Description
Angela Mitchell’s flashbacks of being sexually abused 27 years earlier by Monsignor Arthur Sego at the St. Patrick Catholic School. “Mitchell repressed her memories of the incidents until April 1994, when she began helping an abused boy while working as a teacher’s aide at the Kokomo YMCA.” (“Kokomo Woman Says Monsignor Molested Her") Mitchell told her older sister at the time of the abuse. Her sister told her mother, who contacted the diocese in Lafayette, “but a bishop there allegedly told her not to tell anyone, saying that church officials would handle the situation.” (Id.) (The Monsignor was sent to the St. Joseph Mother House for two and a half weeks to reflect on what had occurred. He also received psychiatric therapy for two and a half months. He was then assigned to a different parish.) The Bishop confirmed the basic facts in a 1967 letter that ended, “I would suggest that you might destroy this letter after you read it. In this way, we will protect both [A.M.] and Monsignor.” (A.M. v. Roman Catholic Church, 669 N.E.2d 1034 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1996.) The mother “followed the Bishop’s instructions and never again spoke to A.M. about the molestations. The older sister also kept the secret.” (Id.) Remarkably, the Indiana Court of Appeals did not allow Mitchell to proceed with her highly-corroborated claim because the perpetrator was not a family member, and she did not bring the suit before turning 18—something that would have been impossible, since her first recollections were at age 34.