Updated July 13, 2013
I’ve added more to this post, so if you have read it, you may want to reread.
(If you are new to this blog, you may want to read the posts “In a Nutshell” or go to July and read “Sending out a Letter.” Both of these posts give a brief description of what happened. As Emma’s mom, I am blogging my experiences with Emma and the things she did/does. This is a child who made up a story about rape, accused a priest of molesting her, and then as her attorney was about to file a lawsuit against the priest and the church, Emma accused her mother of physical abuse to stop the lawsuit because she knew her lies were about to be discovered. Emma is now living in Ohio with her some of her boyfriend’s family and talking about getting married to Tyler Buchheim, an architecture student at Notre Dame.)
Chapter 3
Emma Accuses a Priest
Up to 10% of child abuse claims turn out to be false.
On her Dad’s 52nd birthday, Sunday, March 21, 2010, Emma told us she’d been molested.
Sundays were usually a family/church day. We went to church and Sunday school in the mornings, and then took Emma back to church for her youth group in the evenings. Emma had been the secretary to the youth group, and enjoyed the position. Maybe it was her need for control, but Emma liked knowing what was going on with everyone and keeping tabs on who was coming to what. The only complaint I heard about her was from a couple of adults who mentioned that Emma was a little pushy and somewhat rude in some of her e-mails, being a little bit ugly when people did not respond to her requests for head counts and such. I tried to discuss this with Emma, occasionally proof read her e-mails and point out that she needed to be a little more polite in her writing, but of course this did not go over well.
I don’t really remember what we did on that day. I think it was a quiet day, and it may have been the year that I’d found a recipe for brussell sprout stuffed meatballs, which sounded like something Phill would love, and I spent the afternoon cooking. Emma went to her youth group, and Phill picked her up and brought her home.
That night, I was sitting in bed, reading, when Phill came in and said Emma had something to tell us. Emma hemmed and hawed about wanting to tell us, but not wanting to tell us, and finally said she had been molested by someone at church. Again, Emma went back and forth about telling us and not wanting to tell us who it was. My mind seemed to be going about a million miles an hour. I could not see how it could happen. Emma was never more than a few minutes away from me. If I didn’t know where she was or who she was with, I went to check on her. When she served as an acolyte, I would go downstairs to the Parish Hall after church, and if Emma didn’t show up within a few minutes, I would go back upstairs to check on her. I couldn’t understand how Emma could have been molested. I couldn’t think of anyone who would have had access to Emma long enough to molest her. Phill had suspected a gentleman who trained the acolytes. That was something I could not see because when the acolytes were training, they were always in a group.
I got upset and kept asking Emma, “Who?………Who molested you?” and told Emma to answer me. Finally, Emma cried and said, “He Baptized my dad!” Phill and I knew immediately whom she was referring to. Phill was baptized by an interim priest who served at our church for one year. This gentleman was retired and worked as a supply priest, filling in for different parishes and had agreed to serve at our church the year our priest left and the church was in the long process of looking for a new priest.
To file a complaint with the church, we had to write up a statement. Emma was reluctant to do this, and I had to push her to get it done. She and I wrote up her statement, and here is an excerpt of her description of what happened:
The first time it happened was after I had taken off my vestments and went across the hall to the ladies’ room. I was wearing shoes with a strap, and they were a bit too big for me. The strap kept falling down, so I stopped, just inside the doorway, to fix it. He walked in behind me, closed and locked the door. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew something was wrong. I was really scared. I backed up against the wall. I could see he was saying something because his lips were moving, but I think I was scared and shocked and didn’t really hear what he said. I couldn’t move. I just stood there and watched him. He was still talking, and he looked angry. I started to cry, and I closed my eyes. I could feel him lift up my dress and pull down my panties. He stuck his fingers inside me. I kept crying. I don’t know how long it lasted. It seemed like a long time, but it wasn’t. Afterwards, I was starting to process a little of what was happening. He told me he was going to baptize my dad, which I already knew, and he told me that if I told my family about this it would break my dad’s faith and tear my family apart. He washed his hands, then he went out of the restroom and closed the door behind him. I stood there crying for a few minutes, then I dried my face and went downstairs. I was very careful about how I acted; I believed what he said about my family, and I wanted so much for my dad to be baptized. So I acted like nothing had happened, and I didn’t tell anyone.
It happened four times after that. The only difference was that after the first time, it always happened in the sacristy. He would shut the door and do the same thing. And he always told me that if I told anyone, I would break my dad’s new faith. The times were about a month apart, until he left the church. Occasionally I would get unrobed and downstairs fast enough that he didn’t have a chance, so it didn’t happen every time I served.
Some side notes:
Does it seem a little odd that Emma claimed her friend had been raped on her birthday, just a few months before, and then announces her own story of molestation on her dad’s birthday?
There was one other thing that was odd that night. Several months before, Emma had overheard something and had been carrying it around, ruminating on it, and possibly, like on many other occasions, I believe Emma may have taken something she heard and made the story about herself. Emma heard something about a case of molestation, and months later, Emma had to be the victim of molestation. Did she really believe she was molested? Did she need to top the story she’d heard? Several people have mentioned to me that Emma may be a pathological liar. Some of the characteristics of a pathological liar seem to suit Emma:
1. The stories told are not entirely improbable and often have some element of truth.
2. The stories told tend toward presenting the liar favorably. For example, the person might be presented as being fantastically brave, knowing or being related to many famous people.
Another interesting point about pathological liars is that the average age of onset it 16 years old, the age Emma was when she told us she was molested.
Looking back on Emma’s lies, there was usually some element of truth to her stories. For example, she talked about drug parties at school after reading about the drug parties in the Reader’s Digest.
Emma told a story about having to call 911 on a boy she was babysitting, and that she had to lock herself in the bathroom, although she never babysat that child, BUT she had heard about the parents having to call 911 on their son. This lie also put Emma in a favorable light, showing how brave she was.
Emma told stories about her friends on the school bus. According to Emma, the four girls she rode the bus with all drank, and/or smoked, and/or did drugs, and/or were having sex, etc.
I have many more lies to share, but you can see a pattern of 1) some element of truth and 2) Emma portrayed as favorable in her stories.
I’m not trying to diagnose Emma. I am just a mom, and will share from a mother’s perspective. After so many people mentioned their own thoughts to me, I had to look up and read about pathological lying, and I can see why people would think that about Emma.
Losing Emma 