 |
 |
INTERVIEW WITH TONY COMES
HBO
How did you reconcile your feelings for the Catholic Church after going public about your abuse by a priest from within your own church?
TONY COMES
Well, I feel as though in a way I am the Catholic Church. I am the congregation. The people who sit in that pew next to me, and in front of me and behind me are the Catholic Church.
When my church decides to speak up, it has to start with one person. And it didn't start with me. Maybe it will end with me. But when we decide collectively to say, Enough's enough - as a church, as a society, then some of the things that I continually kick myself for, hopefully I'll stop. Some of the things that keep me up at night, hopefully they won't.
Maybe I can learn to let go of a lot of these things. It's been such a negative for so long that I want it to be a positive now. And there's only one way I can do that, and that's by trying to speak out and be an advocate.
HBO
There seems to be a great deal of avoidance and denial of this issue within the church.
TONY COMES
Oh yeah.
HBO
How did you make your way through that? And do you feel that you had satisfaction in the end?
TONY COMES
No. I'm still not satisfied with the church's response. Actually, I've testified in front of the Ohio State Senate, which passed a bipartisan bill which would extend the statute of limitations for civil cases to match the criminal statutes to twenty years, as well as provide a one year retroactivity window or a look back window.
We initially wanted a two-year look back window, and the retroactivity period to be as long as there was historical evidence of cover-up by the church. And we have allowed that to be whittled down to a one-year window and only going back thirty-five years from the date that the bill is signed, assuming that it passes the Ohio State House of Representatives.
HBO
Is it simply the power of the Church?
TONY COMES
It is the power of the almighty dollar. And the Church is spoon-feeding the information to people who are otherwise not going to look - who have trusted the Church all their life, who continue to do so. And I can't hold ill will against people who are just uninformed. But I can think it's ignorant for them to choose to be so with the volume of information that's out there.
It's been a huge learning curve for me from a governmental standpoint of what it takes. You know, the "I'm just a bill sitting on Capitol Hill" song is playing in my head twenty-four/seven. It is incredible to me that if these people were sending kids home every day with a broken leg there would be no hesitation.
No one that I have been involved with through SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ), or any victim or friend or family member of a victim was ever out for money. All we wanted was the truth.
I don't think that I'm a hero. I don't think I'm courageous. I don't think I did anything bigger or better than anyone else has. I'm walking in the footsteps of a thousand other people who chose to come forward long before I did, who chose to put their name on their lawsuits long before I did. The credit and compliments and everything else that people are throwing at me need to be given to somebody else.
And the frightening aspect of it is, the breadth of this issue and other people that were abused and the grooming process and the networking that went on between some of these priests, as well as church officials in moving these priests, and the deceptions that took place.
There are thousands out there just like me. And there are perpetrators out there who live and work amongst us who, due to the statutes of limitations -- we cannot challenge legally, we can't force to become registered sex offenders. Our hands are tied.
It re-victimizes every person who's been abused to be called a liar, to be told that we don't deserve an apology, to be told that we don't deserve our day in court, to be told that we have to jump through hoop A, B and C in order to continue to receive counseling paid for by the church.
And the saddest part is that I'm not the only one. Because when it was happening to me my biggest fear was that had I stood up it could have been prevented from happening to someone else. And I believed the Bishop when he told me, No, you're the only one. And to find out within twenty-four hours Matt Simon's name, and another victim's name that is still John Doe, it crushed me.
HBO
What was it like seeing the film at Sundance, and then the Oscar nomination?
TONY COMES
Very cathartic. It was frightening and cathartic at the same time. I thought this was going to be a training video on a library shelf somewhere. I had no idea that it was going to be at the level that it was at Sundance. And the short list for the Oscars at the time was like landing on the moon. When the phone call came at nine o'clock in the morning from Eddie Schmidt (the film's producer) and he said, Tony, the unbelievable has happened. We've been nominated for an Oscar. It was so surreal.
I'm from Toledo, Ohio. There's not a lot of times where we hit the map on a national level for anything good. And while this is a difficult topic, it was very strange to form the sentence of, I need to rent a tuxedo for the Oscars, or, When we're at the Oscars... It still sounds funny to say.
It was an incredible experience to sit in the theatre and watch it with three hundred other people. But to hear the reactions - Catholic and non-Catholic alike - to hear people crying, to hear people laugh at the appropriate times was wonderful.
I learned a long time ago to laugh at myself first or everyone else would. That was one of my biggest defense mechanisms.
It was hard to realize what I was living through as I was living through it - both for my wife and I as Catholics. Being now a very public figure on a very private issue is something that I did not want. But also very cathartic in that, what I had told the Bishop when I first confronted my church was, If you lie to me, the gloves come off, that I had finally followed through on my own word.
I had trusted Kirby and Eddie (the filmmakers) in a way that I had not trusted anyone, and to this day still have a huge issue with trusting anyone, as far as being completely open and honest about my feelings. Because one time in the past that was all turned around on me.
I was walking out of one of the theatres at Sundance after the second viewing, back to the hotel. And I was in tears and my wife said, What's the matter? And I said, I'm actually happy. And she said, What do you mean? And I said, I just realized that here's two guys from California that I had never met in my life, that I asked three very simple things of - One: I don't want to get paid, Two: I want you to represent me and my family with dignity, and Three: I want you to tell this story so someone else gets some help.
And they went above and beyond that. They bent over backwards to accommodate me, my family, my friends. They did it with dignity. They didn't make it an attack on the Catholic Church. They used me to tell a story about an issue and allowed me to maintain my dignity throughout the process.
I realized that I was unable to trust anyone for twenty years - from my mother on down, but I trusted these guys. And that was my restoration of faith moment, so to speak. And I knew right then and there that what I was doing was right - both for me, for my church, for my family, and for my community.
|
|
|
|
|
