By Kay Ebeling
"I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary," said Charles Bailey, pictured at right. He is getting justice today for brutal sex crimes committed against him at age ten by Father Thomas Neary, by putting his story out in the public. His book In The Shadow Of The Cross gives graphic shocking disgusting PTSD-inducing detail of the serial felonies, and you cannot put it down. More alarming, Bailey went on a small book tour in the Syracuse area where the book takes place, and in venue after venue, people came up after he spoke and said, "my brother was also raped by Neary," or my uncle, my husband, my dad - dozens of people with the same horrid story of the same horrid modus operandi.
With young Bailey and numerous others, Neary insinuated himself into families, convinced reverent mothers that their young boys were almost perfect for the priesthood, they just needed personal counseling. In household after household in towns like Onondaga Hill, Hannibal, Jordan, and Skaneateles, Father Neary convinced mothers to keep the rest of the children aside as he took a 9 or 10 year old boy into a room - then while reciting The Lord’s Prayer he sodomized them, prepubescent boys, or forced his face-sized penis into the their mouths, all the time telling the boys that sodomy and fellatio are part of their training to be a priest.
In the Shadow of the Cross tells so outlandish a story, even I began to wonder if it could be true, especially since Charles Bailey says probably 30 people have come to him so far, saying they or a family member were assaulted by Neary. Yet, NONE OF THEM will tell their story alongside Charlie in public, or even to a reporter or blogger like me, even if we keep details anonymous.
No one will go public yet at least.
However go to Google and type in Father Thomas Neary and you begin to see the tip of the iceberg toppling. Two bloggers, one a renowned political satirist, the other the Editor of City Eagle in New York document the slow coming forward of other victims of pedophile priest Father Thomas Neary, (blogs quoted and linked below).
After Bailey spoke at Creekside Books in 2007, he said, “a dozen or fifteen people came forward, all of them to talk about young men assaulted by Neary. A woman said her husband, a Neary victim, committed suicide when their son was in his teens. She hoped the book would help her son, who a decade later still hates his father. She wouldn't talk about it much but she did say that after reading this book maybe her son would let go of his bad feelings about his dad.”
Neary, pictured below right, devastated Bailey’s body from age 10 to 12, and Bailey dives right in with detailed portrayals of Neary’s assaults. On page 4 he describes “I see him grin and groan as if he is in a really happy state” as
Neary has an orgasm, how “he tells me to stop crying and clean myself up. I now know enough to keep a box of Kleenex on the floor under the edge of the bed. Just for his visits." Bailey writes: "I stuff tissues in my bottom and make my way to the bathroom. Don’t get blood anywhere, he tells me. I know that it has to be private between he and my priest, because I don't want to anger you more, God. As I close the bathroom door, I hear him telling my mother not to worry, as I may be upset. It is very emotional to be ‘counseled’ to become a priest.”This is from Page 6:
“He makes me kneel before him and clasp my two little ten-year-old hands together, like when we receive communion. What are we doing? We pray the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Thy will be done,’ Father Neary repeats that part. I am on my knees staring at his zipper."
This is from Page 7:
“As he helped me to lower his zipper, here was this hard penis staring me in the face. It was hard, hairy, and smelly. Why is there hair? I have no hair except on my head. ‘This is special, just for men of God,’ Neary said. ‘You too will be like this when you get older and help other young boys become priests.' ”
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You can buy the book at: http://www.intheshadowofthecross.net/home.asp
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For three years Bailey endured brutal crimes more than a hundred times, with the pain, the systematic cleaning up, bleeding into the toilet, then stuffing tissues into his rectum to keep the rest of the blood from dripping down his legs. You picture him, carefully folding paper towel into one pocket, Kleenex into the other, he lived in fear that Neary would pick him up when he wasn’t prepared with tissue in one pocket Kleenex in the other exactly as Neary demanded.
Today Charles Bailey plagued with degenerative disk disease, neuropathy, the chronic pain with which it seems so many pedophile priest rape survivors live.
(Continued below after this commercial)
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I asked Bailey,
Do you ever think that because you were so young - at ten years old you are still growing, your cells are still forming - that having these experiences with Neary sodomizing you, all that pain and the horror -- that it somehow put a kind of neural poison into your cells -- that the serial rapes with all that pain and internal confusion, actually damaged you at a cellular level, and is the reason you have all these health problems today?
BAILEY: I do think that. I’ve had two lower back surgeries as a young man and two cervical spine surgeries and I definitely think there’s a connection to the sexual assaults by Neary, because like you said.
Assaults by pedophile priests do damage to us at a cellular level, especially when we are young children when it happens, our bodies growing and cells still forming as we experience this trauma and process it the way we process it.
In fact as I read Bailey’s book In the Shadow of the Cross over a period of weeks, my own body pained up in its own brand of neuropathic dystrophy, whatever you want to call it - I couldn't write, could barely get my tape transcription jobs done - for the entire time I was reading his book.
Bailey said, “I went to pain management and was on 28 pills a day not long ago, and just the side effects the upset stomach and the nausea were awful
“And I was still in pain.
“So I quit them all, all the pharmaceuticals.’
How do you deal with the chronic pain?
“I just mentally tell myself that it goes along with the arena. It’s like the story, you feel bad about not having any shoes until see a guy with no feet. I tell myself I'm in agony, this hurts, but at least I can feel, there are people out there worse off than me.
“Many times, hair in the back of my neck stands up when people say pedophilia is only about power. It’s not.”
Bailey describes this scene in the book, and in a recent interview:
“I was holding onto the bedspread and I could see his expression. He’s having the time of his life back there and I was not a willing participant. It is about sexual pleasure for pedophiles.”
Bailey vents more on the topic of in Chapter 10: “Put It Behind You”
“Everywhere I have researched it, I have read that anal intercourse performed on a young boy by a man in his forties, (much less a Catholic priest) is illegal. It is a crime, and it should not be labeled as simply a mistake or mischief. It is not only a crime, but it is a felony crime. That is, it seems, unless you belong to the Catholic Church. . . .”
“These people who utter these ignorant words, put it behind you , it was so long ago, just forget about it, Move on. - and many other hurtful words, they just don’t get it. I sometimes feel they have ‘chosen ignorance,’ as I have dubbed it. they cannot allow themselves to believe the facts, of the sexual abuse by clergy, because then they would have to admit to the abuse done by their priests to countless children.
“These Catholics can’t seem to handle the truth. Otherwise they would be as outraged at their church as the victims are.”
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BAILEY CONTINUES ON PAGE 68 of
In the Shadow of the Cross:
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“Strange too, how there exists no statute of limitations on murder. Years passing mean nothing to a murder case. The victim can’t be there for the trial either. But I am here, and I can testify as to what, where, and how it happened. Isn’t that a leg up on a murder trial?”
I asked, Do you feel frustrated by survivors who won't go public or tell their stories to the media?
Almost every place Bailey speaks in the rural area near Syracuse pictured here (click to enlarge), he finds more victims of the prolific pedophile priest Thomas Neary. “One mother came up and said her son committed suicide about eight years ago, that he was he was an altar boy, in Skaneateles. Another guy is coming up from (a southern state). He says since reading the book, he realizes he has unfinished business. He’s a (professional) and this journey has interrupted his life but he has to come back. So he’s taking an indefinite period of time off work to come here and find out what happened to him.”Still none of them wants to come forward in the public with their stories and stand beside Bailey, which frustrates the author as well as myself.
“The more people that come forward, the more credible this becomes,” Bailey said.
He understands the fear of “coming out”
Sort of. Bailey says:
“Most of the new Neary victims are prominent people in the area here. They're still in a job or career, some are politicians or doctors or lawyers, and they don't want their name associated with being a survivor of this, and I have to admit if I wasn’t retired, I would probably feel the same way.”
BUT
“I think the more victims stay silent in the case of Neary and other perpetrators the more these guys are out there still abusing children,” Bailey said. “By not coming forward, they're, I don't know if I’d use the word enabling -
“But yeah-
“By not coming forward, they're pretty darn close to enabling their perpetrator and others like him to continue perpetrating.”
So the iceberg topples.
POLITICAL SATIRIST and Radio commentator BARRY CRIMMINS, pictured at right, says Neary tried to make him a victim but he didn't succeed because he was savvy from a previous childhood experiences. In his BLOG, July 2007, Crimmins wrote this about encountering Charles Bailey in Skaneateles, that he almost got assaulted by Neary. Crimmins says he fought off Neary.
“(Neary) knew he couldn't sexually abuse me. On two occasions, when he started to massage my shoulders, I literally hit him as hard as I could with an elbow and fled.
“I had an added-on survival reflex (due to a previous assault) that kicked in as soon as the monstrous Neary put his slimy hands upon me. He persisted a bit and offered me rides in his car.
“Most of the children in town soon knew you should never take a ride from Father Queery."
FATHER QUEERY
Hey, they were kids, they did not know any better
You can read Crimmins entire post at:
http://www.barrycrimmins.com/index.php?page=news&display=317
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In addition
Here is another account of a survivor of Neary coming out because of Charles Bailey’s book In the Shadow of the Cross at:
http://cnylink.com/cnynews/view_news.php?news_id=tE1188488025t46d6e35912b85
by Ellen Leahy, Editor/City Eagle 08/30/07
“Alfie and my friend started again to discuss the book, as Alfie had had a run-in with Rev. Neary. He said that as a young boy he had worshipped with his family at St. Mary’s and had really looked up to Neary. You have to put yourself into a young boy’s mind, and the reverence one has for their priest, especially 40 years ago.
(emphasis mine, Neary picture below left)
“Alfie said Neary started out with some inappropriate touching that was very confusing and then he made a move on him, which included shoving his tongue down the young Rossi’s throat. Alfie went home and told his father he didn’t want to go to church anymore and his father without question said, okay. They never discussed why at the time.”
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BAILEY: “My Wife Susan is the angel God sent me, at least half the reason why I'm here at all."
They have been married 35 years
BAILEY: She is my personal pit bull.
Read why below:
“We can forgive if you clean this up,” Susan Bailey said.
STORY CONTINUES AFTER VIDEO
HERE AT CITY OF ANGELS 4 WE EMBED THE VIDEO FROM YOUTUBE OF SUSAN BAILEY
Susan, in picture at right, told me:“I called Bishop Moynihan in Syracuse and I met with him. At first he said I don't want to talk about this, but after awhile, I talked him into giving my husband free counseling once a week for six years.
“Charles got stronger with each therapy session. In the very beginning Charlie was truly a victim. He was broken down and he needed counseling. I'm the one that went in and talked to the bishop."
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She even tracked down the pedophile priest's brother, and went to his house. She wanted to know everything.
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Susan Bailey continued:
“I was so angry I even went to Fr. Neary’s brother’s house and wanted to know everything.
“Oh he doesn't live too far. My husband got on the computer we found Mr. Neary to see if he would apologize for his brother.
"I went to the brother’s house, banged on the door and said, I used to live in this neighborhood and wanted to talk to you. I went in and I said, I want to talk to you about your brother and he automatically said, leave the room to his daughter.
"I sat down with him for at least two hours and he told me everything and spent hours with me.
"Then before he left he said, I would like to apologize to your husband. And he did."
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She realized it was the same house where much of the abuse of Charlie Bailey by Father Thomas Neary took place -
It was the same exact house
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Susan Bailey continued:
What was freaky is the house. I was looking around the house and it was all antiques..
In that very room Mrs Neary, his wife, used to give Charlie and other boys cookies after they were molested in the room nearby.
SUSAN: I said did Father Neary bring children to the house? And he said, yes, all the time. They would go to the back room and he would counsel them.
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And so the iceberg topples a little bit more
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Wherever Bailey and his wife Susan go, they take cards with an 800 number and information about the book, Bailey still makes public speeches.
They continue to find more survivors of Neary and other priests in the region but:
“They don’t want to talk,” Susan Bailey says.
“In the beginning, I understand it. I found this one survivor. One of my friends called me and said, I know this guy that's a cop and firefighter on the weekends and he was a victim of Father Neary. I know because he was always with him, I just know he was.
Susan Bailey continues:
“I picked up the phone and called him at the police station. He called me back. I said I heard you were abused by Father Neary. So was my husband. He wanted to meet right away.
"I got in my car and met him in a restaurant, then he came to our house and he spent five hours at our house.
But he said I don't want anyone to know about this and don’t use my name even with the bishop. He gave us the name of other possible victims.
Then by the time he left, he said okay to say his name to the bishop but not in the news media.
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Well City of Angels has expressed before how we feel.
Keeping the story secret of felonies committed on you by pedophile priests secret is being self destructively timid - the only way we will ever see justice is when there are hundreds of stories documented and we can see the similarities from state to state, city to city:
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“So many of them do the same thing,” said Susan Bailey.
“Constantly you can pick up any book, almost every story is exactly the same. When you talk to other victims, these guys do the same thing to their victims, it’s like they were taught in seminary.”
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BAILEY: I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary
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“I’ve sent the bishop eight survivors of Neary and each one said the bishop told them they were the only person that had come forward about Neary
“Eight Neary victims I know of were told that nobody spoke about Neary before they did by Bishop Moynihan..
BAILEY: What I found is, I’ve spoken to 4 to 500 abuses so far doing the hotline and some of the peer counseling I do. When it comes to someone that's a victim of the same perpetrators. it kicks it up a notch. It’s a lot more difficult to, I don't know what the right word is even. You connect but it’s almost like you connect too much.
Bailey is documenting Thomas Neary’s 45 year career of raping kids
“I disclosed in 2002 what happened to me, and after the one article they've been calling me to say they too are a victim.
“One guy called me at midnight and said I just had to call you. You were on the news talking about sexual abuse with a picture of Neary. He just sat up and said that's him that's him. His wife said what, and he said, that's what I’ve been holding in 37 years. Then he took next days off from work to tell his family and friends.
“He had thought about it but he thought he was the only one.
"These guys (pedophile priests) are masters. I also thought Neary was an anomaly. I thought he was maybe one or a couple."
CHARLES BAILEY: Thomas Neary had a 45-year career of raping children, and the story is just beginning to come out.
***
Giving credit where credit is due: I got the tip to track down Charles Bailey for a story after Peggy Warren interviewed the author on her monthly internet webcast/cable TV show Educating to End Abuse from Wichita, Kansas on WCTV.
For more information go to: http://www.educatingtoendabuse.com/id36.html
Onward. . .
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