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	Innocent in the Holiest of Ways Denver Post April 29, 2008 http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_9087652 'll get the guts of it out in the open: A priest abused him his first year of seminary. He was 13. Most teen boys discover their own bodies, the new electric zing that buzzes there, ready to move their cells and skin toward adulthood. Most discover touching. Some confess it. This priest used the sanctity of the confessional to catch young boys in a teenage "sin." The penance was to go to the priest's room after lights out. He thrives, so breathe — this story will end OK. His life has not been wracked and wrecked by depression. Or confusion. Or madness. He has not killed himself. He made it through. Not everyone did. Not everyone will. This one little boy wanted to be a priest. It was his very most important thing, and he held it like a small prize, safe. No one pushed him, except and perhaps God. He didn't use his call to get attention like some other firstborn boys. He spoke little of it until he asked to go to seminary. It was there he was abused. He left, and told no one why. So, you see what was stolen from him. Now that this man is grown, he jokes, "Well, it was certainly an effective way to teach a young boy never to touch himself." The joke makes me cringe. He says he came up with it years ago, in response to the faces in front of him, the shut- down, the go-away, the "Can this finally be over? Please disappear." He calls himself the dirty little secret of the Catholic Church. And he made it funny to comfort people. His people. His church. He needs to comfort them? He needs to assure them? He needs to rescue them because they are frozen by what they can't imagine, or by what makes them squirm in the face of their own sexual or gender or religious quandaries? Sexual abuse carves itself into the history of the victims, their families and their children's families. And, sexual abuse that is perpetrated in the name of God, by a servant of God, is a separate and singularly astounding kind of evil. Its survivors are all around us — church members and non- members, young and old, male and female. We walk by them on the way to work, we sit near them at the movies, we break bread with them and play soccer with them and pass them on freeways. The man who wanted to be a priest makes jokes so people won't turn away from him. This is not his job. We are the ones with the work to do, folks — all of us, Catholic or not. Pedophilia is not about some bad priests or easily identifiable weirdos. It does not occur in only one denomination or school or home. Pedophiles can be anywhere and are utterly unidentifiable — until their victims are brave enough to drag them into the light. So, how should we treat these people? Victims of sexual abuse are no ones' dirty little secret. They are clean and pure as water, as light, as the spirit and breath and solid soul of each of us, whether touched or untouched by the hands of a pedophile. If they make us uncomfortable, it's time to get over it. The Catholic Church may yet pour healing out like water — it is an opportunity in wait. A trickle has finally come down from the pope. He said to his bishops, while speaking in Washington, D.C., "It is your God-given responsibility as pastors to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust, to foster healing, to promote reconciliation and to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged." Bind. Promote. Reach. These are words of action and hard work. Though they needed to be said long ago and repeatedly, thank God he's said them now. But a groundswell is also needed. The church can choose to cross a bridge and stand with the victims. Bind. Promote. Reach. Isn't that church? Any church? All churches or temples or mosques? Isn't it what we all mean when we say "community"? No victim should ever have to feel the message "Can this finally be over? Please disappear." It was never their fault. They are innocent in the holiest of ways. E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez at grace-notes @comcast.net
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