The Boston Globe - 02.09.2019

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THE BOSTON GLOBE MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 | BOSTONGLOBE.COM/METRO

B

By Sarah Wu
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
When Susan Pavlak flew from Min-
nesota to Boston a decade ago to do-
nate her kidney, she did not expect to
meet the recipient. But a month before
the surgery, she agreed to meet Phil Sa-
vianoforlunch,whichwasthefirstof
many meals they shared as their
friendship grew stronger over the
years.
“He has my kidney, but that’s not
why we’re friends. That’s just how we
met,” Pavlak said during an interview
last week in Saviano’s Roslindale
home.
The two had something else in

common other than organ donor and

recipient: They are both survivors of

clergy sexual abuse.

Saviano, 67, was a whistleblower

on the sexual abuse crisis in Massachu-

setts and played a prominent role in

the Globe’s Spotlight investigation,

published in 2002.

In 1992, in an interview with the

Globe, he told the public about the

abuse he endured as a child in East

Douglas. Saviano was repeatedly

forced to masturbate and perform oral

sex on a priest who turned out to be a

serial pedophile and who died in pris-

on.

Pavlak, 65, was molested for about

four years by a former nun who be-

came a teacher at her Catholic high

school.

Reflecting on the trauma they have

endured — beyond sexual abuse, Pav-

lak battled alcoholism decades ago and

Saviano tested positive for HIV in 1984

— Saviano said, “Horrible things hap-

pen to people. But that doesn’t mean

that horribleness should define a per-

son.”

Their enduring friendship, filled

with laughter, adventure, and a good

dose of activism, shows that joy can be

found on the other side.

“When you’ve been through rough

FRIENDS,PageB

A cherished friendship for two ‘survivors with a capital S’

Kidney donor and recipient also separately faced clergy sex abuse Kidney
transplant
recipient Phil
Saviano tied a
scarf for donor
Susan Pavlak
during a
Bishop-
Accountability
event in
Readville
last week.
The two have
maintained
their close
friendship a
decade after
the operation.
BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFF

By John Hilliard

GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

Three dozen protesters arrested

during a controversial Straight Pride

rally and parade in Boston Saturday

could be in court Tuesday, according

to the Suffolk District Attorney’s of-

fice, while Boston police said they

plan to review officers’ use of force

during the demonstrations.

That review, part of the depart-

ment’s standard operating procedure,

will also look at reports of injured offi-

cers, said Boston police spokesman

Sergeant John Boyle on Sunday.

Four officers suffered non-life-

threatening injuries in connection

with Saturday’s demonstrations, when

about 200 marched in a parade to cel-

ebrate traditional families and defend

heterosexuality, proponents said.

The parade, which began in Copley

Square and ended in a rally at City

Hall Plaza, was organized by a group

called Super Happy Fun America. The

group and its event were blasted by

critics as homophobic.

Marchers were outnumbered along

the parade route by thousands of pro-

testers, many of whom gathered be-

hind police barricades along Congress

Street near City Hall.

On Sunday, Boston police released

the names of the 36 people who were

arrested Saturday and the charges

they face.

PARADE,PageB

Hurricane watch

A pocket of New Bedford transplants

in Florida await Dorian’s wrath. B

By Joshua Miller

GLOBE STAFF

RAYMOND, N.H. — He fulminated

against “a corporate elite that has un-

believable wealth, and power, and re-

sources.” He gave a paean to Medicare

for All. And he bemoaned the “absur-

dity and the dysfunctionality of Con-

gress” that thwarts progress on gun

control.

But as Senator Bernie Sanders

kicked off a new chapter of his presi-

dential campaign in New Hampshire

Sunday, his pitch was as much about

plausibility — that his plans and his

candidacy were likely to succeed — as

passion.

“I don’t think there has been a cred-

ible poll done in the last year which

has not had us ahead of Trump,” he

said in a high school auditorium

packed with nearly 400 people.

“It goes without saying that we

have got to defeat Donald Trump,” he

said 45 minutes later, noting a recent

national poll found he would beat the

president 53 percent to 39 percent in a

hypothetical matchup.

On the first stop of a multi-day

swing through New Hampshire and

Maine, Sanders spent a half-hour fo-

cused on health care. He spoke at

SANDERS,PageB

Police use

of force to

get review

Protesters arrested at

Straight Pride events

may face court dates

Sanders shifts

from passion

to plausibility

Messy?Yes,buttherearerules

Allston Christmas helps students

keep their moves under budget

By Bryan Marquard

GLOBE STAFF

Frances Crowe once recalled that her activism

began in the late 1920s, as a fifth-grader in

Carthage, Mo., when she and her classmates in a

peace friendship club sent letters to people around

the world.

“We took ourselves very seriously,” she told the

Globe in 1984, “all these little kids going to make

peace.”

For nine more decades, Ms. Crowe never let up,

notching more civil disobedience arrests at protests

than she could count, and adding other causes to

her original efforts.

She was 100 when she died Tuesday in her

Northampton home, her family announced.

“Frances was a strong believer that one sets an

example through the way one lives one’s life,” her

family members said in an obituary they placed in

the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

In an activism resume that could go on for pag-

es, she participated in sit-ins at the construction site

when the nuclear power plant was being built in

Seabrook, N.H., and prayed for peace on the White

House lawn.

She threw a vial of her own blood at a nuclear

sub launch (“for my grandson’s future,” she noted)

and spent a month in prison after breaking into a

Rhode Island base to spray paint “Thou shalt not

kill” on submarine tubes that would hold missiles.

Testifying on behalf of a fellow Seabrook protest-

er in 1977, she told a jury that she, too, had demon-

strated at the site because “my conscience told me I

must put my body where my words have been.”

Two years ago, at 98, she was among several peo-

ple who were arrested in Western Massachusetts

while protesting the extension of a natural gas pipe-

CROWE,PageB

For nine decades, a fervent fighter for peace

Her targets included war and nuclear power, weapons

FRANCES CROWE1919-

‘My conscience told me I must

put my body where my words

have been.’

FRANCES CROWE

YOON S. BYUN/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2010

By Maria Cramer

GLOBE STAFF

T

here are rules for Allston Christmas, that special time

of year when college students moving out of their

apartments in the Boston neighborhood leave behind

unwanted furniture, clothes, and appliances for the

students moving in.

Rule 1: Don’t assume something left on the street is free for

the taking. Look for a sign, or ask someone first.

Rule 2: If you’re moving out, try to have someone stand sen-

try near your stuff, in case people are not following rule number

one.

Rule 3: Never take mattresses left on the sidewalks and

streets. In fact, avoid upholstery altogether.

College kids and cloth-bound furniture are “probably not a

good mix after a semester or two,” noted Matt Cohen, a 25-year-

old audio engineer from Arlington who visited Allston on Sun-

day to scavenge for leftovers.

It was the first Allston Christmas for Cohen, who works in

the neighborhood and was drawn to the annual happening by

ALLSTON,PageB

PHOTOS BY NIC ANTAYA FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Xiwei Wang of Allston waited for a moving truck outside of her former apartment in Allston on Sunday.

Inspector Sherea McLaughlin checked a home in Allston Sunday.

During college move-in, the city steps up code enforcement.