Foley Critical of Vatican, WPTV, April 19, 2010

Foley Critical of Vatican

WPTV
April 19, 2010

http://www.wptv.com/content/specialreports/story/congressman-mark-foley-vatican-priest-abuse-wptv/VcVKsgyjsUu3yeM1ed20KA.cspx

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- More problems for the Vatican. Sunday Pope Benedict visited Malta where ten men are suing three priests for alleged child abuse from years ago and asking for an apology from Benedict.

Former Congressman Mark Foley is hoping for the same thing...for all abuse victims...like himself.

"The priest befriended me, started slowly, making me feel like a special child and as time went on things advanced and then we were going to steam rooms and places where I had no idea what we were doing but nonetheless, it was happening," Foley told WPTV's Jim Sackett.

It was 40 years ago that as an 11-year old Catholic altar boy, Foley, met Father Anthony Merceica at his Lake Worth Church. "Virtually every commandment you've been taught now violated, don't tell your parents, I'll kill myself if you do, nobody can know about our secret," Foley said the priest told him.

Foley said the abuse lasted two years...stopping when Merceica left the parish and Foley was left with guilt.

We now know there are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar cases. The scandal is reaching into the hierarchy of the church. The Vatican is circling the wagons and, according to Foley, not doing a good job.

"I started hearing the spin and I'm going 'this is starting to be a PR disaster.' It's not even getting any better. It's getting worse by accusing people of bearing false witness, malicious gossip, and then somehow becoming anti-Semitic, or as a result of him being German and it's all due to the Holocaust. I mean it was so tortured that the defense that was being created," says Foley.

Given the expanding nature of the scandal, Foley says it's time for the pope to speak to the world's one billion Catholics...and more directly to its victims. "I was hoping that it was going to happen on Easter, that the Vicar of Christ would take to the pulpit in St. Peter's Square and once and for all and say we will not condone this. He didn't and he had some cardinal coming to his defense saying this was idle gossip," Foley said.

Foley is quick to admit some reported cases are not true. Many are. It's those people who need a full, clear and unquestionable apology from the pope...and soon, "If the church continues to assert it's the victims that are somehow making this stuff up then you continue to torture the soul of that person," says Foley.

Foley said for years it was the victims who were being punished. For years they told their stories and no one believed them. The tables have turned. Foley believes the Vatican is feeling intense pressure to come clean.