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Cardinal Dolan has appointed Eileen Mulcahy as victims assistance coordinator for the archdiocese.
Ms. Mulcahy will remain in her role as director of the archdiocesan Office of Pastoral Planning, a post she has held for the past five years. Prior to that, she was chief of staff for the vicar general. When she came to the archdiocese in 2005, she served in the Parish Finance Office, working primarily with the Inter-Parish Finance program.
As victims assistance coordinator, she succeeds Sister Eileen Clifford, O.P. “I feel very honored and certainly humbled by the appointment,” Ms. Mulcahy told CNY Oct. 8 at the New York Catholic Center in Manhattan. She said she has “very big shoes to fill” in the work that has been done by her predecessor. “I’ve learned a lot from Sister Eileen,” working with her for the last 14 years, including on the archdiocesan pastoral planning initiative, Making All Things New.
Mindful that meeting with a victims assistance coordinator can be overwhelming for a victim-survivor of sexual abuse by a cleric, Ms. Mulcahy said it is important that she be compassionate, charitable and just to the victim. “Sometimes they’ve held this in for so long, that trying to begin to talk about this” can be challenging for them. “What I’ve learned from Sister Eileen is trying to help people begin that conversation, and to help them to talk about it.”
