Dear editor,
I am writing to share my own experience with St. Thomas Fifth Avenue and its Choir School after seeing your recent coverage. The church caused profound harm to me and my children and ignored multiple cases of child sexual abuse. It also has a long record of abusing people and getting away with it.
I am an undocumented worker who fled violence in my home country.
Since coming to the United States, I’ve gotten an education, worked hard, and today have an excellent job.
I have two boys, both excellent students and athletes. When they were accepted at St. Thomas’, I felt like we were really lucky, as they both love to sing, and we couldn’t afford the sort of education they needed to move up in the world.
But a few months after they got to St. Thomas’, something changed. My older boy, usually friendly and kind, became withdrawn and sullen, saying he didn’t want to go to school. My younger boy completely withdrew and began having night terrors, panic attacks, and more.
After many meetings with clergy and professionals (none of which I could afford), I learned that both were being sexually assaulted, both by someone at the church and another person at the school. Even worse, they were being groomed, or prepared for further abuse.
I went to church officials and got brushed off. When I pushed, I was told, “Well, sometimes kids make things up.” That, despite the fact that there was ample third-party evidence corroborating their experiences.
Going to the police wasn’t much better. NYPD was a maze of different people and being undocumented and poor made things difficult. The end result was that nothing happened.
I got the kids out of St. Thomas’, and my employer arranged free mental health care for me and my two boys.
Later, one of my boys attempted suicide, and the other became heavily involved in drugs due to his experiences at the church.
Both are doing better today and have professional jobs and work as models. But I still struggle with guilt, PTSD, and more, and my husband left over these issues.
My message to anyone reading this is simple: St Thomas’ talks a good game and has a beautiful building. But it’s organizationally narcissistic and indifferent to the needs of others. I can also tell you many, many others have had similar experiences. Indeed, does anyone really believe the church’s investigatory report than only two children were sexually abused in the past?
As for the allegations involving gay members of the church staff, let me say this: The church’s inclusiveness is part of what drew me there in the first place.
I have no issue with anyone who’s gay, and in fact my employer is gay and a lovely human being. But I know many parishioners who’ve faced groping, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and other inappropriate behavior from gay church employees.
The fact that this is an ongoing issue makes it clear that this is a toxic, corrupt church. Just because someone is a male and attractive does not make them an object to be groped, grabbed, or otherwise abused. Nor does being gay give others a license to treat that person like a piece of meat. It’s doubly violative of human dignity to assume that someone is gay and therefore it’s okay to sexually harass them.
If you are a victim of someone at St. Thomas’, I encourage you to file a police report and seek out a good attorney. There are enough victims out there to certify a class and begin a class action; of that, I am certain.
Think twice, though, before going to the Diocese. From the bishop on down, their approach is to ask clergy, “Did you do it?” When the priest inevitably lies, the Diocese turns the tables on the victim and blames everything on them.
In other words, there is a huge credibility gap with the Diocese.
As for talking to Fr. Turner, that is an even bigger mistake. I will leave it at that.
Before I end, I’d like to comment on the communications from the parish about the most recent complainant.
To be clear: I don’t know who the complainant is. I have no idea who he is.
But I can confidently say that the letter talking about how the safety of the parish is at risk is total horseshit. Either have the balls to publish the person’s name, the details of what they did, and provide the documentation to prove it, or the church needs to keep its mouth shut. This effort to demonize the alleged victim is something we’ve seen time and again from the Diocese and St. Thomas’, and we’re not going to fall for it.
While we’re at it, don’t try the lie of, “Well, we don’t want to defame anyone.” Publishing shit like the stuff in the recent church newsletter is almost certainly defamatory by implication, and I bet, if I put my mind to it, I could figure out who the victim is in 30 minutes or less.
There was a time, not that many years ago, when I loved St. Thomas. But today, I loathe the place over its abusive treatment of other human beings. Today is also the time to clean house, starting with the vestry and including many clergy and staff.
If you too are a victim, now is the time to step up and call the church out on it.
Finally, apologies in advance for not sharing my contact information, but as an undocumented worker with a happy life and a wonderful job, hopefully you will understand my fears.
Sign me,
Sadder but wiser
The above was lightly edited for clarity. The views expressed are solely those of the author.