Leeland Eisenberg made headlines in Rochester, New Hampshire this past week and shed some light on an issue that will not go away until the Roman Catholic Church and the Archdiocese of Boston take the “bull by the horns” and do something dramatic about the mental health care of those sexually abused by clergy. Leeland Eisenberg should have been in a Boston-area mental health facility run by qualified professionals who treat the effects of clergy sexual abuse.

Shortly after Cardinal Sean was made Archbishop of the “epicenter” of clergy sexual abuse in this country, I wrote to him and pleaded for him to establish a residential center for victims of clergy sexual abuse. I suggested he deed the property in Milton that had been a residence for “troubled” priests to me, a priest/survivor and advocate, who was stationed for four years at Catholic Memorial High School in West Roxbury, during the time Monsignor Fred Ryan was abusing my students en masse.

In 2002, a couple of Catholic Memorial victims went public, and I committed myself at that time to helping them recover. Garry Garland, David Carney, and John Doe were but three of the first clients of what was to become “Road to Recovery,” a non-profit charity that helps survivors of clergy sexual heal from the ravages of their abuse. Since 2002, I have traveled from New Jersey to Massachusetts nearly once a week to assist the “CM Boys” and many others who have alleged abuse by Catholic priests, brothers, and nuns.

When I asked Cardinal Sean for the “Milton property,” of course I received no response. I brought a few victims to be interviewed by Barbara Thorp, director of the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach in Newtonville, and it was my hope that Thorp’s office would have “carte blanche” to guarantee that victims would have all they need to recover. No such luck.

I was wrong! I brought a Ryan victim to the outreach office who was homeless, penniless, and seriously addicted. He was a sixteen-year victim of the third-highest ranking member of the Archdiocese of Boston. I used my own money to put him up in a hotel in a Boston suburb until we could find him shelter. When I asked Barbara Thorp for reimbursement for his expenses, it took me three years and a threatening letter to Cardinal Sean’s attorney to get a check for a few hundred dollars.

“John” was promised in a face-to-face meeting with Cardinal Sean that he would be given enough “settlement” money to buy a small house and that he would not be “lumped” with all the other victims because his abuse was so severe. He received $70,000.00, and, because he felt further betrayal by Cardinal Sean, who broke his promises and “lumped” his case in the big settlement, his trauma was severely triggered again, he spent $70,000.00 on drugs, and is homeless. Road to Recovery does what it can each week to help him survive.

I requested that the Archdiocese of Boston open a residence for such families and individuals and I would run it. As a priest/survivor and advocate, I have gained the trust of other fellow survivors. My non-profit charity, “Road to Recovery, Inc,” has helped hundreds of survivors, but on an extremely limited basis. We receive no money from the Church, the very institution that should be funding us exclusively. Father Ken Lasch, our co-founder and president, and I have committed ourselves to giving to survivors whatever they need to recover.

The Catholic Church has to commit itself to the same mission. Leeland Eisenberg clearly has not recovered from the ravages of his abuse by a Boston Archdiocesan priest. He needs a hospital and a facility where he can be supported and affirmed. His settlement money from the Archdiocese did not heal him. It did not even allow him to have a decent home, job, and peace. He has not been restored, the goal of “Road to Recovery” and other clergy abuse support groups such as SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests).

I will try and contact the family of Leeland Eisenberg to see if I can help him in any way. Hopefully, he will be assigned to a mental health facility by a caring judge. He doesn’t deserve prison; he deserves whatever he needs to recover from a childhood of hell, precipitated by the man in his town who had the most respect and adulation. If the judge does send him to prison, I will visit him there, too. I will add his name to a long list of survivors of clergy abuse who are in prison for crimes directly associated with their childhood abuse by priests.

The presidential candidates need to understand that the epidemic of child sexual abuse in our country, not only by priests, is literally murdering the American spirit. They need to declare war on it and expend whatever is necessary to end it. We need a “civil rights movement” for children. Leeland Eisenberg can be its poster-boy!

Rev. Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.
Founder and President
Road to Recovery, Inc.