UNITED STATES
The Dallas Morning News
10:07 AM CST on Saturday, January 29, 2005
By DARLA ATLAS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
In 1997, Scott Steinke asked God to help him find answers.
Things weren't going well for the onetime soundman for ZZ Top and Alabama. After his engagement broke off, he was driving and "yelling at God to give me something here. I said, 'If you want me to be a priest, you're going to have to let me know.' "
He was passing a church with a lighted cross "and as soon as I looked up, that thing clicked on," he recalled. "I said, 'OK, that's what I needed to know.' "
Mr. Steinke is one of those profiled in the Discovery Times Channel documentary Keeping the Faith: Becoming a Priest in Today's Catholic Church. Airing Tuesday, the show follows several men who were at Cincinnati's Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West in 2002, at the height of the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal.
The documentary notes that the year after filming wrapped, the archdiocese of Cincinnati pleaded no contest to failing to report sex crimes by priests against minors.
The show examines the scandal's impact on seminarians, but also provides a broader look at their religious training – from practice baptisms using baby dolls to pretend confessions acted out by fellow students.
Posted by kshaw at January 29, 2005 03:16 PM