John Heffernan
“It’s a surprise that opening up about being a survivor has allowed me to love my family, friends, and community more deeply and to be loved more fully.”
Awake: I’m so glad to talk with you, John. Thank you for being open to sharing your story. As we begin, what would you like to share about yourself and your life?
John Heffernan: I am 53, the son of two deeply Catholic parents. My dad was a former Trappist monk, and he and my mother met in New York City in the early 1960s as part of a Catholics for Latin America group. I grew up in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia and attended Catholic schools through 12th grade.
I have worked with children my entire working life as a teacher and school director for over 30 years, and my wife, Karen, and I have been together longer than that. We live in Durham, North Carolina. Karen is a veterinarian, so over the years we have fostered or brought into our family countless critters. We are the proud and loving parents of three daughters, with two in high school and one in middle school. We joke that they are the first non-rescued family members and that someone may have to rescue them!
Outside of all this, I am also an alcoholic who has now been sober for three years. As an addict, sobriety has been one of the greatest and kindest gifts to myself, my family, and my work community. It is no coincidence that my journey to healing and growth in sobriety parallels my healing as a survivor of clergy sexual abuse.
Q. Congratulations on your sobriety, John! I’m sure it’s taken a tremendous amount of hard work. You mentioned your abuse; what would you be comfortable sharing about it?
A. When I was sexually abused at 19 years old, I was trying to figure out a lot. It was the classic stuff of a young adult, centered around my parents’ addiction and mental health issues, and my calling in life.
And that’s when my favorite and trusted high school teacher and mentor introduced me to my abuser, a Jesuit who was the provost at a prestigious Catholic university and who offered me a scholarship and a fresh start. What I thought was a lifeline turned out to be a bit of the opposite as it added new struggles around my faith, sexuality, and addiction.
Once I started at the university my abuser groomed me in what I now know are the tactics of a sexual predator. After the second sexual assault, I asked him what he was doing, that it wasn’t right, and that it needed to stop. His only words were “You don’t want to do that,” and he said them over and over.
A few weeks before graduation, I reported my abuse to the college president, also a Jesuit. He listened, but then said, “You need to talk with the university attorney.” After I met with the attorney, the university president contacted me to say that my abuser wanted to meet with me. The university’s tactic of “lawyering” my abuse and having me face my abuser—rather than punishing the abuser and healing the survivor—led to further harm.
Q. John, I’m so sorry that this happened to you. Thank you for trusting us to hear about this experience. Can you say a little about why you decided to share your story with us?
A. The feeling of being alone and lonely in my abuse, with my faith shaken and scared to be vulnerable, has been heavy, tiring, and pretty miserable. Awake members have opened up their hearts to empower me to embrace my feelings, share them together, and transform them, all while holding my hand.
I came forward to my university’s president again in 2020, thirty years after initially coming forward as a survivor. This time my university sent a letter apologizing to the entire university community and the Washington Post ran a story about it. But I felt like it was not my story—it was my abuser’s. A few weeks later the paper ran a second story, this one from the perspective of another alumnus who reported that he was abused by the same priest. Immediately after reading this account from a fellow survivor, my chest suddenly felt open. It was as if my heart got bigger and I was able to breathe more freely, with newfound capacity in my lungs. I was not alone. What I felt was the collective courage and healing that takes hold when survivors are able to share safely with others.
Q. What a powerful description: being able to breathe again! As you look over your journey as a survivor, John, what would you say has been the most challenging about it so far?
A. The loss of faith and love. For us as Catholics, Jesus was love incarnate, a cosmic love that is at the core of our God’s creative power. We are this love in human form. It is the love that binds parents and children, community members and strangers. It is the love that brings about miracles, things we never imagined and beyond what our senses know to be true. The familial faith my ancestors brought from Ireland and Czechoslovakia was one of hope.
So when this priest, someone of such power, talked to me about love and faith and then abused me, it made me second-guess myself, my faith, and the deeper role of love as the growth of my spirituality. I boxed my faith away, scared to practice it because it led this powerful teacher to abuse me. It has been the love from my university community since coming forward this second time, as well as my closest friends, my mentors, and the Awake community that have all empowered me and restored my Catholic faith. I have a deeper understanding of the love of God that is my greatest gift and source of strength.
Q. That’s beautiful. Can you name anyone who has been particularly helpful in your healing and recovery process? How have they helped you?
A. During the same period in college that I was being abused, my college roommate introduced me to a hard-nosed card player who cursed a lot, laughed hard, and liked to win. Little did I know this person would be the real lifesaver: my wife of 27 years whom I have loved for 34 years. Being there, holding my hand, and knowing me, deeply, from the time of my abuse, my wife has been an emotional bedrock. She has comforted me and believed in me through this thirty-plus-year journey as a survivor. Her greatest gift is a radical tenderness that goes both ways; it not only flows to me, propelling my spiritual growth, but it also allows me to bring forth my own tenderness. Her other three-decade gift and message to me is, “Don’t sell yourself short.” She loves me and is my biggest champion, not because I do special things, but because of who I inherently am, the specialness that is at my core.
Q. It’s wonderful that you have the gift of Karen’s support. John, I’m so grateful to you for sharing your story with the Awake community. We all wish you continued healing and growth. As we close, what would you say has surprised you most in your journey as a survivor?
A. It’s a surprise that opening up about being a survivor has allowed me to love my family, friends, and community more deeply and to be loved more fully. In therapy a couple years ago I suddenly realized that the last time I had been openly vulnerable about my deeper emotions was when my abuser asked me to open up about my parents: my dad’s struggles as an alcoholic and my mother’s challenges with depression and anxiety. After my abuser sexually assaulted me, I really refused to be vulnerable with people for fear of being deeply hurt again. That was over 30 years of keeping the darker, scarier parts of my fears pushed way down and bubble-wrapping my emotions. I never really let anyone fully in.
Going sober, being in therapy, re-engaging with my Catholic spirituality through the Center for Action and Contemplation, re-engaging with my university community to hold them accountable, and being welcomed by the members of Awake—all of this gives me deeper courage to be selectively vulnerable and more open and loving to everyone from my mother to a new family at our school. I’m able to be compassionate in ways I’ve never experienced before.
—Interview by Erin O’Donnell
Note from Awake: We extend heartfelt thanks to John for sharing his story. We also want to acknowledge that every survivor’s path is different. We honor the journeys of all who have experienced sexual abuse by Catholic leaders and are committed to bringing you their stories. In addition to John’s story, we encourage you to read our previous Survivor Stories here.
If you have experienced sexual abuse, you can receive support through the National Sexual Abuse Hotline, 800-656-4673, which operates 24 hours a day. If you seek support from the Catholic Church, you can find the contact information for your diocesan victim assistance coordinator here. Also, Awake is always open to listening to and learning from survivors. If you would like to connect with us, we invite you to email Survivor Care Coordinator Esther Harber at estherharber@awakecommunity.org.
