Sins of Our Fathers, Eleanor Boudreau, WKNO, April 12, 2010

Sins of Our Fathers

By Eleanor Boudreau
WKNO
April 12, 2010

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wkno/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1635465/Mid-South.News/Sins.Of.Our.Fathers

[with audio]

Saint Augustine Catholic Church, the Sunday after Easter.

MEMPHIS, TN (WKNO) - In the Bible the first thing God creates, after he creates the earth, is light.

Legal documents unsealed last week show the Memphis Catholic Diocese reassigned and relocated pedophile priests. This new light has brought a media blitz to the doors of the Memphis Diocese at a time when there is mounting evidence that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger resisted defrocking abusive priests before he became pope.

There were no veiled references at Saint Augustine Catholic Church yesterday. Father John Geaney, who is also spokesperson for the Memphis Diocese, told his congregation, "We're struggling because of what we see in newspapers, on television, and hear on the radio about the sexual abuse of children by priests."

Geaney preached forgiveness. "It's important for us to recognize that in our leaders we have human beings," he said.

After mass, congregants echoed this message. Joe Moore said the scandal didn't shake his faith, "Because I realize people are people. You know, we're all human when it comes down to it."

The unsealed documents detail abuse by priests in the Memphis Diocese dating back to the 1960s. The most recent abuse in the documents took place in 2002.

Geaney says the diocese has new protective measures. For example, the diocese performs police background checks on all its employees, and trains them to spot the signs of sexual abuse--and to report it.

"Priest are not being reassigned now," Geaney said. "And we do all we can to reach out to the victims now and in some cases we have settled with them financially."

Geaney said, "The point is that what took place is passed."

David Brown has a different time-line for when the past is passed. Brown has a recurring nightmare. He wakes, "Feeling whiskers on the side of my face and the smell of smoky breath as this priest is raping me," Brown said.

Brown was abused by a priest when he was 15. He was 50 before he told anyone about it. Now he is an advocate for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests; and he's, well, skeptical of the Memphis Diocese's reforms.

Brown points to his and other victims' decades of silence. "This crime thrives in secrecy," he said.

Brown says the issue of clergy sex abuse will go away, "When Jesus comes back again."

Geaney says it has already happened. "I mean that basically is the message of Easter," Geaney said. "We are risen from the dead, and the dead that we are risen from is sin."

At St. Augustine's yesterday the choir sang, "Wade in the water, children. Wade in the water, children."

Eleven children were baptized into the Catholic Church.