\n<\/p>\n
A survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a defrocked Boston Catholic priest who was portrayed admitting to molesting minors in the Oscar-winning Hollywood film Spotlight says he hopes the clergyman\u2019s recent death in prison helps victims of his crimes and their families \u201ckeep pressing forward every single day\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe live with a big burden in our hearts and on our backs,\u201d Keith Townsend said on Wednesday while reflecting on the criminal charges which he successfully pursued against Ronald Paquin, who was imprisoned in 2019 and died in custody at age 83 on 11 September. \u201cAnd my hope is that people can find closure and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those remarks by Townsend, 52, during a telephone interview were a notable reaction to the death of one of the key figures in the clergy sexual abuse and cover-up scandal with the Catholic archdiocese of Boston that \u2013 among other consequences \u2013 prompted the resignation of the institution\u2019s archbishop, Bernard Law, at the end of 2002, as well as policy reforms across the US church.<\/p>\n
That same year, Paquin had pleaded guilty to sexually abusing an altar server from 1989 to 1992 while working at St John the Baptist church in the Boston suburb of Haverhill, Massachusetts. He was stripped of his clerical status and imprisoned in Massachusetts for that abuse, which was first publicly exposed in a Pulitzer-winning series of investigative articles by the Boston Globe newspaper\u2019s Spotlight team.<\/p>\n
Paquin was freed in 2015. And learning of that release motivated Townsend \u2013 once a St John altar server, too \u2013 to come forward and report being abused himself by Paquin while on camping trips to Kennebunkport, Maine, between 1985 and 1989.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Keith Townsend talks to the media outside court in Alfred, Maine in 2018.<\/span> Photograph: Portland Press Herald\/Getty Images<\/p>\n As Townsend put it, he was between the ages of eight and 13 when Paquin molested him. Townsend recalled Paquin plying him with drugs and alcohol during the abuse, eventually leading him to battles with substance abuse addiction and incarceration.<\/p>\n A Maine grand jury indicted Paquin in 2017 on new charges of gross sexual misconduct in connection with Townsend and another individual. Paquin faced a jury trial in November 2018 which culminated in a guilty verdict against him with regards to Townsend, though he was acquitted of having abused the other individual.<\/p>\n Maine judge Wayne Douglas sentenced Paquin in May 2019 to 16 more years in prison. Paquin was in the Mountain View correctional facility in Charleston, Maine, when he died, the state\u2019s department of correction said in a news release.<\/p>\n Speaking five days later, Townsend said he first got word of Paquin\u2019s death from his wife, who saw it circulating on the news and social media. He said he understood the many reactions which he subsequently heard or read that took delight in news of Paquin\u2019s death.<\/p>\n But Townsend, now a New Hampshire resident, also said he used the occasion to think about his \u201cshaking off\u201d the drug and alcohol addiction which had a grip on him in the wake of Paquin\u2019s abuse. He said he contemplated the family he had built after overcoming \u201cone of the biggest obstacles that could be thrown\u201d at a person.<\/p>\n \u201cI get those who think the attitude should be, \u2018Fuck him. Fuck what he did to me,\u2019\u201d Townsend said. \u201cBut look where I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n Townsend said he sought Paquin\u2019s re-imprisonment with the aim of \u201cprotecting children \u2026 not [from] a man [but] a monster\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cMassachusetts just kind of let him go,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cSo I had to dig deep \u2026 [because] I didn\u2019t want anybody else to possibly have to go through [his] abuse. Maine thankfully had the balls to take this case, aggressively prosecute it and get a good outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Townsend said he had not yet been able to see Spotlight, which dramatizes the Globe\u2019s uncovering of the clergy sexual abuse scandal that roiled the city\u2019s archdiocese. And therefore Townsend had not viewed the famous scene in the film in which Rachel McAdams, playing reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, confronts an actor portraying Paquin on his home\u2019s front doorstep about allegations of molesting boys at St John the Baptist.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, I fooled around \u2013 but I never felt gratified myself,\u201d the actor playing Paquin, Richard O\u2019Rourke, says in response as the journalist scribbles notes in a paper pad while wearing an astonished facial expression.<\/p>\n \u201cRight, um, but you admit to molesting boys at St John the Baptist?\u201d McAdams\u2019 Pfeiffer then asks O\u2019Rourke\u2019s Paquin. The latter\u2019s reply: \u201cYes, yes. But, as I said, I never got any pleasure from it.\u201d<\/p>\n Another person closely familiar with Spotlight offered an opinion of that scene\u2019s legacy on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Attorney Mitchell Garabedian \u2013 who is portrayed in the 2015 movie by Stanley Tucci and has represented numerous victims of sexual abuse by Paquin and other clerics \u2013 said that part of Spotlight provided a powerful cue to survivors of clergy molesters that they were not alone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt gave a sense of, \u2018A-ha, I\u2019m not the only one,\u2019\u201d in one of Hollywood\u2019s most critically acclaimed films, Garabedian said. \u2018\u201cIt wasn\u2019t my fault, and I shouldn\u2019t feel guilty.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Townsend said ultimately he is grateful for anything that raised awareness about Paquin\u2019s atrocities before his push to bring him to justice.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I lay my head down tonight, I know it saved lives\u201d getting Paquin imprisoned for his remaining years, Townsend added. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what matters to me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a defrocked Boston Catholic priest who was portrayed admitting to molesting minors in the Oscar-winning Hollywood film Spotlight says he hopes the clergyman\u2019s recent death in prison helps victims of his crimes and their families \u201ckeep pressing forward every single day\u201d. \u201cWe live with a big burden in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[682,1285,1620,12611,25330,986,376,459,132,25329,359,9043],"class_list":{"0":"post-52287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-big","10":"tag-brings","11":"tag-burden","12":"tag-catholicism","13":"tag-closure","14":"tag-death","15":"tag-hopes","16":"tag-live","17":"tag-priests","18":"tag-sexual","19":"tag-survivor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}