BROTHERS SHARE MESSAGE OF FORGIVENESS
Fr. Joe Nohs (on left / Donald Nohs (on right)
Locked in an embrace of prayer; for forgiveness and healing
for the sins of the world
Eastport — One brother was abused by a priest when he was a child; the other
is a priest who asked himself how he could continue to wear his Roman collar
when he learned of his brother’s traumatic experience. Standing in front of
a silent crowd, backed by an image of the Shroud of Turin, the brothers embraced.
They had come to Our Lady of the Island Shrine here Saturday to speak of
forgiveness and to pray for their own healing and the healing of the Church.
Father Joe Nohs (left) and his brother, Donald Nohs,
embrace in prayerful moment before sharing their own
stories regarding clergy sexual abuse.
(TLIC photo by Lena Pennino)
The Shroud of Turin, kept as a precious relic and venerated for centuries as the
burial cloth of Jesus although scientific evidence is inconclusive, bears a
black and white image that resembles a photo negative of a bearded man, marked
with wounds of crucifixion, scourging and a crown of thorns, his eyes closed, his
hands folded for burial. Some speculate that a flash of energy created the image
on the Shroud of Turin at the moment of the Resurrection.
The two brothers, Donald Nohs of Babylon, and Father Jospeh Nohs of Maria Regina
Parish in Seaford,NY, both dressed in black and white, seemed also poised in a
moment between death and resurrection, between the pain of sexual abuse and the
hope of rebirth through forgiveness.
A brother, a victim
“One night, this priest abused me. I knew that what he was doing to me was wrong,”
said Donald Nohs, 50, married father of three, parishioner of St. Joseph’s Church
in Babylon and an employee of Brookhaven Town. He is an executive board member of
the Conservative Party for Suffolk County, the president of the John Bosco Lodge
(OSIA), and also a member of the Diocesan Review Board for cases referred by the
Office for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Mr. Nohs, who was 11 or 12 years old at the time of his abuse, he was confused more
than angry because he had known so many priests who had loved him in the right
way. He was an active Church member and priests often visited him while growing
up in Copiague. “I don’t know why I didn’t say anything right away,” he said.
He repressed his memories of sexual abuse until 1999.
“I was watching EWTN (Eternal World Television Network)” and had recognized a
priest being interviewed. “Oh, that’s Father so and so,” he said. Then as he
watched the priest who appeared about 70, in his mind “thoughts came back like
clips from a movie.” By the end of that month, he remembered more and more until
“it was crystal clear,” he had been molested. The priest, a member of a religious
order, was still in active ministry, residing in another diocese. Mr. Nohs
notified authorities about his abuse; the priest was arrested and later accused
of abusing other children.
Mr. Nohs’s life was turned upside down; he was 50 and had only recently remembered
his victimization. He had heard that victims sometimes become abusers themselves
and feared, “When I am going to start liking children?”
A devout Catholic all his life, Mr. Nohs has a special devotion to the Holy
Face of Jesus, and regularly spends an hour of prayer each evening before an
image the Lord’s Holy Face.
For years before recovering the memory of abuse, he had prayed for the same
intention: reparation for sins, his own and all of humanities.
As a child of seven, he recalled the first moment he prayed for the forgiveness
of others, “I overhead some kids cursing.” So, he turned toward the cross on the
roof of the Church and prayed, “Forgive them, Lord, for cursing in front of You.”
To this day, when a bus whizzes by or a plane zooms overhead, he asks, “Lord,
forgive anyone in there who may have sinned against you.”
In the days and weeks during which he was coming to terms with the memory of
abuse, he confronted God to express his anger. “Jesus,” he said choking back
tears. “One of your priests sexually abused me.”
“I am justified in my anger,” he continued.
He looked at the shroud’s image again and he heard a reply to his prayer deep in
his heart. “Donald, will you forgive him?” He was shocked, and repeated
emphatically, “Jesus, this priest abused me sexually. I am angry and I am
justified on this.”
In his heart, he heard Jesus respond again: “Not only do I want you to forgive
him but, I ask you, will you make an act of reparation to me for him?”
Many in the crowd of 60 who were listening at the shrine last week looked
surprised. After a long silence, Mr. Nohs recounted that he answered, “Yes,
Jesus, I will.” That night, he lay prostrate on the ground and with his tongue,
licked the concrete floor of his basement as an act of Reparation.
“This was between me and God,” he explained. That’s what “I had to do for me
personally.” “The peace that overcame me that night, I still have to this day,”
Mr. Nohs said.
A brother, a priest
After Mr. Nohs spoke, his brother, Father Joseph Nohs gave him a hug before he
retold his own experiences. “Forgive me for talking about me,” said Father Joe,
40, associate pastor of Maria Regina Church in Seaford, explaining that his
brother asked him to speak. “We all know who the real victims are,” he said
alluding to victims of sexual abuse.
When Father Joe heard about his brother’s abuse, he had to admit, “There was a
kernel of doubt in my head.” This was before the sexual abuse cases were widely
publicized and in his heart, he rejected the idea (at first) that a priest could
be capable of this. He thought, “But I know priests; priests don’t do this.”
But he also knew his older brother. They had grown up together as part of a
large Catholic family of 10 kids. At 9 years of age, Mr. Nohs had been president
of an organization named after St. Dominic Savio; collecting lollipops for Boys
Town on Halloween, staying for extra prayers after catechism and serving as an
altar boy during Mass.
When Father Joe came to grips with the truth of what had happened to his brother,
he felt their whole family had been violated.
In the next year, as the sexual abuse scandals began to unfold, “I wanted to
crawl under a rock,” Father Joe said. “Every time I opened a newspaper it was
like another nail had been pounded into my heart. It was like being crucified
every day.”
One day, after praying with a dying man, he recalled feeling “honored to be a
priest,” he said. But as he drove home, he spotted 10 teen-agers who “started
shouting obscenities at me just because of this collar,” he said. “I wanted to
scream, ‘Not all of us are like that.’”
After one news report, Father Joe became “venomously angry.” He discovered that
a priest who had been a classmate at the seminary, abused teen-agers at a parish
he had served in. That particular priest had taken Father Joe’s place at the
parish. Again the hurt was personal. “I built up that youth group.”
“How come I couldn’t see that this brother priest was an abuser?” he lamented.
Although he admits that evil takes on many disguises and even one of Jesus’
disciples betrayed him, he feels he should have been able to know what that
priest was capable of.
Now, “I feel like God is calling me to go see him (the priest perpetrator) but
I am afraid of what I might do,” he said. “I am called to forgive but I am not
ready yet.”
“The kids from the youth group called to tell me what happened. One asked,
‘Father, are you like that too?’” He paused and asked the audience, “Did I want
to take off this collar and run and hide? Yes.”
Like the apostles who fled during and after Jesus’ execution, “I’ve been hiding
in the upper room. This is the first time I am speaking publicly (about my
experiences with the sexual abuse scandals). This is my Pentecost.”
“We need your help to pull us (priests) out of hiding,” he said to the audience.
“We need your forgiveness for our silence, and your prayers.” He noted that
Maria Regina parishioners encouraged him to continue in his vocation even when
he didn’t think he could. He thanked them for that.
“The healing process always starts with forgiveness,” his brother Donald Nohs
emphasized. “Forgiveness is hard; but it is necessary, as a Catholic, and disciple
of Jesus, I have no other options”
Mr. Nohs also noted that his forgiveness will not mean reconciliation between
himself and the priest. He has no plans to speak to the priest who pled ‘not
guilty’ against the charges. At the same time, Mr. Nohs has asked God not to
condemn the priest for the sins committed against him.
We must support and pray for the so many good priests who stay true and faithful to
their priesthood.
As a victim speaking on forgiveness, my brother, Fr. Joe supports my apostolate.
And as a victim, I support the priesthood of my brother and all other good priests.
“Our hope from this presentation is that healing spreads in the local Church of
Long Island to the universal Church world-wide,” Mr. Nohs said.
