on by a friend who went to Fordham Prep.
Though he says he was able to keep the incident secret until 2002 or 2003, when the clergy sexual abuse scandal erupted in archdioceses nationwide he says he wondered what had happened to Father Drake. In 2005, after two years of searching, Mr. Cerrick says he found Father Drake listed on the Internet as living at Murray-Weigel Hall. In October of that year, Mr. Cerrick had his attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, inform the Jesuits and Fordham University in writing of Father Drake’s presence on the campus of Fordham University. According to the advocate group Bishop-Accountability.org, Father Drake resided in Murray-Weigel from 1994 until some point in 2006.
He notified the school in order “to remove Father Drake from any proximity and contact with high school and college kids,” said Mr. Cerrick. “If I can protect one, or two, or five kids, whatever ages, I would be providing a service,” he continued. In October 2007, he was assured by the head of the New York Province that “Roy Drake is not in a position of access to minors.”
Though it is believed that Father Drake died this past August, the paper has been unable to ascertain exact details about his whereabouts during the final few years of his life or even a confirmation of his death. According to BishopAccountability.org, in 2006 he was transferred to a sexual abuse treatment center in Missouri. But a fall 2006 Jesuit newsletter describes Father Drake as a liaison between the residents of Murray-Weigel Hall and a construction company performing renovations. Finally, an August newsletter from the Jesuits of the Missouri Province lists Father Drake’s death as occurring on August 21 in the Bronx. But in the Times article, Father Slon of the New York Jesuits would not confirm that Father Drake had died.
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In April of this year, Pope Benedict XVI made his first trip to the United States. The Holy Father raised eyebrows across the country with his repeated acknowledgements of the pain and suffering that plague the many American Catholics whose lives have been affected by the clergy sexual abuse scandals of the last decade.
Pope Benedict XVI
“I am deeply ashamed and will do whatever is possible so that this does not happen in the future,” said the Pope just before landing in the United States for his April visit the BBC reported. “It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heel this wound.”
In regards to the Pope’s statements in the United States, Father McShane told the Times, “None of us expected it, but everyone is grateful that he did. What he realized is that this is a pastoral visit and he must be pastor to those who are hurt most — and that is the victims.”
With the Pope in town and Father McShane on the front page of the Times, Mr. Cerrick felt it was time to contact Fordham once more. In a letter obtained by the paper, dated May 8, 2008, the alleged victim asked the university president to “reach out in a pastoral and healing manner” to prove to him that his and the Holy Father’s words were more than “hollow and deceitful pronouncements.”
Eight days later, Father McShane responded with a short, 58-word letter that acknowledged Mr. Cerrick’s letter, but simply referred him to his lawyer regarding “an amicable resolution of this matter.”
The letter’s recipient was less than pleased. Calling the response he received “garbage,” Mr. Cerrick terms the treatment he has received from the University, Fordham Prep, and the New York Province since he first reported his incident three years ago “like ripping a scab off an old wound.”
Five months later, Mr. Cerrick decided to go public with these accusations, and soon he and the leaders of his supporting advocacy groups were standing on Fordham Rd. “For three years I wanted to give Fordham, the Archdiocese, and the Jesuits every opportunity to do the right thing,” the 53-year-old man told the paper. “They have done absolutely nothing in three years.”
* * * *
As of press time, Fordham University has remained silent. The official university response came from Bob Howe, Fordham’s Director of Communications, who declined to comment, citing school policy. The Province and the Archdiocese have also chosen not to comment. And the office of the President of Fordham Preparatory School, Rev. Kenneth Boller, S.J., did not return the paper’s request for an interview.
When the paper again attempted to contact Fordham, this time after discovering the public statement given by the school in 2004 regarding the sexual harassment allegations involving Mr. Hudson, the response was the same. “We’re not commenting,” said Mr. Howe.
And thus the question remains. Why have the school and its administration chosen to handle this affair in secrecy? Why, when the university has shown in recent history an ability to openly and efficiently deal with a public situation of sexual harassment, can it not find the means to do the same in this case? Indeed, this entire ordeal raises quite a few questions about transparency in Fordham University’s administration. But from the looks of it, we’re not about to get any answers.
Many thanks for your incisive article. It is I who was sexually abused by Fr. Roy A. Drake, SJ and I who publicly exposed him and Fr. Eugene J. O’Brien, SJ for the first time publicly in October.
I did so to protect other potential victims and to try to bring some measure of accountability to these institutions. I sincerely hope that any Fordham University or Fordham Prep student or anyone else who saw, experienced or has learned of any sexual abuse or improprieties against any youth or student by a Fordham Jesuit, teacher, brother or employee come forward as soon as possible. My contact information will be provided to you and you can also contact snapnetwork.org and bishopaccountability.org for help in dealing with these most serious matters.
Rich Cerick
I was a student at Fordham Prep in the early 70′s. Fr. O’Brien twice invited me to go swimming in the univeristy pool after hours, naked of course. I fortunately declined as his intentions were asll too obvious. A lay teacher there, Jack Sullivan who taught Calssics and was a basketball coach could not keep his hands off me, always fondling my head, neck and shoulders during tests. He too invited me to go skinny dipping in the university pool. I knew that there were gay teachers and priests at Fordham Prep, the majority were decent, kind, and excellent men. The only pedophiles I knew of were O’Brien and Sullivan.
I applaud your bravery in coming forward to expose these sick men. It is shameful how the Church and Jesuit Hierarchy shield these monsters from the law.
Thank you, Mr. Cerick, for taking up this cause and exposing these sick men at Fordham. Fordham was a very big name for those of us growing up in New York. I can only imagine how taken by surprise you were to have to run around a table from a priest chasing you for sex. Fordham is just another gross Jesuit playground for pedophiles. And New York State remains a haven for such predators. But Fordham won’t be silent forever. And neither will New York State keep its ridiculous statute of limitations for much longer. Hope you are in good health, as your efforts reach many, many people.
I have never been sexually abused by a Catholic priest or anyone else but I have been so throughly and completely abused by the lack of any thing Christ like in the RCC. The lies of hipocracy that have been perpetrated on the faithful for centuries is more than any normal person can take in at one time. It must be told and told and told again. The truth of this ORGANIZATION must be put out there into the light so the people, young and old can come to grips with what kind of a place the RCC REALLY is. I was a convert to the RCC at age 13 & am now in my 80th yr. My husband and I were enlightened in 2001. [married 57yrs, 2008, 4 grown children,6 grandchildren and 1 greatgrand child.]We now know what it’s like to have been brainwashed for generation unto generation but it can be stopped and it MUST! We must see the end of the RCC, THE FAUX CHURCH, in our time. Christ is the answer…The Kingdom of God is within. We have really been had but we can survive. “Shake the dust from our feet” and move on. God will guide.
This article was not written to spread or encourage anti-Catholic sentiment; to do so would be losing focus on the issue at hand and the people involved. Intelligent discourse on the matter is encouraged, but please keep your prejudices to yourself.
It’s hard to get over it when it’s still far from over. An over and over again, shamelessly, the Church hierarchy stonewalls–
I am a recepient of many benefits attributable, in some ways, to the Catholic Church. I was raised from age 6 to age 18 at a Catholic institution, which also helped finance my college education. I love the Catholic Church; I dispise its lack of leadership since 1984, when Fr. Doyle & others alerted what is now the USCCB of the nature & extent of the clergy abuse problem.
I think the explanation for the difference in the treatment to Messrs. Hudson & Cerick is clericalism. Mr. Hudson is a lay person, Mr. Cerick’s perpetrator is a cleric. That said, I also believe it is the laity that allows &, in some instances, even encourages clericalism. Until the Holy Spirit rouses the people who warm the pews, the leadership structure of the church, which is temporal, not spiritual, in nature, will continue the same sorry display of indifference & hypocracy we have consistently seen since 1984.
Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” Please free yourselves, admit to the charges and apologize to its victim! Be a Christian!
Our Church needs our(the laity) help. We(all of us), in the pews have to be involved in helping somewhere in the Church. “Yes, Father” is not necessarily helpful.
The institutional or organized church is completely of human origen. It certainly can be restructured or deleated so that it is not heirarchical nor monarchical. It is likely to self destruct for lack of replacement clerics.
I am just now catching up with this news. I lived in fear of Fr. O’Brien. As a young man grappling with his sexuality, O’Brien was a predator and the rumors were rampant about his exploits. He was so powerful that for all of the rumors, no one dared speak or hear the truth for many years. I was warned by a brave faculty member to avoid any approaches by O’Brien, particularly to join his “prayer retreats to Saranac Lake.” Many to this day will deny O’Brien’s abuses and defend him, I’m sure. Everything said here confirms what I heard from students and teachers in my time at the Prep (’71-’75).
Then vice-president Nelson Rockefeller gave the middle finger to a group of student protestors in 1975 and the country has gone down hill ever since. Rampant inflation, drug use, lesbian rights, Saigon falling in 1975, John Lennon being shot, Ruth Buzzi not finding a job after “Laugh-In” went off the air, and clergy sexual abuse.
We must expose the Catholic Church as being the secret owners of McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s. It is a Ponzi scheme. They make it look like these chains are run independently. The Catholic Church and their “super-size” culture are making kids and adults fat while they got all the profits from things like Shamrock shakes. One day the truth will come out.
The Church only answers questions that could expose it to legal damages when compelled to do so by plaintiff attorneys.
It will do nothing to raise the consciousness of victims of Fr. O’Brien to his being held liable at law already by one victim. To do so would lead those victims to hire attorneys and form alliances to develop the proofs needed to prosecute more damage cases against Fr. O’Brien for sexual predation during his long tenure as headmaster of Fordham Prep.
It will say nothing and do nothing. It will be, “unavailable for comment”, up until the moment that its predators are summoned at law to answer the damaging questions. Then it will answer, but its answers will be couched in apologies and reqret and solicitude for the victims who have forced it to answer. A solicitude that never appeared before the threat of monetary damages darkened its horizon.
Mealy-mouthed, fulsome mea culpas as a tactic for reducing monetary awards for damages caused by predatory priests whose behavior it has been forced by law to address after doing everything possible for years to ignore and obscure their crimes.
It is Church s.o.p. That confrontation and revelation has not yet occurred with Father O’Brien and his victims so the Church stands mute. The mealy-mouthedness will begin if his victims ever get their legal act together enough to prize him from his hidey-hole and compel him to testify.
I just now noticed that the earliest allegation of sexual impropriety by O’Brien dates from 1964. Perhaps that explains the absence of rumors when I was at he Prep ending in ’63. The salient characteristic of O’Brien’s character then was intense meanness. I wonder if he became a gentler person when he started getting his rocks off.
Abuses will continue as long as these pious pervs keep women in deadly incubating slavery for pedophiles and serial wife-dumpers like Hudson. My childbirth-incontinent/Munchausen by Proxy mom. fearing death by another predictable failure of fraudulent UNnatural Family UNplanning was urged by the playboy Orioles chaplain and pastor of Immaculate Deception in Towson, MD to burn all my skin off as her permanent marital abstinence excuse. I wish she had aborted me instead. Promoting mother-killing, divorce-causing NFP while banning mother-saving real contraception, abortion and sterilization is criminal Munchausen by Proxy abuse. Was Hudson’s THIRD wife an NFP victim like my mother? My mom’s playboy pastor (who diddled Orioles’ wives!) urged my dad to take up alcohol and hookers. Looks like Hudson followed a similar pattern of male privilege. Did his victim student get a secret abortion to save his latest marriage? The next church scandal will be class action suits by scorned mistresses of priests for child support and FORCED ABORTIONS. Everyone should google whistle blower activist Kevin Annett, his Hidden from History web site, documentary Unrepentant and archived radio shows, the Tamaki Law Firm which is suing the Jesuit Province in Northwestern states for abuse of Native American kids at “boarding school” DEATH CAMPS, and Vatican Bank Claims by survivors of Cardinal Montini’s (anti-birth controller Paul VI who should have been hung at Nuremburg) Nazi Catholic Croatian Ustashi genocide of 1 MILLION Serb “heretic” Orthodox Christians in WWII. Perhaps Fordham also harbored several Croatian clergy war criminals, courtesy of Montini’s Vatican Nazi ratline run with the treasonous Nazi Dulles brothers’ help. What people don’t know about Catholic history will kill or maim them again in new abuse cycles.
My homeroom teacher in 1950-51 was then Mr. O,Brien who showed zero active gay propensities albeit unlike Tim Healey was not a manly type.I never really bought the RCC guilt stuff or papism(my father was not catholic), recent papal protections of their huge number of deviant-priests, the Boston cardinal scandal,coverups by Cardinal Mahoney and his billion dollar payoffs to victims (he is very effeminate himself) and the current Prep adm. policy to explain the covert removal of O’Brien from the hall of honor make it difficult to comprehend why so many alumni fail to run from the corruption of this hypocritical church.But in my day, the education was excellent overall as were the students.But watch out for Irish bachelors,esp. those with roman collars.
I was never sexually abused by anyone during my years of Catholic education from elementary school through college. But there is one odd incident I remember when the FP basketball coach recruited me from St. Raymond’s (1956) for basketball. He took me and another kid headed to Fordham Prep to the University swimming pool where we all swam in the nude.There were college students there (I was 12) but I can’t remember if they also swam nude.
Anyway, there were plenty of other people there at the time, and nothing untoward happened (other than the inappropriate nudity). It was common for athletes to be naked in the showers, etc, but not with the coach. I thought it was freaky at the time, but, not having any basis to make a judgement, I figured it was the way things were done at swimming pools in male colleges. Maybe, maybe not.
The coach was not effeminate – he later married and had four children. A long-time employee at the Prep – teacher and coach – he’s never been nominated for the Hall of Honor. Longevity seems to be the major qualification for nomination and his absence is glaring.
With Eugene O’Brien, SJ – principal of Fordham Prep – being “outed” as a sexual abuser in 1997, and John Leary, SJ, president of the University I later attended, being told to “get out of town in 24 hours” by the police for child sexual abuse (1967 – before the problem was well-reported), and saddest of all, the pastor of the Church (St. Raymond’s in the Bronx), where I grew up and went through all the rites of passage from Baptism to funerals for my parents, recently (December 2010) being dismissed (defrocked) from the priesthood by the Vatican for sexually abusing a seminarian in his care, I no longer think of this once glorious institution as worthy of my attention.
I’m heartened by the leader of Ireland (Ireland !! of all places) telling the Vatican to cease interfering with the laws of a sovereign nation. (The Vatican’s refusal to comply with the new rules reporting abuse by the clergy).
The Church may never recover from this since what has been exposed may well be just the tip of the iceberg.
I attended Fordham Prep from 1965-1969. My twin brother and I – ironically with our last name being O’Brien – were invited by Father Eugene O’Brien on a winter weekend trip to our summer cottage in Rhode Island. During the trip, we stayed at a hotel with twin bed. Father O’Brien started off by getting into bed with my brother. Sometime during the night he got into my bed and put his arm around me. I don’t think anything else happened but it made me very uncomfortable. He eventually went back to my brother’s bed. My brother was coming out as a gay man at the time and did not seem to mind the attention as much as I did.
Some years later, Father O’Brien visited me in Arlington VA and, over dinner, apologized to me for his actions and asked my forgiveness. While I forgave him, I now feel that I should have contacted the authorities and reported this activity in light of the other emerging reports of Father O’Brien’s pedophelia. Despite forgiving him, I am still angry over the incident and would like to have the opportunity to confront him again and resolve the issue on my terms and according to my satisfaction. I have never been contacted by the Prep or the University regarding this event. Based on this article and my observations at the Prep, I am sure that there are still other victims out there.
I also played varsity basketball and remember Jack Sullivan visiting the showers on more than one occasion and talking to us (and looking at us) while we were showering. Finally, I remember being lined up with my freshman class around the pool in the nude (with the clothed PE coaches barking out orders).
The recent Penn State development has reopened this painful memory for me. The similarities between the two cases are striking. My hope is that new laws and policies will be put into place to prevent other boys from being victimized by powerful, sick men.
I went to Fordham Prep from 1979 to 1983. I did not see any first-hand examples of sexual abuse from the faculty toward students, but I did see and hear a few examples of what I felt was clearly improper behavior from the faculty. There was a religion teacher (who is still there), a particuarly contemptuous individual who regularly told jokes about gays and/or effeminate people. There was also a math teacher who once made a completely inappropriate remark, which basically stated that if you couldn’t do the math, you could always go out to the nearby railroad station and “put your hand under the third rail.” That these men had such poor judgment to make gay jokes and issue sarcastic invitations to commit suicide is something that stuns me to this day.
There was also a gym teacher who once told a student, “Get your finger out of your ass.” This wasn’t as bad as the remarks above, but it was still completely inappropriate for a teacher to address a student in such a fashion.
I hope that the teachers at Fordham Prep do not continue this sort of behavior today. If they do, then they need to be confronted. This kind of belligerence is not necessary in a high school atmosphere.
Jack Sullivan was well known as a particularly strange and deviant man during my years at Fordham Prep in the late 80s. Besides constant inappropriate touching of students and continual mastabaturory behavior with the huge amount of change he kept in his pocket at all times, his favorite move was to lean his penis into student’s shoulders as he walked around the classroom. Thank God he had already stopped coaching by the time I got to the Prep. Unfortunately another coach at the time, Paul Austin, was there and I know him to be a pedophile. Coach Austin was a football and wrestling coach and went on the be a faculty member but all I remember of him was his constant leering at all the young men in the shower and his insistence on checking me for a hernia so that he could get his hands on my scrotum. I wondered what became of him. Fr. Sloun was another one I suspected of untoward acts towards students, as he was one of the most partial teachers/administrators I have ever encountered in my life. He was in a position of power at the time and no doubt would have covered any allegations up. Boy, how some of those Jesuits loved to play favorites! Once I grew older I began to understand why. Although many, most I would even say, we’re good men and fine priests/educators there were a few that preyed on the weak or disturbed. I suspect many Fordham Prep alumni feel the same way I do. The offenders need to be called out and a system needs to be put in place for students to anonymously report them.
I always found it quite perculiar the obsession with forcing all the students to take showers together while teachers & coaches watched. Given the President of the school in the 60s was an admited pedophile, now I understand why.