The hideous abuse by Harry E. Monroe
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Lost son: Oscar and Missi Limcaco are speaking publicly about the alleged sexual abuse of their late son, Danny, by a Catholic priest 25 years ago in hopes of sparing other children. "I'm tired of secrets," Missi says. At top, Oscar Limcaco cherishes a plaque made by Danny as a child. Danny died under suspicious circumstances in 1983. Below is a photo of Danny Limcaco at his confirmation in Texas. (Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza) |
By Stephanie Salter/Tribune-Star
November 13, 2005
When Missi
Limcaco's pastor told her the church would deal with the priest and youth
minister who allegedly molested her son and other boys in the parish, she
believed him. So did her boy.
Finally, after months of avoiding it,
Danny wanted to go to Mass again, so we did, said Limcaco. Guess who came down
the aisle in the procession? I couldn't believe it. Danny just got up and went
out of church. Afterward I asked the pastor how this could happen. He told me it
was Easter season and they were busy and they needed Father Harry. He said he
was sorry but he just hadn't thought about that.
That was in 1981, a few
months before the Rev. Harry E. Monroe would be removed from St. Patrick's
parish in Terre Haute and placed on leave for a year by the archbishop of
Indianapolis, the late Edward T. O'Meara. In 1983, Monroe would be assigned to
his fifth post in less than 10 years, serving three parishes in the Tell City
area.
A year later, the archdiocese would strip the priest of his
official faculties because of more allegations of sexual misconduct.
Danny Limcaco would not be alive to learn of the dismissal
or of previous molestation reports from Indianapolis families that had followed
the young priest to St. Patrick's.
On March 10, 1983, Missi Limcaco found
her 19-year-old son dead on the floor of a tool shed in the backyard of the
family's home, then in Woodridge.
He had died from inhaling carbon
monoxide from a running lawn mower.
Largely due to the family's inability
to believe otherwise, Danny's death was ruled an accident.
The [police]
lieutenant was probably thinking, suicide,' but I gave him a possible scenario:
It was windy that day, the door might have blown shut. S
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Oscar Limcaco cherishes a plaque made by Danny as a child. Danny died under suspicious circumstances in 1983. Below is a photo of Danny Limcaco at his confirmation in Texas. (Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza) |
Only years later were Missi and her physician husband,
Oscar, able to consider the other possibility.
There was no light on in
the shed. Why would Danny have been running the mower in the dark? He knew the
family rule about keeping the shed door open anytime the mower was worked on
inside.
And, of course, the whole thing with Father Harry had never
really been resolved.
We'll never know for sure, said Missi. Do I
think there's a connection between what happened with Father Harry and Danny's
death? Yes, I believe there's a connection.
Danny's younger
half-brother, John, always believed there was a connection, and he said so until
the day he died: Dec. 31, 1988. Suffering from early-onset bipolar disorder and
drug abuse that therapists told the family had been triggered by Danny's death,
John Patrick Limcaco shot himself to death after being involved in a minor
traffic accident on North Third Street.
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Special day: Danny Limcaco is shown at his confirmation in Texas. (Submitted photo) |
By the time that tragedy hit the family, Missi was well
into her own psychiatric nightmare. Discovering the hard way that she, too, was
genetically disposed to bipolar disorder, the mother of four was hospitalized a
half-dozen times and spent much of her surviving two sons' early adolescence on
heavy medication.
Through therapy, her faith in God and the support of
her family and close friends, Missi has not required medication or
hospitalization since 1991.
She realizes her history of mental illness
will allow some people to discount the her family's story. She doesn't
care.
The archdiocese already has admitted publicly that Monroe was
ousted for allegations of sexual abuse back in an era in which that action was
extremely rare. In addition, the Indianapolis diocese and Monroe, 57, who is now
living and working in Nashville, Tenn., are defendants in four civil lawsuits
brought by men who say the former priest sexually abused them as children at
parishes in Marion County.
Missi herself has binders full of
Monroe-related information that includes correspondence to and from archdiocesan
officials. One of them in 2002 informed her that Monroe had been dismissed from
the priesthood in 1984 and offered a deep apology for the grave harm that was
done to your son and to your entire family.
The bottom line is, I'm
tired of secrets, Missi said earlier this autumn, after joining advocates for
abuse victims in a door-to-door information walk around St. Patrick's
neighborhood.
I'm not trying to be difficult, I just want Harry Monroe's
name out there so no one else's children will become victims, she
said.
Opus Dei and perpetual adoration
These days, when a
decades-old case like Monroe's becomes public, when other families like the
Limcacos align themselves with the national organization, SNAP (Survivors of
those Abused by Priests), assumptions often are made:
The family must
hate the church; probably they are suing for big bucks; they want revenge for
their children's pain; they can't let go of ancient history.
The Limcacos
do not fit the profile. They are not suing. Their deceased boys are beyond
therapeutic help, and their surviving sons do not need it. When they speak about
Monroe, they theorize that he likely was abused sometime in his
life.
Even Missi, who has stopped going to Mass, reserves her quiet anger
for those above Monroe who enabled a much-accused child molester to allegedly
collect more victims each time he was reassigned. While she thinks time in jail
would be beneficial for the former priest, her overriding desire is to see the
statute of limitations extended for reporting child sex abuse.
An adult
convert, Missi was active for years at St. Pat's, long after the Monroe
incidents and her sons' deaths. She sent the other two boys to school there and
helped coordinate the parish's perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, an
ongoing ritual in which the church remains open all day and night for
worshippers to meditate and pray over a consecrated Communion host.
I
miss my community very much, Missi said, but I just can't listen to the
homilies about love and compassion anymore. I can't listen to the hypocrisy.
Sometimes I wonder what the priests and bishops think when they read the Gospel.
Is it just words? Do you know what the Catechism says about sin?
Quoting
from the church's official teachings, she recited:
Sin is a personal
act. Moreover we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we
cooperate in them S
Oscar Limcaco, a
retired neurosurgeon, is even further from the stereotypical Catholic Church
basher. Born and raised in the Philippines, he is a cradle Catholic who attends
Mass regularly. He adopted Danny, Missi's son from a previous marriage, several
years before the Church officially annulled that union.
I will always be
a Catholic, no matter what, he said.
Oscar is also a longtime member of
one of the institutional church's most loyal and conservative defenders, Opus
Dei. He expects some of his fellow members not to understand why he has chosen
to support his wife and speak publicly about what happened to his
family.
The purpose of this is not to destroy the church but to help
improve it, Oscar said. Obviously, there is a serious problem in the church
with pedophilia S
Many advances have been made by the Catholic
hierarchy against the sex scandal crisis, for which the doctor said he is
grateful. Much remains to be done, however, and, excluding homosexuals [from
seminaries, as the Vatican recently decreed] is not going to solve the problem,
he said.
As a physician, Oscar said he knows that the first step to any
treatment is recognizing and accepting that you have a problem, something the
church's leaders were too slow to do. Even today, many in authority still seem
not to get it.
I know about stonewalling and damage control, he said.
Using legal maneuvers to protect yourself does not address the real
problem.
He was welcome in our home'
Father Harry Monroe was
ordained in 1974 and came to St. Patrick's from Indianapolis in July 1979 at the
start of the church administrative year. He assisted the pastor, the Rev. Joseph
Wade, and served as the parish youth minister.
In his early 30s, Monroe
had a motorcycle as well as a car and was known to give parish boys rides on the
back of the bike. In a short time, he became a frequent visitor to the Limcaco
house, sometimes for dinner, often just for a social call.
He was
welcome in our home. He would walk in and say hi' then, I'm going back to see
the boys,' said Missy. He was like a big kid.
Echoing the experiences
of hundreds of families who have been scarred by sex abuse revelations in
dioceses from Boston to Los Angeles, the Limcacos said they never imagined their
children might be at risk. Monroe was a priest, a sacramentally ordained human
representative of Christ on Earth.
When Danny, then just 16, came home
uncharacteristically sullen and withdrawn after a camping trip to Turkey Run
State Park - only he and Father Harry had gone - Missi thought he was coming
down with a bug.
I asked him if he'd had a good time. He didn't answer
me. I said, Are you sick?' He turned away and said, No, I'm just tired,''' she
said.
Danny's smiles became fewer and further between. He avoided church
and the youth group. Missi and Oscar thought he was going through adolescent ups
and downs. More than a year would pass before Danny confided details to his
mother about the camping trip and a previous outing with Monroe to
Indianapolis.
In the hindsight of many years, the Limcacos realized that
after the Turkey Run trip, Monroe had stopped coming around.
Not the only
ones at St. Pat's
One day after Mass, Missi heard that molestation
accusations about Monroe had surfaced regarding another parishioner's son. Missi
came home and told Danny she thought she knew what had been bothering
him.
He broke down immediately and told me the whole thing, she said.
When I asked him why he hadn't told us, he said he didn't think we'd believe
him. He said, I thought there was something wrong with me that caused him to do
this.'''
Danny told his mother that Monroe had given him marijuana and
liquor on both trips, insisting that parents would much prefer their kids learn
about such things with a priest than their peers. At Turkey Run, Danny said,
Monroe had insisted on zipping the boy's sleeping bag to his to conserve body
heat.
Danny woke from an alcohol and drug stupor, he said, to find
Monroe on top of him, groping him sexually. Terrified, he elbowed the man as
hard as he could. He told his mother he was afraid that if he ran into the
pitch-black woods he would smash into a tree, and he was afraid Monroe might
hurt him. Lying on his stomach, he pretended to again pass out.
The day
after Danny confided in her, Missi said, she was headed for the police station
but first stopped by St. Patrick's to tell Father Wade. He talked her out of a
police report, she said, and promised to notify the archbishop immediately,
which he did.
Later that day, Wade called Missi to say the archdiocese
was going to take care of the situation.
He said there were six boys at
St. Patrick's and that they and their parents were all supposed to write letters
to the archbishop about what happened, she said.
Wade, who resigned from
the priesthood in 1996 for personal reasons, did not return a voice mail message
from the Tribune-Star left at his home in the Indianapolis area.
A couple
of weeks after Missi's conversation with Father Wade, a monsignor from the
archdiocese phoned to say that all the letters had been received, Missi
remembered.
He was very nice until I asked him what they were going to
do to protect the children. His tone totally changed. He was unbelievably
intimidating. I can't remember his name, but what he said is burned into my
brain. He said, It is not your place to question the authority of the
archbishop.
A few weeks after that, Danny received a notecard in the
mail, signed by O'Meara, thanking him for your help and praising the glory of
the season. No mention was made of the alleged abuse.
Danny threw it
out, said Missi.
Off and on through the years, Missi tried to find out
what happened to Monroe. Church officials had no information. A 1992 letter from
an archdiocesan editor she had contacted expressed sympathy but no knowledge of
the family's written complaints about Monroe.
It's good, I think, that
the cloak of secrecy has finally been lifted from this problem and the church is
finally trying to do something about it, the editor wrote.
It was not
until a 1997 religious retreat, 14 years after Danny's death, that Missi learned
that St. Patrick's had not been Monroe's last assignment.
Even then,
Missi said, she kept going to Mass and worked to keep her relationship with the
church separate from its painful mishandling of her son's ordeal. As more and
more abuse cases surfaced in dioceses all over the country, she began to realize
the size of the company in which her family found itself.
The turning
point
In 2000, Missi read an Associated Press story in the Tribune-Star
that touched a depth of rage she never suspected was in her.
An official
in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Nashville, Tenn., responded to lawsuits
against a former priest - in prison for multiple counts of admitted child
molestation - with a stunning announcement: If church officials were to be held
responsible for knowing but not reporting the priest's crimes, then everyone
else who knew about the abuse should also be held responsible - including 21
boys the priest admitted to molesting but who did not come forward to tell of
the abuse.
All the years of guilt and remorse - not to mention grief -
boiled up in her and fueled her anger at church officials. She educated herself
about SNAP and followed the revelations of abuse and coverups in dioceses such
as Boston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Dallas.
Time and again, she
said, she waited for church officials to truly own their sins of the past,
aggressively warn others about known abusers and join forces with victims to
change the statute of limitations to extend the time in which an adult can
report decades-old child abuse.
Instead, Missi said, most of what she has
seen are empty apologies, buck-passing, priests and dioceses escaping criminal
trials because legal reporting limits have expired, and an insensitivity to
alleged victims that has inspired hundreds of them nationwide to sue for tens of
millions of dollars in civil courts.
The leaders of the church created
their own nightmare, Missi said. What is so hard about getting a list of
credible predators to the authorities? So, someone like Harry Monroe is no
longer a priest? How do future employers in public schools, youth clubs,
anywhere, know what they're getting into? How do they do a background check on
somebody who was never reported?
Last March, Missi finally reported
Monroe's alleged abuse of Danny to law enforcement authorities.
I knew
no one could bring charges against him, but I thought that maybe the police had
some kind of predators list, she said. The Terre Haute police were very nice
to me but told me I would have to go to Rockville, because that was the
jurisdiction for Turkey Run.
The detective there was nice,
too.
He listened to me for a long time and took a lot of notes on a
yellow legal pad. But I noticed there was never any form to sign. About two
months later, he called me and said there was nothing they could do because it
had happened so long ago. He said he hoped my coming in had brought me some
closure, said Missi.
It didn't, but I'm not sorry I reported it. I just
reported it 24 years too late.
Stephanie Salter can be reached at
(812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.
How to get help
-- Information about SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, can be found at www.snapnetwork.org or by calling the Midwest office at (317) 833-9996.
-- Suzanne Yakimchick, the victim assistance coordinator of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, can be reached at P.O. Box 1410, Indianapolis 46206-1410 or by calling (317) 236-7325 or 1-800-382-9836 ext. 7325. The archdiocese Web site is www.archindy.
org.
-- Reports to Child Protective Services can be made on its hotline at 1-800-800-5556.
Two Web sites that provide information about sex abuse issues in the Catholic Church:
-- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, www.usccb.org. Click on Family & Laity Issues then Child & Youth Protection.
-- An independent watchdog organization that collects and posts public documents and news stories about sex abuse issues in U.S. dioceses, www.bishop-accountability.org.