#ThemToo: Adults, the overlooked victims of clerical sexual abuse

Aug. 06--In 2010, a Catholic priest from the San Diego diocese sexually assaulted Rachel Mastrogiacomo.

This story would be all-too-familiar except for one fact: Mastrogiacomo was 24, a grown woman.

For years, the clergy sex scandal has focused on abused children. Now, the #MeToo movement and a growing recognition of the pervasiveness of sexual power plays is encouraging victimized adults to come out of the shadows.

"Finally," said Esther Miller, who led an adult victims workshop at last month's national convention of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), "women are coming together and saying no more."

Going public, though, can mean facing skeptical questioning. Women and men endure many of the same pressures that discourage children -- shame, confusion, the unwillingness to confront a spiritual leaders who are admired and even revered.

Another question is posed only to victimized women and men: why are sexual encounters between two apparently "consenting" adults considered crimes? But in many states, including Minnesota where Mastrogiacomo took her abuser to trial, it's a crime to have with sex with adults who are incapable of voluntary consent "due to a particular vulnerability or due to the special relationship between the actor (perpetrator) and the victim."

That, advocates say, is an apt description of someone seeking spiritual solace or counseling.

"These are vulnerable adults," Miller said. "Even though they have reached the age of maturity, they are still vulnerable."

"The power differential is so great," said Patrick Wall, a former priest who investigates allegations of clergy sexual abuse for a Minnesota law firm. "Whether it is as a spiritual director, or in the confessional or spiritual counseling, the priest has the power."

A devout young woman, Mastrogiacomo was slowly seduced by a trusted mentor, the Rev. Jacob Bertrand. After months of confidences that blended the sacred and the profane, he persuaded her to have sex during a private Mass.

"For the longest time, I didn't even know I had been the victim of a crime," said Mastrogiacomo. "But I was being sexually molested."

Attempts to reach Bertrand last week were unsuccessful. On Friday, his attorney, Marc Carlos, said he would contact Bertrand to see if he wished to discuss the case. As of Sunday, there was no word from Bertrand or Carlos.

'Groomed and teased'

For centuries, the Vatican has recognized that clergy can be tempted to use their office for sexual gratification. Canon law specifically forbids crimen sollicitationis, the crime of making sexual advances to penitents in the confessional.

"We honestly don't know, from a statistical standpoint, how often this happens," Wall said. "The vast majority of people are never going to take this to the mat. First of all, who is going to believe them? Second, they have no witnesses or proof.

"And third, in 99 percent of the cases the priest will deny it. And people will believe the priest first."

Rather than the usual steps of courtship, these relationships routinely follow a three-step process: identify, isolate and elevate. Often, the target is reeling from a personal tragedy -- a divorce, the death of a parent, the loss of a child.

Seeking spiritual guidance or comfort, SNAP's Miller said, the future victim is identified by the cleric.

"He identifies someone who is very, very vulnerable and emotionally charged," she said. "He swoops in and becomes the savior."

Increasingly, the "counseling" takes places in private locations. Once in isolation, victims are flattered that they are the chosen ones, special persons with a special mission.

"Because we have spent so much, quote unquote, qualitative time," Miller said, adopting the predator's point of view, "because I have done so much for you, this is what you get to do for me."

Mastrogiacomo's journey followed this route. Raised in a Catholic family in St. Paul, Minn., she was 13 when her father died. Despite this shock, she recalls a "very joyful, very religious" childhood. A top student, she sailed through high school and Franciscan University of Steubenville, where she majored in theology and cathechetics, or religious education.

In 2009, she enrolled in courses at Rome'sPontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. There, she met a fellow student, a deacon studying for the priesthood, Jacob Bertrand. Between discussions of mysticism and faith, Bertrand shared intimate details from his pre-seminary sex life. Mastrogiacomo confessed that she was a virgin.

"He was master manipulator," she said. "I was groomed and teased, in just the same way a child would be. I was such a naive, virgin-focused Catholic."

This seduction was wrapped in mystical, other-worldly terms. Court filings noted that, in Rome, "while Bertrand was praying in church, Bertrand told the victim that 'the Lord' had imprinted a vision in his mind of the victim naked and straddling him."

After months of "spiritual direction," Bertrand took Mastrogiacomo's virginity. During a private Mass in the loft of her grandmother's Wisconsin cabin, he persuaded her to engage in intercourse.

"This wasn't an ordinary sexual experience between two consenting adults," said Mastrogiacomo. "It was during the celebration of the Mass, with candles lit, very ritualistic."

A day or two later, the same scene played out in the Minnesota home of Mastrogiacomo's mother and step-father. Giving herself to him during a religious service, Bertrand told her, was God's will.

"This was far worse, far more ritualistic," she said.

When Bertrand, by then an ordained priest assigned to a parish in San Diego, requested more encounters, she refused.

"Father," she said, "I have done God's will and I don't want to do this any more."

Not just Catholics

Most Catholic priests are honorable and devoted to their faith. After years of denial, Pope Francis and other church officials have admitted that clerical sexual abuse is a serious and widespread problem.

"We have to maintain vigilance," Bishop Robert McElroy of the San Diego diocese said last year. "I use the word 'vigilance' advisedly. That's an active stance and we can't become complacent.".

While some maintain that this crisis has been worsened by the Catholic church's requirement of priestly celibacy, this problem is not limited to a single creed.

"It's not just Catholic abuse," said SNAP's Miller. "We've seen this with Mennonites, non-denominational Christians, we had a Seventh-day Adventist gal. It's just everywhere."

Men are victims, too. As a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame, Mark Fuller confessed to a priest that he was struggling with his sexuality. The priest encouraged the student to come over to the man's apartment for counseling.

"I came over and what he did was talk me into bed," said Fuller, 63. "I was really vulnerable, weak. You are just trained to go along, to get along, to just do whatever a priest says."

Fuller returned to the priest's bed twice or three times before calling a halt. Ashamed and embarrassed, the student avoided friends. His grades, once good enough to encourage medical school ambitions, plummeted. He was depressed and confused.

"It's the betrayal of trust," Fuller said, now a medical technician in New Canaan, Conn. "I didn't trust God, I didn't trust men. He really wrecked my life."

It took decades for Fuller to accept his sexuality, although his relationships have been brief and shadowed by a distrust of intimacy. In recent years, he's gained some understanding and acceptance by attending local SNAP chapter meetings.

"With a therapist's help," he said, "I'm trying to date again."

On Sunday, he's meeting someone for coffee.

'It was all a lie'

In 2009, Mastrogiacomo had befriended another American studying for the priesthood in Rome. Confessing his love, he offered to leave the seminary if she would marry him.

She declined. While attracted to this man, she insisted he pursue what she saw as a sacred vocation.

"I was so committed to what I thought was the will of God," she said.

Then came her disturbing encounters with Bertrand. Mastrogiacomo had grown up believing that priests were angelic, unfailingly good. Why had her encounters with this priest left her feeling soiled?

In May 2012, while trying to sort out her emotions, she called her other priest friend and told him about Bertrand and his private Masses. She was sure another cleric could set her at ease about this "special, mystical relationship" with a man of God.

Instead, the friend burst into tears.

"At that moment, it was like literally scales had fallen from my eyes," Mastrogiacomo said. "The moment I broke my silence, I realized it was all a lie."

Mastrogiacomo then went to church authorities. In 2014, her complaint was forwarded to the San Diego diocese, where Bertrand was a priest at Spring Valley'sSanta Sophia. In the Nov. 30, 2014, parish bulletin, Bertrand wrote that he was entering a residential program for psychological treatment following an arson attack on the church.

In 2015, though, he returned to active ministry, this time at St. Vincent de Paul in Mission Hills and St. John the Evangelist in Hillcrest.

In April 2016, Mastrogiacomo made a criminal complaint against Bertrand in Minnesota'sDakota County.

This May, Bertrand was sentenced to 10 years' probation and a $1,000 fine for criminal sexual conduct. He was also ordered to complete an assessment as a sex offender and then undergo any recommended therapy.

"The plea agreement in this case was entered into after considerable discussions with the victim and upon receiving her consent," said Dakota County Attorney James C. Backstrom. "We are please that Mr. Bertrand has been held accountable for his actions."

The San Diego diocese announced he will not return to the ministry.

While Mastrogiacomo's name was not reported during Bertrand's trial, she recently decided to go public with her story. Now living in Louisiana, she's serving as a lay missionary with her husband -- Rich Mastrogiacomo, the former priest in whom she had once confided.

He was laicized, allowed to leave the priesthood and return to the laity, by Pope Francis in February 2014. Four months later, he married Rachel.

The couple remain faithful Catholics, although disappointed in their church's response to this scandal.

"I really want to shine a bright light on this darkness," Rachel Mastrogiacomo said. "Breaking silence is the most loving, the right thing to do. I just want to be a voice for other survivors, especially female victims of clergy sexual abuse."

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