When I first spoke with John, he had already been holding his daily vigil in front of the Apostolic Nunciature (Vatican Embassy) in Washington, DC, for over five years. His mission: to receive reparations from the Catholic Church for being sexually molested by a priest when he was 15 years old.
He provides some of the details of his ordeal in a self-published leaflet that rails against priestly pedophilia and its acceptance as an "integral part of a priestly subculture." John's is a one-man campaign to expose what he calls the "corporate crime" of the Catholic Church.
John, now 60, was born in Poland and grew up in Italy where he attended Catholic schools. He showed me pictures of himself, taken both before and after the abuse incident he reports. The before photographs show him as a young boy with family and friends, engaged and smiling for the camera. He appears sullen and withdrawn in the after pictures.
John suffered quietly as an "insecure and psychological cripple" for many years before deciding to seek reparations from the Church.
By his account, he tried to make his case to the leadership of the Washington Diocese, but his calls and letters went unanswered. He finally managed to connect with a member of the Church hierarchy who responded to his request for reparations by informing John that the priest who had "allegedly" abused him had been dead for many years, but that the Church was nonetheless willing to pay for his therapy. He also offered to pray for John.
It was this response that prompted John to take his case directly to the front lawn of the Apostolic Nunciature. For more than five years he's been commuting daily from his home in Maryland to wave his hand-made signs at passing cars.
Many people have approached John, most of them supportive—but not all. His account includes four priests who made obscene gestures at him, including one who kept a daily appointment to flip him a bird from one of the Nunciature's windows; and an ominous visitor who threatened to silence him with a baseball bat.
John also told me about a "monsignor" who visited him under cover of darkness. "He was Italian, but spoke perfect English," John said, "And he was tall—perhaps even taller than you." The shadowy monsignor began by reminding John that the statute of limitations made it impossible to prosecute the priest who had abused him. He then offended John by suggesting that he might have been partly responsible for his own abuse. Before disappearing into the night, he decried the severity of U.S. laws against pedophilia and intimated that these might soon change.
Despite these challenges, John believes that his one-man protest has been good therapy. In the time I spent with him, a dozen or so passing cars honked their approval. Besides displaying his signs, he uses a camera mounted on a tripod to record the comings and goings at the Nunciature. "Perhaps someday I'll write a book about all of this," he explained, smiling.
To learn more about support for people abused by priests, visit the SNAP Network website.
Another one of John's signs
