Pedophilia
For those beloved youthful years, I was the saintly little altar boy, serving at hundreds of Masses for over 12 years. I was secretly adored by my Catholic neighbors and fiercely staunch Catholic relatives. How many of those cute flowing black cassocks and pure white surplices, both mandated as our proper attire, my saintly Mom unceasingly ironed and cleaned, and when necessary, bought for me, I have no idea.
We had Rev. John Gallagher, the chosen parish priest as our Director of the Altar Boys. How many times we boys met in the lower level church for endless hours in rehearsals for funeral Masses, Good Friday, Holy Saturday services, and "High Masses," I shutter to even think of counting. Whether it was luck, innocence, or the grace of some Divine Being, in my youth, I never, with or without nuns present, in or out of the church or rectory, witnessed any impropriety toward us boys by either Fr. Gallagher or the other four parish priests. As we were taught, they were simply walking saints, but more importantly, they proved it through their daily conversations, actions, and exhortations. To just be near them, we were told -- and believed -- endowed our souls with some kind of ethereal blessings, which we could never understand -- and didn't care to -- as long as our souls were on the receiving end. Nothing else mattered.
Now, my fond memories of my youth, is devastated with the incessant charges of sexual abuse by so many priests -- incidents that ravage the souls and bodies of innocent youth.
The Church is shamed. Rightfully so. Its pastoral leaders in recent past years, are stunned at their own previous lack of seriousness regarding the "sins" of the past.
What pedophile priests are committing are not simply "sins," but horrific, vicious crimes again
st the souls of youth, many of whom are still suffering from psychological and emotional traumas that have returned to haunt their souls.To hear of a pedophile priest is rapidly becoming redundant. "Pedophile" is near synonymous with "priest." The phrase, "pedophile priest," still brings instant and visceral reactions from the laity: anger, revulsion, fear, and hate. The Catholic laity, and especially Boston's citizenry who are still reeling from its initial bombast of priestly sexual abuse charges, are still struggling to forgive the perpetrator priests as an abundance of psychological data still surfaces, attempting to reinforce the once-thought seed that "pedophilia" is a sickness. But the same shocked citizenry also hasten to quote Matthew 18:6: "Whoever shall offend one of these little ones who believes in me, it were better for him that a millstone be hung around his neck and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea." In all the mental maneuvering, justifying, and attempted qualifying by the Church's hierarchy of these horrific incidents that are still being told by the victims, no one can imagine that anguished voice of the violated child who went on the camping trip with Fr. So-and-So, and has been petrified of tents, priests, and darkness ever since.
I cannot imagine the hate and hurt the now-adult victim must feel as he sees the reflection of the same saintly type hands that hold out the Eucharist to him at his Sunday Mass -- comparable hands of the one that touched and violated him in his youth.
...or when he hears all the lawyers, pastors, and bishops with their prepared defenses, spewing the ugly fact that Father So-and-So is now serving in another parish or simply living out his last "holy" years in a remote retirement home.
The same adult-victim is more than justified to yell back at his Church, "Your actions scream so much louder than your words, I can't hear a word you're saying."
WJK-10/07
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
|
|
|
|
