Clergy Abuse and the Healing Process
A Room With A Pew
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In Memoriam: Salvatore Fericano, November 11, 1946 - May 23, 2022

5/23/2022

 
Picture

"I spot a young barn owl / standing by the road / peering at his own reflection in a puddle"
                                                                                                 -- from After the Rain by Dan Gerber

DRUNK COWBOY TEACHES ME A LESSON
                                                                            for my brother Sal                                                                     
 
​He drinks beer on the hardwood kitchen floor
of the small house in San Francisco where we grew up
squeezing the neck of a junk guitar
and howling one lonesome refrain after another.
He holds the notes longer than he needs to
slapping each one down like a barroom bet
until the desperate ghosts of sad women
and angry men show up like uncollected debts.
 
I sit across from him on the floor leaning against
a cupboard filled with cooking pots and frying pans,
the ones we beat with our small hands years
before we knew the words to any outlaw songs.
 
My sense of what is wrong threatens to save us.
It welcomes all the hearts we had a hand in breaking
including our own until the voices we hear
are the wails of a jukebox song no one ever selects.
 
He keeps singing about just passing through
like some freight train going everywhere too fast.
I want to throw my arms around us both
and look after us like brothers who know better.

 
 ---
​

 (Acknowledgement: Paul Fericano, Solo Novo, Vol. 2, 2012) ​

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    Author

    A Room With A Pew is a thought-provoking column on clergy abuse and the healing process. Its content reflects the observations, opinions and experiences of Paul Fericano, a former student who attended Saint Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara in the sixties, and a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. Fericano co-founded SafeNet in 2003, and returned to Santa Barbara that same year to assist the community in recovery. As a poet, satirist and author, he is actively engaged in advocacy, social justice and reconciliation efforts. He supports and encourages those who have been harmed by the Catholic church to explore the healing process, pursue justice with compassion, and to reclaim their past. He is the editor and co-founder of Yossarian Universal News Service (YU News Service), the nation's first parody news syndicate established in 1980. His spiritual practice includes challenging himself to look for humor in the shadows.

    Archives 
    A Room With A Pew
    Memories of Better Days Persist
    Many St. Anthony's students have contacted me, and one asked about the barbershop, where he had sought refuge one day after his offender beat him. Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    TUES., APRIL 1, 2014
    ---
    No Matter How High the Hedge Grows
    The Solidarity Project memorial for clergy abuse survivors at Mission Santa Barbara was vandalized for a second time by a person employed by the Franciscans.
     Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    WED., MARCH 5, 2014
    ---
    Mario (Walter) Cimmarrusti, OFM: 1931 - 2013
    The Worst of What We Lived
    My offender, a notorious Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who abused many boys at St. Anthony's Seminary, died on November 23, 2013. 
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    THURS., FEBRUARY 13, 2014
    ---
    The Roots of Pastoral Response
    Pastoral response is the kind of outreach by the church that is absolutely essential to the healing process.
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    WED., FEBRUARY 5, 2014
    ---
    Looking for Francis in the Franciscans
    Among survivors of clergy abuse, what puzzles, angers, and disappoints many is the shortage of moral courage among the friars in general. 
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    WED., JANUARY 8, 2014
    ---
    From Survival to Forgiveness
    In 1965 when I was 14 I was sexually abused at St. Anthony’s, a Catholic minor seminary in Santa Barbara operated by the Franciscan religious order. 
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    THURS., DECEMBER 5, 2013

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