WISCONSIN
The Journal Times
By Mike Moore
Priest abuse For a change, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests took time several weeks back to honor - not bash - one of the important members of the Milwaukee Archdiocese.
SNAP asked members of my parish, St. Paul the Apostle in Racine, to honor the Rev. Paul Esser for taking a stand against the transfer of abusive priest Siegfried Widera in the 1970s. It was a welcome and necessary shift toward healing, I suggested.
My column made the rounds through the abuse victim community to Gabrielle Azzaro, who said she was abused by a religious sister.
"I certainly wish I had never been molested," she wrote back. "I absolutely wish the same for the hundreds of others to whom this happened that I know of. However, we cannot undo the past. We can do something about the future. Although we need to hope, we cannot participate in a false hope that keeps us from working for healing and prevention. We cannot let some good priests, sisters, bishops blind us to the fact that there are still so many out there who need to be stopped before they destroy any more lives."
Well said.