{"id":3372,"date":"2010-08-18T04:56:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3372"},"modified":"2025-09-29T21:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T21:27:12","slug":"after-eight-decades-abuse-and-a-lawsuit-a-man-returns-to-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=3372","title":{"rendered":"After eight decades, and an abuse lawsuit, a man returns to the Catholic church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.courier-journal.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=2010308130079\">The Louisville native has reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church after being away from it for more than 80 years.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\">\n<p><span class=\"pp\"><\/span>In the end, O&#39;Bryan reconciled with the church because of the actions of a priest \u2014 the same reason he said he left in the first place.<span class=\"aa\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pp\"><\/span>O&#39;Bryan, now 89 and living in northern California, was one of three plaintiffs who sued the Vatican in 2004, alleging that the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church had orchestrated a cover-up of sexual abuse through centuries of secret policies. He said he was sexually abused by a Louisville priest in 1928.<span class=\"aa\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pp\"><\/span>That lawsuit effectively ended on Monday when the plaintiffs asked the court to dismiss their case. They conceded they faced insurmountable legal obstacles, including the Vatican&#39;s status as a sovereign nation, which made it immune to most lawsuits, and the limited evidence on how bishops handled abuse cases decades ago.<span class=\"aa\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pp\"><\/span>But even as that lawsuit proceeded, O&#39;Bryan was finding his way back to church.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pp\"><\/span>In January, his wife of 52 years, Grace, was dying, he said. She was an Irish-American from Boston&#39;s deeply Catholic culture, but had herself been long estranged from the church. However, she asked for last rites. the Rev. Louis Nichols, a local priest, came and performed them, then did the funeral Mass.<span class=\"aa\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"pp\"><\/span>\u201cI saw how compassionate he was and how caring he was,\u201d O&#39;Bryan said. So O&#39;Bryan called Nichols for a follow-up appointment, and \u201cI&#39;ve been going to church ever since.\u201d<span class=\"aa\"><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Louisville native has reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church after being away from it for more than 80 years. In the end, O&#39;Bryan reconciled with the church because of the actions of a priest \u2014 the same reason he said he left in the first place. O&#39;Bryan, now 89 and living in northern California, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5403,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3372\/revisions\/5403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}