Raising Cane
By Rob Perez
Church washes hands
of abuse caseLynne Jensen rarely cries in front of others.
So when she began sobbing almost uncontrollably last summer after her physician asked her a simple question, she knew something wasn't right.
The question: Was she ever sexually abused as a child?
Her answer: Yes.
For the next 10 minutes, Jensen said, she cried and cried and cried some more. Afterward, her doctor, who had suspected an underlying reason for Jensen's difficulty in losing weight, urged her to see a counselor.
Two months later, the 33-year-old woman began getting treatment to help her deal with what she described as repeated sexual abuse by a priest when she was 6 or 7 and living in Kahaluu. The priest was a family friend.
Jensen, who now lives on the mainland, said she thought she had successfully put the matter behind her. When she was 14, she confided in a friend about what had happened years earlier, but she rarely mentioned the subject again to anyone.
Until last year.
Since October, Jensen has been seeing a therapist on a weekly basis. She is taking medication for depression, something her therapist says is part of the fallout from the trauma Jensen suffered in the 1970s.
Carrie Zilcoski, a Maryland psychotherapist who specializes in treating adults who were traumatized as children, said she is convinced that Jensen is telling the truth.
"There is no doubt Lynne was sexually abused as a child," Zilcoski said.
Jensen's struggle to deal with this issue comes at a time when the Roman Catholic Church is struggling nationally to deal with a mushrooming scandal involving pedophile priests.
Much of the controversy has focused on Boston, where church officials have given prosecutors the names of about 80 priests suspected of abusing children during the past 40 years.
But even before the Boston scandal became a national one, Jensen sought the help of the Catholic Church in Hawaii.
In October, she wrote Bishop Francis DiLorenzo, saying she had been able to shove aside memories of her abuse until recently. Now those memories are affecting her ability to function personally and professionally, she wrote. Jensen asked the church to pay her therapy bills.
The church refused, without even trying to verify what had happened.
"The church is not liable to you for the injuries you allege and applicable limitations periods have barred any claims in connection with such alleged injuries," wrote Robert Bruce Graham Jr., an attorney for the church, in a Nov. 2 letter to Jensen.
Graham noted that the accused priest, who is retired and living in church quarters on Oahu, "has no assignments and his activities are closely supervised."
He concluded the letter by telling Jensen: "The conduct you allege was certainly never approved by the Church."
Nowhere in the letter did the church deny her accusations.
Jensen's case is not one of a woman who has made controversial allegations only when the media spotlight has focused on priests and pedophilia, the abnormal condition in which an adult has a sexual desire for children.
Others learned of Jensen's alleged abuse years ago.
Her mother, Jane Wong, said she found out about her daughter's molestation roughly 17 years ago, when Jensen was a teenager, and reported it to the diocese. She said she was told then that church officials were well aware of the priest's problem and that they tried to keep him away from small children.
"I wanted to go public with it years ago, but the church assured me he would never come in contact with young people again," said Wong, who now lives in Northern California.
Feliza Verdugo, Jensen's childhood friend, also confirmed that Jensen told her when they were both 14 that she had been molested by a priest as a child.
"She let it all spill out," Verdugo said, recalling the day at a bus stop when her distraught friend broke the news to her. "She was a total mess."
Verdugo said she didn't tell anyone else about her friend's problem. "We were young, and I didn't know how to handle that kind of news."
Jensen said she suppressed memories of the abuse until something -- she doesn't remember what -- triggered recollections of the incidents when she was 14. The priest, she remembered, would place his hand down her underpants and fondle her.
Counselors who work with young sex-abuse victims say it is not unusual for children to suppress memories of the abuse, only to suddenly recall them years later, often as adolescents.
The suppression is a way for the children to deal with actions they don't understand but intuitively know aren't right, therapists say.
"They're just trying to survive and move on and just get back to a sense of normalcy and safety," said Cindy Shimomi-Saito, a clinical social worker who helps sex-abuse victims at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children.
Jensen's therapist said her client has coped with the abuse relatively well over the years, which speaks to her inner strength. "You just don't have this happen and then move straight on," Zilcoski said.
Jensen put herself through college and holds a respectable position in the federal government. She agreed to tell her story, however, only if the Star-Bulletin didn't identify where she worked.
Jensen recently contacted law enforcement officials in Hawaii to see if a criminal case could be pursued against the priest, but the statute of limitations involving such allegations has long since lapsed.
She said she plans to file a civil lawsuit against the church.
"I do not want the priest drawn and quartered, nor am I after a huge settlement," Jensen said in an e-mail to the Star-Bulletin. "I only want my therapy bills paid."
For its part, the Church said it is not going to conduct an investigation because of the age of the alleged incidents, because they happened during a previous bishop's administration and "because any result would be compromised and its credibility questioned by the present climate surrounding this issue."
Patrick Downes, a spokesman for the Honolulu diocese, said the local church for about 10 years has had a committee of priests and professionals who investigate credible accusations of sexual abuse.
The committee didn't exist 17 years ago, so any investigation presumably done at the time of Jensen's allegations would not have been as formal and comprehensive as one done today, Downes said.
"If there is going to be any investigation of the alleged incident, the diocese contends it should be done independently by proper legal and judicial authorities," he said. "Ms. Jensen is free to initiate such a process."
The Star-Bulletin is not identifying the accused priest because he has not been formally charged with a crime or named in a lawsuit. He did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Even before Jensen's case resurfaced, the church in Hawaii has had to deal with problems involving pedophile priests.
During the past 15 years, Downes said, the local diocese has removed four priests from active ministries because of concerns about sexual abuse involving minors. The most recent case was nearly 10 years ago.
Not included in the four was the case of a former Tripler Army Medical Center priest who was convicted two years ago for molesting a teenage boy at a Hawaii Kai park. The priest, who received a 20-year sentence, did not belong to the Honolulu diocese, which has nearly 140 active and retired clergy.
Downes wouldn't say if the priest accused by Jensen was one of the four. Nor would he comment on how many possible victims were involved in those cases. In Boston, one priest was alleged to have molested dozens of minors.
Unlike some mainland dioceses grappling with this problem, the church here has not paid money to secretly settle child sex-abuse lawsuits in the nine years DiLorenzo has been at the helm, Downes said.
DiLorenzo also isn't aware of any confidential settlements during the previous 11 years of Bishop Joseph Ferrario's administration, according to Downes.
In addition, he said there are no active investigations of priests accused of child sex abuse in Hawaii.
Still, the national controversy is prompting the local diocese's sex-abuse committee to meet this month to review church policy and determine whether any problems need addressing, Downes said. Normally, the committee meets only when a case arises.
Downes didn't know whether the allegations against the priest in the Jensen case would be discussed by the panel.
But if diocese officials indeed were aware of that priest's pedophilia tendencies, as Jensen's mother alleges, their position of refusing to pay Jensen's therapy bills seems callous and not in line with the teachings of the church.
The message they're sending to a suffering Jensen, who is no longer a practicing Catholic, essentially is this: If you want to resolve your problems, sue us.
Where, pray tell, is the compassion in that?
Star-Bulletin columnist Rob Perez writes on issues
and events affecting Hawaii. Fax 529-4750, or write to
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. He can also be reached
by e-mail at: rperez@starbulletin.com.
