PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News
By WILLIAM C. KASHATUS
When I was 14 years old I saw Bing Crosby portray Father Charles O'Malley, a fictional inner-city priest, in the 1944 movie, "Going My Way." O'Malley befriended at-risk kids, appealing to their love of sports and popular music. In one, especially gripping scene, after catching some local gang members stealing, he forgave them and let bygones be bygones by taking them to a baseball game.
Father O'Malley was quite different from the priests I knew in my own parish. They were distant from the youngsters, focusing their energies on Church politics, raising money, and delivering the "Word of the Lord," as if they were the only intermediaries between man and God.
I'm sure that they were devoted to their calling, but they seemed to be too busy projecting sainthood instead of showing us how to live our faith.
At 18, I gave up on the Catholic Church and joined the Religious Society of Friends, which has been my spiritual home for the last three decades. But, in many ways, my Quaker faith will never be completely divorced from the Catholicism of my childhood. That is why I was so sorry to learn of the grand jury revelations of pedophilia among the Philadelphia Archdiocese's priests and the cover-up by Cardinals John Krol and Anthony Bevilacqua.
While these acts are unforgivable, we need to remember the truly dedicated priests who have committed their lives to the honorable work of the Church, like Father John McNamee.