About

Hi!

My name is Cait Finnegan and I’m a survivor of sexual abuse by a Sister of Mercy. #Churchtoo

I grew up in Woodside/Sunnyside Queens, NYC and attended Queen of Angels elementary school where we were taught by the Sisters of Mercy. Later I attended Mater Christi Diocesan High School in Astoria where the girls were taught by the Sisters of Mercy and the boys were taught by the Christian Brothers.

My Da and me after playing ball on vacation here in the Poconos. She started in when I returned to school. I was 15.

It was in Mater Christi that I was first groomed and then abused for a few years by Sister Mary Juanita Barto. The abuse took place in classrooms and parlors in Mater Christi H.S. (now known as St. John’s Prep), on school buses to away games, on retreat in Graymore in Garrison NY, in my family home in Queens, in our vacation home in Sussex, NJ, and, after she was transferred from Mater Christi, in her new convent in Holy Trinity H.S. in Hicksville, L.I., as well as in her sister’s family home in Glen Cove, L.I. where she took me to meet her family.

She was a woman who manipulated every occasion to get what she wanted, and call it holy, using the Sacred Scripture from St. John saying “God is Love” to justify her acts. It took me until I was in my 40’s to finally understand that God truly IS Love, and that SHE was the deceiver who quoted Scripture and turned it into something evil, destroying its meaning for me, and causing me to fear God for years.

This abuse has trapped me for years in many ways, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and even with the stress-related physical disabilities I now have. Not until my elderly mother was almost 80 years old did I have the strength to tell her about the abuse. My father was long dead, and I was always afraid if he knew about what this Sister did he would have killed her with his own hands. I saved her life–while my own was suffering more and more as the years progressed.

Finally, no longer able to contain the rage and pain within I told my family: my mother, brother, husband and daughter. Since then I’ve been trying to heal. That is ongoing and it is work.

I have not lost my Faith, but I am no longer a Roman Catholic. My husband and I left the Roman Catholic Church and now belong to a small Independent Old Catholic, Celtic Rite Church where I am spiritually nourished and can live my Faith.

Since my marriage in 1980 my husband and I have been involved in Church reform, particularly trying to help women who’ve been abused by priests (Good Tidings Ministry). In 1997 I was ordained a priest in the Celtic Christian Church, and have continued to do my best, along with others, to help others who’ve been hurt by sexual misconduct in the catholic/universal Church.

Although I have other blogs, I’ve began this one called “Abuse By Nuns” because I need to “think in ink” and if it helps anyone else who has been abused by nuns to face those ugly realities and deal with them, then I am grateful to be able to encourage that.

Just as with all survivors, there is so much that has been affected and continues to be by what is carried within. This blog is just a means to get a bit of it out.

I currently live in the Poconos, PA.