The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on "Blue Sunday," a Mass celebrated in April that brought together church leaders and survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Credit: Courtesy of Craig Polhamus

Three Catholic Upstate bishops will be in the room tonight (Thursday, Oct. 15) at the Spiritual Renewal Center in Syracuse when Bishop Mark O’Connell of Albany offers a public update on the work of a national Catholic panel. That committee is dedicated to protecting children and young people at a time when the church has been shaken by revelations of clergy sexual abuse.

The renewal center is part of the All Saints complex, at 1342 Lancaster Ave. The event came together through an invitation from Michael Koplinka-Loehr, a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest and a co-facilitator within the Syracuse Hope, Healing and Solidarity organization. It was formed as an offshoot of Call to Action at the St. Lucy’s and All Saints parishes, leading to a group that brought together survivors and their allies to cope with the wounds left by abuse.

Koplinka-Loehr said he has been impressed by the sincerity and diligence of O’Connell, who issued a statement last March, after the Albany diocese reached a long-awaited settlement agreement. O’Connell wrote that no monetary award could “erase the pain caused to survivors.” The Diocese of Albany would “commit to memory this sin to prevent it from happening again,” O’Connell wrote, “and today we begin again from the ashes to strengthen our precious diocese for the future.”

While Koplinka-Loehr said he and O’Connell have corresponded by email, they will meet for the first time today. Koplinka-Loehr finds aching meaning in the timing of this event, since it occurs simultaneous to a fierce national spotlight on allegations of a 2024 gang rape in a fraternity house at Cornell.

In the end, Koplinka-Loehr said, sexual assault always revolves around the same two factors:

Power and control.

“It’s the story of too many people’s lives,” he said, recalling how thousands upon thousands of children or teens targeted by priests suffered in silence, feeling they had nowhere to turn for help. Koplinka-Loehr, while hoping to make sure Central New Yorkers knew about tonight’s meeting, expressed concern about this article putting too much emphasis on his own individual story:

The meeting tonight, he said, is really about the pain experienced by every survivor of clergy abuse, a number globally of staggering dimensions.

As for O’Connell, he is chair-elect of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People. Bishop Douglas Lucia of Syracuse will be in the hall tonight to hear O’Connell’s 7 p.m. presentation, as will Bishop John Bonnici of Rochester, who also serves on that national committee.

The gathering is open to the public, Koplinka-Loehr said, and a question and answer period will follow O’Connell’s talk.

To have three bishops together, publicly acknowledging suffering that for all too long was denied or concealed, holds great meaning for Koplinka-Loehr. He grew up in Ithaca, where he still resides. He said his own ordeal began in the early 1970s, when he was 15 and attended a Catholic retreat in Canandaigua.

“That’s where the grooming started,” Koplinka-Loehr said.

Beginning that day, a priest from Syracuse took what initially seemed like an almost paternal interest in the teen. That soon accelerated into visits to his home to pick him up for racquetball, which turned into sexual abuse that would continue for years.

Koplinka-Loehr eventually married and raised a family. For decades, he remained haunted and shaken by what he had endured. If you are a devout Catholic and you are abused by a priest, he said the sense of betrayal is so complete and so sickening that it makes you question “your whole reason for being on the planet.”

Wounds so deep, he said, require lifetimes to repair. He is retired now from a career in human services. He said his particular role of outreach and healing, for almost 25 years, has been speaking out on behalf of the legion of teens and children across the nation whose lives were damaged — if not destroyed — by predatory priests.

Last February, Chief Judge Wendy Kinsella, of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York, approved an agreement that will distribute $176.1 million to hundreds of survivors of abuse by Catholic priests in the Syracuse area, with an arbiter deciding specific awards. Koplinka-Loehr — who accepted a relatively small monetary settlement from the Syracuse diocese, eight years ago — knows the ongoing payments will leave many Catholics “wishing they could push it all behind them and be done with us.”

The truth, he said, is that recovery from abuse is a process that never ends, and the damage caused by abusers is generational. A monetary settlement might provide legal satisfaction, “but it does nothing for the actual soul of the survivor,” said Koplinka-Loehr, part of a Central New York group called the Men’s Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivor Program that operates under the Hope, Healing and Solidarity umbrella.

He said any survivors looking for support, counsel and friendship are welcome to email him at mak11@cornell.edu.

Thinking of the ongoing pain at Cornell, he maintains the only path toward healing involves sunlight, honesty and institutional responsibility. One of the major questions in every diocese, for instance: Will Catholic leaders ever truly “open the books,” to reveal how and why — and by whom — predatory priests managed to shift from parish to parish, for so many years?

If you seek such answers — and if you want to show support for so many who were hurt — Koplinka-Loehr hopes to see you tonight, at the center for renewal.

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Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Central Current. He has been an Upstate journalist for more than 50 years. He held his first reporting job as a teenager and worked for newspapers in Dunkirk, Niagara...