Sex abuse victim tells of Latino difficulties in going public

Published: 2004-07-01

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Two years ago, while holding his 1-year-old son, Johnny Vega decided to go public as a victim of child sex abuse by a priest. "I didn't want the same thing to happen to him," explained Vega, a Puerto Rican who has started a support group exclusively for Latino abuse victims. Vega said that going public as a victim of a priest is especially difficult for Latinos because of the strong ties in Hispanic culture to the Catholic Church and the high esteem families have for the parish priest. The 40-year-old Vega said his abuse began when he was 11 years old and living in a Hispanic parish in the Diocese of Paterson, N.J. He did not tell his mother about the abuse until last January. "My mother gave a nervous laugh when I told her. She changed the subject for a month when I brought it up," he said in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service. In May, Vega started the first Latino chapter of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national support and advocacy group. It holds bilingual meetings the first Sunday of every month at a karate studio in Totowa, N.J.

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