11/27/2019 MinneCulture Presents

A Perpetrator Priest Speaks Out and in Dialogue with a Survivor from Reckonings
We are going to hear an uncommon conversation about clergy sex abuse between both a perpetrator and a victim. As a young priest in Minnesota, Gil Gustafson sexually abused four boys in his parish. When he was confronted about his behavior, he confessed. Now a convicted pedophile, he finds himself on a decades-long journey of recovery and reparation. When Saint Paulite Susan Pavlak was in high school, she was sexually abused by her Catholic teacher, a former nun. She has also been on a path of healing – including a face-to-face meeting with her abuser. In 2006, Gustafson and Pavlak met at a conference on preventing sexual abuse. That encounter sparked a continuous line of communication between the pair and a bond which is difficult to imagine. Producer Stephanie Lepp seeks to find how this unlikely collaboration – between a perpetrator and survivor of clergy sex abuse – is now at the forefront of bringing restorative justice to the Catholic Church. Lepp’s program, Reckonings, continually explores how people come to change their hearts and minds.