LET US PREY.
I was devout. Trusting. But thanks to a Pennsylvania grand jury, I will never look at the Catholic Church the same way again.
The priests where I went to grade school told us that every time we did something bad, we added to the pain Jesus endured when he was crucified for our sins.
Every week, we would wait in line to enter the confessional so we could tell the priest on the other side of a dark cloth about those sins.
At 8 years old, it was often hard to come up with something.
Father, forgive me for I have sinned. Um. Ah. I lied to my mother.
Fast forward. The sins are on the other side of the curtain now.
How can the faithful – or the formerly faithful – respond?
I parted company with the Catholic church years ago for a variety of reasons. But I still enjoy going to Mass occasionally.
The smell of the incense. The richness of the ceremony. The mysteries shared by the faithful.
No Protestant church has ever touched my heart or captured my imagination the way the Catholic church can.
But the Catholic church has broken the hearts of so many people who loved it. Mine included.
And now, after the church seemed to be moving beyond the horrors of pedophile priests, there are more revelations.
More reasons to distrust an institution that
once looked so solidly planted on the moral high ground.
On Tuesday, a grand jury in Pennsylvania released a report chronicling 70 years of child sexual abuse by more than 300 Catholic priests. It said church leaders engaged in cover-ups, convinced victims to stay quiet and discouraged investigations into the wrongdoing.
“Grand jurors are just regular people who are randomly selected for service,” the jury wrote. “We spent 24 months dredging up the most depraved behavior, only to find that the laws protect most of its perpetrators, and leave its victims with nothing.”
The grand jurors want changes in the Pennsylvania statute of limitations, which only allows victims to come forward until age 50.
“We heard from plenty of victims who are now in their 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and even one who was 83 years old,” they wrote.
The grand jury acknowledged improvements by the church in response to previous child sexual abuse scandals.
But it also said: “We know that child abuse in the church has not yet disappeared, because we are charging two priests, in two different dioceses, with crimes that fall within the statute of limitations.”
One involves behavior with a 7-yearold that I won’t describe here. The other case involves a priest who assaulted two boys on a monthly basis for a period of years ending in 2010.
Bishop Lawrence Persico of Erie praised victims for coming forward after suffering “unimaginably cruel behavior,” according to Catholic News Agency.
In its report, the grand jury praised Persico for “acknowledging past abuse, unmasking the abusers, and encouraging accountability.”
Children, forgive us, for we have sinned. The day after the report was released, Pope Francis tweeted to his 17.7 million followers:
“Mary, Mother of tenderness who is always near, teach us how to live and have faith.”
His tweet commemorated the Feast of the Assumption Mary. It did not mention the 1,000-plus who suffered in Pennsylvania for the sins of Catholic priests.
Responses to his tweet included a condemnation of the church for a “grotesque criminal conspiracy” in Pennsylvania, and reminders that there are good priests out there, too.
No doubt.
But this latest report shows the magnitude of the crimes the church enabled and covered up.
“Sexual abuse has been institutionalized, routinized and tolerated by the church hierarchy for decades,” Anthea Butler, associate professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote for NBC Think online.
When I read the grand jury report and the news stories about it, I had to pause to hold my head. An iron hand seized my stomach.
I felt sick for the victims — and I felt sick for the Catholic church, which I learned to love as a child.
I was not a victim of pedophile priests, so I can never know the utter betrayal that represents.
But I was devout. Sincere. Trusting. Just as those children who were abused must have been.
I revered priests. Just as those children must have done.
The “fathers” who violated innocent children – and the unholy hierarchy that protected those priests – should face charges in court. No statute of limitations should be allowed to stand in the way. No mercy should lessen the consequences.
Their crimes should be punished under the law. Our secular law.
They also sinned against all of us who entered a Catholic church to celebrate the mystery of faith.
The Catholic church will always be a place of deep and sacred wonders — a place I loved with a child’s unquestioning devotion.
But I will never look at it the same way again. I will never look at it without an ache in my heart.