Heart in the Wound: Film Transcript
KATHY: This is the church. This is where it happened. This is Saint Frances of Assisi. And it was down in the basement it occurred. I'd go to church to try to be good. I don't know if I went everyday, but I went a lot. You go to confession and you go to make a visit. And you could get indulgences just by blessing yourself, so that you wouldn't spend so much time in purgatory. I don't know. The energy that comes out there is not good for me. Even today, it still feels threatening and scary, like anything could happen at that place. And it's such a beautiful -- isn't it pretty? I mean, it's such a beautiful church, structurally. Does not feel safe, though. Why would I even think it's changed? They put pretty carpet downstairs. To me, it's really ironic. It's like a light pink. And for me, that made it easy for blood to blend into it.
PHIL: It's bizarre, because I'm just having a hard time grappling with the concise feelings. There aren't any. I'm still like lost in a bunch of ‘em. It was this incredibly inward spiral feeling. Well I know it was not my fault. I don't know how I feel about that, because I'm not that in-touch with my feelings. I was searching inside myself. Why was this happening to me? Why did God want this to happen to me? And God obviously wanted it to happen to me, because this was God's man doing it. And he was telling me it was God's plan. I had minimized it and turned it into a non-event. I said, I remember something happening. I don't remember what it was. And I kind of left it at that. And I really didn't think of it in terms of how it had affected me, you know, my past, my alcoholism, my problem with jobs and relationships, money and trust, anger And when the case broke open and I saw an early photograph of Geoghan, I realized he was the one. The memories were so clear. And it was just so strong that it overwhelmed me. This guy was so invasive to our characters that he created this thumbprint on our fucking souls, on our character that’s indelible, that's like unique. It just shows you how big of an impact these people have on us.
OLAN: How do you put a label on this thing that fits everybody? You can't. What happened here is a community of Catholic priests had a lot of special dispensation within their own community and their faith communities. And they were able to run rampant and free. But it was what society, not the church, taught us about sexual abuse and what we should do when it happens. And the Catholic Church played that trump card. But society had a role in that responsibility, too. And the Catholic Church played it played that trump card. They were priests, they were bishops, they were fucking administrators, they played this to the fucking hilt. And they knew damn fucking well what was going on. And they didn't think it was anything wrong. The kid just got this happened to him. He'll be fine. Look, he's taking Communion. He's OK. You know, fucking wake up.
PHIL: When you're part of Catholicism, you're on their team. You're part of the Jesus machine. When your spiritual health gets damaged, gets raped, you have no choice. You're on the other team. You're no longer with good. And that's their doctrine. You can't exist outside of that church without going to Hell. I remember mistrusting people my family, because they would, my siblings asked me, why don't you go to church? You know you're going to Hell. And then I'd, you know, waited quietly to be confirmed. And then as soon as I did, I said, look, to myself, you know what, I've gotta get out of here, because I can't help but talk. I'm going to talk about this. What they were saying to me was, you talk about this to anybody, we'll kill you. And I'd already talked to my mother about it. She didn't believe me when I told her.
KATHY: My father performed this ritual at my house once. And he masturbated the evil out of me. He went into like a trance. And that had just built on with the rituals that had been done in the church that was to get rid of the evil. It's so hard for me. I'm like one of the few women who does not remember when she started her period. And I have no memory. And part is because there were so many times there was blood in my pants, it's all blurred between what happened to me, what was done to me, and then my own body cycles, you know.
OLAN: It's a big fucking mess. There's just so much suffering. Maybe the worst thing we did was open up all these wounds of all of these victims this past year. But it needed to be done. Some people may have limped along, you know, with a slow leak in their tire, instead of just saying, you know, let's pull the car over and change it. It's a big disruption in the travel plans of life.
PHIL: If I just didn't go there anymore, maybe they'd forget about me. Maybe I could get away. Maybe I would, you know, be able to protect myself and my siblings. Oh, they possibly could kill my little sister. They talked about burying her alive. You know, she's very young and small, four years old. Me, I felt I could protect myself. And then they raped me after that. So I cried for a couple weeks. I remember crying myself to sleep. The feeling that I had in my gut, that I was carrying around with me was just indescribable, just awful. I think that's the feeling that I had was the astonishment of how manipulative these people were, how it reached right into my home, right into every aspect of my thinking, of every person in my family and every aspect of their thinking. The attitudes that so many of these conservative people have is like, oh, that's something you don't talk about, you know. And I recognize that that goes against being true to yourself. You need to be true to yourself. And being true to yourself doesn't mean lying to other people. It doesn’t mean hiding about things about yourself that are very important in terms of who you are.
KATHY: This is my lake, and this has changed dramatically. This used to be all grass, no sand. I really liked to swim. I liked to come here. I tried to drown myself here a couple times. I go under the raft and I just hold myself as long as I could, thinking I could drown myself and I wouldn't have to go back home, whether home was church or the house I lived in.
PHIL: My best friend was an altar boy who was given an ultimatum to either put out or he was not gonna be an altar boy. And he chose the latter. And he was ostracized and made to be, you know, the anti-Christ or something, I'm -- I mean, you become evil. And he's committed suicide. He did so when I was a teenager. And I was in the church at his funeral service. And I was the most emotionally stricken by his death, I remember crying out loudly inside the church, because, you know, I had a connection to this guy. He had tried to tell me about this, about him being propositioned and what had happened to him at one point in our teen years. But I couldn't hear it, because somehow, I had a block up. I wonder why. And he was very hurt.
OLAN: There is so much huge trauma, which is why I think the lawsuit needs to be settled I think at least gonna say to us, you know, we made a mistake and here's a monetary apology. And I think there's some closure there, when you came forward, and you put your life and your story on the fucking line.
KATHY: Right now, it's just so very hard. It's the hardest it's been for me. And I don't understand it. (choked up) And there is a lot of sadness right now. I don't even know what it's about. They had the audacity to say, you have to remember around the Grand Jury report, there were no criminal indictments or criminal, you know, the spin that he put on that was just, that's a victimization. And it isn't because we're stuck in the past. It's because we're trying to be instruments of change for the future. And they keep fucking us over. You know, there's a lot of ways to get fucked.
OLAN: It's not my job to judge him. It is my job to hold him responsible for what he agrees that he has done. But I can't hold a man responsible for something he doesn't think he hasn't done. Do you ever think you're ever going to convince Eagan (sp?) or McCormack to step down? No, because they'll never accept their responsibility. They'll never put themselves in that position. At least, I give Law credit for understanding who he was. He didn't do it graciously, and we had to do it with a gun to his head. But the day came that he understood who he was. I wasn't happy with it. I don't like to see any human being going down in flames. I don't give a fuck if you're John McCormack. I don't give a fuck if your Shanley (sp?). I don't fucking take any fucking comfort in further injuring any human being. It is totally against my fucking, my karma. I can't do that. I'll hold you responsible, but I'm not gonna fucking judge you. That happens at a different level.
KATHY: Everyone has a story, survivor, survivor supporter. And I've always understood the perpetrator. You know, as my healing continues, the thing is, I can still understand, but I can also hold accountable. There's where the justice is. You know, I think people should be, go to jail. Not for revenge, but because of what it says to the community, to the world, if there are no consequences for their behavior. I mean, one thing that I did understand intellectually and have understood for a long time is we were both victims and victimizers, and some worse victimizers. I don't think it's that unique. I think people come together all the time and do those things. You know, people can rationalize anything. I mean, that's what the Holocaust was, isn't it? People got brainwashed and believed. That's what slavery is, that somehow people of color are less valuable than white people. And people came together and did horrendous things. So why is it such a leap for people to understand that it happens. It happens all the time.
PHIL: We're living in a world that's physical. But it's a very spiritual world. The connectivity people have with each other is based on sort of an intuitive comfort. You have certain expectations. And your expectations are built on your experiences. And your experiences create comfort or discomfort. And I've got this, you know, obvious bunch of pollution in there, which has to change. And it's changing, you know. The comfort that people experience in their nonphysical lives is becoming available to me for the first time ever. I'm totally reborn.
OLAN: The last week was just a great example of how much I've got to remember to not let it rule my life. It physically affected me. I was a maniac. And it's directly related to all of this. I'm not pessimistic. I need to be peaceful in my own life and mind. I really do. I can't just say everybody else has to do it. I have to walk the walk, and I'm doing it.
KATHY: On that one particular day, there was no blame. I felt no blame from them, from that group that walked to the cathedral from the Hynes auditorium. It was an amazing experience that I could have never imagined having happen. There were witnesses to where there had been no witness.
OLAN: I think that there needs to be a long-term program, and I think they need to be run on certain subjects, you know: how to ground yourself, how to separate the anger from the frustration, all of these things, how to deal with relationship issues. These are very, very, very important parts of the dysfunction of all of us. I know I suffer from them. You know, I spent a lot of time working on this. You know, anger. Years, I'd surface like a bad beast lately. At least I'm able to diffuse it. I'm able to ground it nine-tenths of the time. But I'm very scared about how much effort it's taken to control it. I've been very scared about trying to keep myself from falling into, you know, old habits of, when I get angry, I'll have a few drinks. Now it's the wrong response. I feel like I got tools, but they're like plastic forks and knives.
KATHY: I always say this, but the least safest place for a child to grow up really is in their own home. For people who have been abused, if you look at the people who have histories, the majority of the abuse occurred in their own home. In my case, the church supported what was going on in my home and my home supported what was going on in the church. And I don't think that's really very different from today. It may not be quite as overt in a lot of cases. But one of my requests was that they have an 11th Commandment that says honor thy children. And also that they put in a little paragraph about what you do if the father and-or the mother does not act honorably.