Post by LadyBlue on Jan 19, 2013 19:20:31 GMT -5
The product of an alcoholic, volatile father who served in the military and a scared mother, Van Handel was the third of five children, Eckert read. The priest went to high school in the 1960s at St. Anthony's, a campus of sandstone facades and grand towers near Old Mission Santa Barbara run by the Franciscan religious order.
Years later, while attending graduate school in Berkeley, he started a boys choir at a local parish, despite his self-professed lack of musical skills. There, Van Handel wrote, he met one of his first victims.
He was 7 or 8. Light hair. Blue eyes. His parents were divorcing and grateful for the priest's interest in their son.
Around this time, Van Handel wrote, he implied to a Franciscan counselor that he was sexually attracted to boys. The counselor quickly changed the subject.
In 1975, at age 28, Van Handel returned to St. Anthony's as a teacher and founded the Santa Barbara Boys Choir.
The Eckert boys joined when Damian was about 10 and his brother, Bob, about 8. Choir members, dressed in the blazer-and-shorts style of English schoolboys, mainly sang Catholic hymns. Damian was a soprano, Bob an alto.
They felt at ease around Van Handel, a soft-spoken friar who eschewed his brown robe for striped shirts. He tsk-tsked boys who flubbed notes, but he also allowed them to play the seminary organ and swim at the school pool.
When Damian was about 11, he recalled, his parents told him they were splitting up. The next day at choir practice, he tried to sing. Instead, tears. He ran into the hallway. Van Handel followed. Everything will be OK, the priest promised.
As the weeks went by, he chatted with the boy in his office, strolled with him around the mission. Eventually, Damian said, Van Handel persuaded him to try on "special shorts" -- extra-large, the priest wrote, so he could see up them. Other boys had worn them too.
articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/16/local/la-me-priest-abuse-20130116
Years later, while attending graduate school in Berkeley, he started a boys choir at a local parish, despite his self-professed lack of musical skills. There, Van Handel wrote, he met one of his first victims.
He was 7 or 8. Light hair. Blue eyes. His parents were divorcing and grateful for the priest's interest in their son.
Around this time, Van Handel wrote, he implied to a Franciscan counselor that he was sexually attracted to boys. The counselor quickly changed the subject.
In 1975, at age 28, Van Handel returned to St. Anthony's as a teacher and founded the Santa Barbara Boys Choir.
The Eckert boys joined when Damian was about 10 and his brother, Bob, about 8. Choir members, dressed in the blazer-and-shorts style of English schoolboys, mainly sang Catholic hymns. Damian was a soprano, Bob an alto.
They felt at ease around Van Handel, a soft-spoken friar who eschewed his brown robe for striped shirts. He tsk-tsked boys who flubbed notes, but he also allowed them to play the seminary organ and swim at the school pool.
When Damian was about 11, he recalled, his parents told him they were splitting up. The next day at choir practice, he tried to sing. Instead, tears. He ran into the hallway. Van Handel followed. Everything will be OK, the priest promised.
As the weeks went by, he chatted with the boy in his office, strolled with him around the mission. Eventually, Damian said, Van Handel persuaded him to try on "special shorts" -- extra-large, the priest wrote, so he could see up them. Other boys had worn them too.
articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/16/local/la-me-priest-abuse-20130116
