By Sarah E. Murphy

I received a phone call one afternoon in late Spring 2024 from a number I didn’t recognize. I was rushing to get into my car, so my first instinct was to ignore it, assuming it was probably a robo call, but there was a name on the screen, and something in my gut told me to answer.

The gentleman identified himself as David Leonard, calling from his home in Utica, New York, after recently discovering my website and my writing advocating for survivors of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. 

Fittingly, I was parked right in front of Falmouth Harbor, across from St. Thomas Chapel, the weathered-shingle church in my childhood neighborhood of Falmouth Heights, where I attended Mass on summer Sundays, before eventually renouncing the Catholic faith shortly after I was confirmed as a teenager in the late 1980s.

Staring at the large cross adorning the building, a symbol that has caused a great deal of pain in my own life, not to mention the survivors who have confided in me, I listened in disbelief as David began quietly yet profusely thanking me for my work. 

After doing a Google search relating to his first abuser, David found himself sobbing at three o’clock in the morning reading my interview with David O’Regan, a brave and inspiring man who grew up in Natick, Massachusetts and, like David Leonard, was sexually abused as a child by a priest from the Stigmatine Fathers and Brothers based in Waltham, an order of the Archdiocese of Boston. David O’Regan went on to spend many years as a chapter leader of SNAP (Survivors’ Network of Those Abused By Priests), and still speaks openly about his abuse in an effort to remove the stigma and let other survivors know they’re not alone.

Little did David Leonard know just how much I needed his words of validation at that particular moment, as I was rushing around trying to juggle day jobs, while my social justice activism, the endeavor most important to me, remains at the bottom of a daunting to-do list of unfinished writing. 

Although I have a small but very supportive following of readers, when it comes to the crimes committed by the Catholic Church, an appallingly large portion of the general public remains of the belief that clergy sex abuse is “all in the past.”

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if calling attention to these atrocities even matters, and if I should continue to make the effort, for one of the most common questions (or criticisms) I receive is, “Why don’t you write about the good priests?” 

I don’t have the energy to address the fact that not raping parishioners shouldn’t be cause for praise. Or that the enablers of these predators, who knowingly turn a blind eye, are equally culpable, for it’s just as criminal to cover-up for a rapist and shuffle him off to an unsuspecting parish, providing predators with access to new victims. To me, it’s no different than transferring a suspected school shooter to another district without forewarning. But the Catholic Church doesn’t have to play by anyone else’s rules, they make their own, a man-made Christian belief system known as “Canon Law” created to protect those who think they’re above the actual law. 

But then I get a phone call out of the blue from a stranger like David Leonard, who immediately becomes a kindred spirit, and I receive the reminder that I desperately need – these truths need to be told. 

Twenty-two years ago, David relayed the harrowing experiences of his childhood to Matt Carroll of The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Spotlight team. Since then, with the support of his wife, Nancy, David has fought for justice – for himself and his family – and for all survivors, at his own emotional and financial expense, pursuing lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Boston and Albany, fighting for statute of limitations reform, and spending years in therapy, not covered by insurance, paying out of pocket, all while trying to be a father to their four children. 

People also ask me all the time what the “end game” is for my writing and why I don’t submit this work to publications such as the Boston Globe or the New York Times. In this very specific type of writing, for me, the end game isn’t the goal at all; instead, it’s about the process of empowerment that results by giving survivors a platform to reveal their truth. That’s my motivation as a writer and  reporter. My obligation is to the survivors rather than any publisher’s need to sell subscriptions and generate online traffic. I’m beholden to the survivors and their stories.

I sat in my car on the day of that first phone call from David, scribbling notes on a scrap of paper since I didn’t have a notebook handy, watching seagulls soar across the serene blue sky, overcome with sadness for the little boy he once was, and still is. We talked for awhile before scheduling an official phone interview so I could tape him and take more detailed notes. 

Two weeks later, in that second conversation, David spoke in graphic detail, recounting the moment his childhood ended, at the hands of his first abuser, Father Ronald Dorsey, who raped him on a warm summer evening at Camp Wyoma in Hindsdale, run by the Stigmatines, the summer before sixth grade, when David was 11.

There were times throughout the hour-long conversation we both had to pause, for I was quietly sobbing with him, attempting to process  unthinkable traumas, including a suicide attempt in his late 20s.

I’ve started writing this story countless times, then life gets in the way, and I’m forced to put it aside. I’ve also been dealing with my own mental health issues, and in the past few months, it’s taken everything in me just to meet my work deadlines.

Therefore, it’s very fitting I should finally be posting this today, as the media is focused on the announcement of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s retirement. While they continue to heap undeserved praise on O’Malley based on their perception of his performance as the Pope’s right-hand-man in the protection of minors and the prevention of abuse, survivors like David know a starkly different reality.

After O’Malley met with David twice and promised to support him in his therapy journey, he was never heard from again.

It was sadly unsurprising to me, considering a female survivor told me her experience sharing her trauma with O’Malley. When she confided she was raped in the rectory by her parish priest when she was in eighth grade, O’Malley looked her in the eye and told her she must have “misunderstood” what happened.

All David O’Regan wanted was an apology from Sean O’Malley when he and his wife met with him but he couldn’t even offer that. But it’s not surprising, considering an apology is essentially an admission of guilt. O’Malley was more concerned about self-preservation.

David Leonard can relate, watching O’Malley and the Catholic Church play the victim over the past two decades, refusing and avoiding accountability and crying bankruptcy while hiding their obscene wealth, re-victimizing survivors in the process by victim-blaming.

As David succinctly put it, “The peacocks are still fluffing their feathers, Sarah.”

It’s impossible to sum up David’s story in one essay, for there are so many layers, so many back stories, and so many contributing factors to the systemic abuse in the Catholic Church. After a 1979 suicide attempt in which he tried to set himself on fire in front of the Newton Centre Provincial House, David was committed against his will to the now closed Medfield State Hospital for a year, then he was transported in handcuffs to the Utica Psychiatric Center for six months. David has no childhood photos he could provide to me for my articles because he lost them all when he gave them to his attorney, who was later disbarred. These are just some of the additional traumas David has endured in his fight for justice and to simply be heard. Therefore, this is just an introduction to an upcoming series about his journey.

David is now 81, a loving father to a son and three daughters, and a proud grandfather. He doesn’t expect to see justice in his lifetime,  but he vows to fight for those who cannot. Like me, he was inspired by David O’Regan, who ended our interview by saying when people share their story, it gives others license to do the same. To me, these men are both everyday heroes.

David Leonard refuses to stay silent, and I’m honored he sought me out to tell his story.

“I’ve outlived my predators, and I still have my voice,” he said.

“There’s a reason I’m still here.”

Stay tuned for Part II…