Priest's sentence called 'not enough'
Priest's sentence called 'not enough'
By Manya A. Brachear
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published July 18, 2007
The mothers of two boys abused by Rev. Daniel McCormack said Tuesday that they are relieved the priest is behind bars but that a 5-year sentence does not do justice to the crimes he committed against their sons.
"If I could just put this man to rest and not get any time for this I would," said the mother of a 10-year-old boy whom McCormack repeatedly fondled in St. Agatha church rectory, a block from his family's West Side home.
"My son is going to hurt for the rest of his life," she said. "He might not show it on the outside but it's on his inside. I understand what he's going through but I don't know how he feels because it wasn't me."
While both women held the Archdiocese of Chicago responsible for allowing McCormack's abuse of minors to continue, the mother of the 10-year-old said the church has done penance by agreeing to pay for her son's tuition at a new private school where classmates and neighbors don't call him one of "Father Dan's fairies."
"When the kids tease him, the expression on his face is 'Why me?'" she said.
The comments were the first public statements from the victims' mothers, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, after McCormack was sentenced July 2 on five felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
McCormack fondled five boys between the ages of 8 and 12 inside St. Agatha's rectory. Some victims were members of the basketball team he coached at the nearby Our Lady of the Westside School; others were friends of boys who attended the school, where he also taught algebra. The 10-year-old ran errands for the priest.
Both women who spoke Tuesday have civil suits pending against McCormack and the archdiocese. Victims' advocates are pressuring lawyers not to accept settlements before trial in hopes that depositions and court proceedings will reveal a church conspiracy to protect McCormack before he was criminally charged in January 2006.
The women's attorney, Jeff Anderson, said he isn't ruling out pushing the cases to trial.
Two audits by outside consultants hired by the archdiocese have found a trail of abuse allegations dating to McCormack's seminary days in 1988, all of which the archdiocese failed to investigate properly. They also found that although a priest had been assigned to monitor McCormack at St. Agatha, McCormack still had contact with children.
The monitoring began after the second mother who spoke Tuesday notified the archdiocese and police in August 2006 that her son told her McCormack had molested him several years earlier, when he was 8.
From the time the priest was arrested four months later, she never missed one of his court appearances, the second mother said. On the day McCormack was sentenced, she could not bear to look at him from across the courtroom, she said, and sobbed as prosecutors described in often graphic detail what he did to her son.
"It was very hurtful," she said. "Any mother would cry when you have to hear this over again. ...You never know if your kids are telling everything. Until I die it will be, 'Did he tell me everything?'"
She expressed sympathy for McCormack's family, saying she had to wonder how they felt.
"They all came to court and sat there stone-faced like they were coming to a church sermon," she said. "They were going to support their brother, their son regardless. ... I wanted to respect [them]. ... It wasn't their doing. It was his doing."
McCormack likely realizes what he did to children was wrong, she said.
But "in a way I felt sorry for him because ... to tell you the truth, I'm not sure he realized he should have been punished for it," she said. "As long as the cardinal was letting him get away with it and people were overlooking it."
She was surprised by the length of McCormack's sentence, saying she thought it would be shorter because of his role as a priest.
"This is a moral victory," she said. "It's not right at all ... it's not enough years. But you have got to take what you can get in a situation like this."
She blames Cardinal Francis George for appointing McCormack to a parish in a poor neighborhood.
"I think that's why the cardinal put him there to begin with. By putting him in that neighborhood nobody would care," she said. "But he ran up on the wrong parent. I care."
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mbrachear@tribune.com
By Manya A. Brachear
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published July 18, 2007
The mothers of two boys abused by Rev. Daniel McCormack said Tuesday that they are relieved the priest is behind bars but that a 5-year sentence does not do justice to the crimes he committed against their sons.
"If I could just put this man to rest and not get any time for this I would," said the mother of a 10-year-old boy whom McCormack repeatedly fondled in St. Agatha church rectory, a block from his family's West Side home.
"My son is going to hurt for the rest of his life," she said. "He might not show it on the outside but it's on his inside. I understand what he's going through but I don't know how he feels because it wasn't me."
While both women held the Archdiocese of Chicago responsible for allowing McCormack's abuse of minors to continue, the mother of the 10-year-old said the church has done penance by agreeing to pay for her son's tuition at a new private school where classmates and neighbors don't call him one of "Father Dan's fairies."
"When the kids tease him, the expression on his face is 'Why me?'" she said.
The comments were the first public statements from the victims' mothers, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, after McCormack was sentenced July 2 on five felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
McCormack fondled five boys between the ages of 8 and 12 inside St. Agatha's rectory. Some victims were members of the basketball team he coached at the nearby Our Lady of the Westside School; others were friends of boys who attended the school, where he also taught algebra. The 10-year-old ran errands for the priest.
Both women who spoke Tuesday have civil suits pending against McCormack and the archdiocese. Victims' advocates are pressuring lawyers not to accept settlements before trial in hopes that depositions and court proceedings will reveal a church conspiracy to protect McCormack before he was criminally charged in January 2006.
The women's attorney, Jeff Anderson, said he isn't ruling out pushing the cases to trial.
Two audits by outside consultants hired by the archdiocese have found a trail of abuse allegations dating to McCormack's seminary days in 1988, all of which the archdiocese failed to investigate properly. They also found that although a priest had been assigned to monitor McCormack at St. Agatha, McCormack still had contact with children.
The monitoring began after the second mother who spoke Tuesday notified the archdiocese and police in August 2006 that her son told her McCormack had molested him several years earlier, when he was 8.
From the time the priest was arrested four months later, she never missed one of his court appearances, the second mother said. On the day McCormack was sentenced, she could not bear to look at him from across the courtroom, she said, and sobbed as prosecutors described in often graphic detail what he did to her son.
"It was very hurtful," she said. "Any mother would cry when you have to hear this over again. ...You never know if your kids are telling everything. Until I die it will be, 'Did he tell me everything?'"
She expressed sympathy for McCormack's family, saying she had to wonder how they felt.
"They all came to court and sat there stone-faced like they were coming to a church sermon," she said. "They were going to support their brother, their son regardless. ... I wanted to respect [them]. ... It wasn't their doing. It was his doing."
McCormack likely realizes what he did to children was wrong, she said.
But "in a way I felt sorry for him because ... to tell you the truth, I'm not sure he realized he should have been punished for it," she said. "As long as the cardinal was letting him get away with it and people were overlooking it."
She was surprised by the length of McCormack's sentence, saying she thought it would be shorter because of his role as a priest.
"This is a moral victory," she said. "It's not right at all ... it's not enough years. But you have got to take what you can get in a situation like this."
She blames Cardinal Francis George for appointing McCormack to a parish in a poor neighborhood.
"I think that's why the cardinal put him there to begin with. By putting him in that neighborhood nobody would care," she said. "But he ran up on the wrong parent. I care."
-----------
mbrachear@tribune.com
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:14 AM
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