PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News
WHEN I was a kid, the rectory of Holy Martyrs Parish was where the Men of God lived.
And they were lovely men, patiently dealing with me and the many other teenagers who worked there after school and on weekends.
We spent hours at that rectory in tiny Oreland, Pa., answering the phone, filling out Mass cards, trying to keep our voices low - and rarely succeeding - when the Rosary group prayed in the first-floor meeting room.
For me, the rectory was as safe and familiar as my own home. But after Father Edward DePaoli was arrested in June 1985, I wondered if my memories were accurate.
That's what can happen when the priest sex-abuse scandal touches your childhood parish: You question the truth of everything, even things you know to be true.
Especially when no one in charge will acknowledge what's really so.
And the truth is, as it was unfolding, no one in charge would talk about the scandal that was rotting the Philadelphia Archdiocese from within.