My father, the priest
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
Jim Graham, with a photo of Rev. Thomas Sullivan.
Boston Globe
Boston Globe
In 1993, during a meeting in
Buffalo, N.Y., I learned that the man who had raised me was not my
father and that the Rev. Thomas S. Sullivan, a priest from Lowell,
likely was. After looking at the obituary and accompanying photo, there
was no question in my mind that he was my father, since his facial
features mirrored mine. But I never knew him, the result of a
well-orchestrated scheme by the church to save its reputation during the
conservative post-World War II era of the late ’40s.
Even
though the revelation occurred nearly a half-century after my birth, I
found the church was intent on disguising my origin; it stonewalled me
for years. In my quest for transparency, I interviewed many of my
father’s contemporaries from the Oblate order. They were shocked by my
likeness to their old friend. However, in every case, they referred to
my father as Tom Sullivan, never as “your father.”
Each
meeting offered a bit of information about him; he was an eloquent
speaker, an avid reader, a prolific writer, and witty. One priest asked,
“Did you get the money for your education? We wanted to do the right
thing.” When I said, “What money?” his facial expression twisted in
anguish. At the end of a very revealing discussion, he offered this
advice: “Forget the injustices of the past, you have good genes, get on
with the rest of your life.” A few months later, I revisited the priest,
who denied having said what he divulged in our first meeting.
My most extraordinary meeting was with
a nun who knew my father well. She wrote me a note following our
luncheon, in which she said, “Ever since Saturday all I can see is your
beautiful smiling face when I opened the door. You have no idea how you
affected me. You are the very image of your father.” She was the only
nun or clergy I met who said “your father.” Her words warmed my heart.
The circumstantial evidence I have
accumulated over the last two decades relating to me and my father is
overwhelming; yet the church remains silent. In December 2017, Olan
Horne, an advocate for survivors of priest abuse who took up my cause,
told my story to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in a move to get the Oblates to
do the right thing. He was appointed by Pope Francis to advise a
worldwide reform commission focused on sexual abuse in the church, and I
hoped the cardinal would have the power and persuasion to bring
resolution to my case. O’Malley called the US Provincial of the
Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate on my behalf, yet the stonewalling
continued.
Later, at my request and expense, the
Oblates granted me permission to exhume my father’s remains to
facilitate a DNA comparison. It is disturbing, though, that to prove my
claim, I am left with this gruesome and emotionally painful process,
when the church already knows the results. Why add more pain to a
lifetime of pain?
As a last resort,
I sent a respectful and poignant letter to Cardinal O’Malley to abort
the exhumation and replace it with the truth. A month after receiving my
letter, at the 11th hour, the cardinal’s spokesperson wrote back to me,
“The Cardinal does not have standing regarding the oversight of matters
regarding the late Rev. Thomas Sullivan.” Lastly, the cardinal’s office
offered his eminence’s prayers.
I
thank the cardinal for his prayers; however, this is not a matter for
divine intervention. The men of the cloth need to state the truth — that
I was denied my father, a basic human right, because he was a Catholic
priest.
James C. Graham has spent more than 25 years attempting to prove that Rev. Thomas S. Sullivan was his father.
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