He urged the church in New Jersey to address sexual assault. A new book tells of his journey

For most of his life, Ed Hanratty carried a burden that he has only recently begun to overcome.

He said he was sexually abused when he was an altar boy at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Ridgefield Park about 35 years ago.

The Rev. Gerald Sudol was a charismatic priest in his 30s who came to St. Francis in the 1980s and became instantly popular. He was known for his outgoing personality, paying special attention to the boys and cracking jokes, Hanratty said.

Hanratty said Sudol first kissed him when he was 11, beginning a four-year series of abuse. One day, while they were swimming alone in his family’s backyard swimming pool, the priest molested him, Hanratty said, an incident he later described as “the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Now 47, Hanratty said he suffered from the effects of his trauma: substance abuse, intimacy issues, anxiety, depression, disdain for authority and low self-esteem. “I realised that this was manifesting itself in the emptiness I felt, in confusion and identity. That is the emptiness that a drug addict jumps into to find answers. To run away from that, I started drinking heavily in my teenage years.”

His latest stop on a lifelong search for healing and justice is a new autobiography in which he describes the harrowing journey of his childhood. “Nervous exhaustion: “A Gen X Saga of Clergy Abuse, PTSD, and the Path to Acceptance” will be released on July 1st and is already available for pre-order on Amazon as a Kindle version. A 475-page hardcover edition will also be available soon.

Hanratty has lived in West Milford with his wife for 22 years. For most of his life he worked as a television news archivist.

But his seemingly stable resume belies the emotional turmoil beneath the surface. For decades, he said in an interview, he tried to block the abuse from his memory. Then he tried to convince himself it was no big deal.

The book, which took 12 years to write, is the culmination of a long, therapeutic journey, Hanratty said. He began writing it for himself, but realized it was important for others to read it, too. The memoir was self-published through Amazon Kindle Direct and is available for purchase at prices ranging from $10 to $24.99.

The main message of the book is that healing is a lifelong process, but accepting this reality was difficult.

“I wanted a quick solution,” Hanratty said.

More: Five years later, victims of clergy abuse are still waiting for the New Jersey Attorney General’s report

Hanratty went public with his story in 2018 and was part of a wave of accusers that forced New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses to confront a history of clergy abuse. The dioceses released a list in 2019 of 188 priests who were considered “credibly accused” of misconduct, including Sudol.

“Ed Hanratty was a pioneer in ensuring that the abuse he suffered was made known and dealt with by the appropriate authorities,” said Robert Hoatson of West Orange, another victim of clergy abuse and a community advocate.

Hoatson, who is also releasing a book soon, said publishing such stories is a positive way to “process your trauma. It’s cathartic to get it out there. The more I wrote, the more memories came back. It’s a way of telling the truth.”

Hanratty, however, had remained silent for decades about what he had suffered.

The turning point was a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report that documented the stories of hundreds of victims of clergy abuse in the Keystone State and a decades-long cover-up by the church.

Reading the report, Hanratty said, he felt like he was reading his own autobiography.

“I realized I was part of something much bigger,” he said. “I realized I, too, had been carrying this burden for so long that it affected every aspect of my life.”

Hanratty had kept the sordid details of his abuse secret from his closest friends and family, even though they often suffered the most.

Shortly after the grand jury report was released, he recounted the details of his abuse in his hometown newspaper in Ridgefield Park. After the report was published, he received an email that made his blood run cold: “I don’t know if you remember me,” it said, “but I was an altar boy with you and went through the same thing with Father Gerry.”

Like Hanratty, the author said he had never told anyone about it.

Hanratty said he later learned of many other victims who remained silent. At least two, he learned, died young from drug overdoses.

Following Hanratty’s revelations, Sudol, then 64, was forced to leave his parish in Jersey City. The clergyman had faced similar allegations 15 years earlier and was one of nine priests whose accusers reached a $1 million settlement with the Archdiocese of Newark in 2004. Sudol, however, was reassigned to work at a hospice and various parishes, where he worked with children.

“He was assigned to a church that is attached to a primary school,” Hanratty said incredulously.

In 2019, after Hanratty went public, the Archdiocese of Newark announced that Sudol had been permanently removed from ministry, citing what the diocese called numerous credible allegations of sexual abuse.

Hanratty said he had not had contact with Sudol and did not know where he was. Sudol’s last address was in Pennsylvania. Attempts by The Record and NorthJersey.com to reach him recently were unsuccessful.

“If he’s still here,” Hanratty said, “I hope he reads the book.”

Deena Yellin covers religion for NorthJersey.com. For full access to her work on the intersection of spirituality with our daily lives, Please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: A New Jersey man describes his trauma and healing after years of abuse at the hands of a priest.