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	Prayers in Lieu of Letters This Time By Phil Andrews Guelph Mercury August 16 2010 http://news.guelphmercury.com/Opinions/article/676350 It’s happened before. But it doesn’t make it much easier to get through. I’m watching a terrible news story play out that I’m connected to; in this instance, my ties are close, personal, emotional, professional and spiritual. This one is about another Catholic priest accused of molesting a youth. In this case, I’m familiar with the priest, with the other individual — who received $30,000, in a 1999 out-of-court payment, from the priest’s religious order — and with where these two came to know each other. The priest was a teacher and coach and later the principal of a Sudbury high school. Both the reported victim and I attended it. We also later returned to briefly teach there. I remain a proud graduate of this school and a proud Catholic. But news stories about the relationship between this priest and this former student in other Ontario newspapers this week have angered and sickened many others with close connections to this story. Earlier this year, the same priest was in other news coverage involving criminal charges for alleged sexual abuse of other former students in another city. That first burst of coverage was a piercing surprise for many who knew and loved him. When that story broke, a former high school teacher of mine alerted me to it within hours. He insisted the complainants must be engaging in something of a shakedown of the religious order that the priest belonged to and that operated the schools in question. This man had been given his first job in teaching by this priest. So had his brother. I struggled with how to respond to my former teacher and to his seeming dismissal of the case. A few years ago, I had asked my parents if there was any latest news about this priest. The last time I saw him I had been in their home. That was about 16 years ago. I remember my parents hosting him warmly. On that visit, he spoke mostly of his then-current work at a Caribbean mission school. A day or so before, he had invited me to come and work and teach at the centre. That offer came as we enjoyed a supper alone together at an area cottage. We had shared a great meat lasagna that he told me had been provided by a local woman who had just passed it on to him, knowing he wasn’t much of cook. It’s funny the small details we remember. I remember the priest’s visit to my folks’ home ended with warm well-wishes all around. Unsolicited, my father also made out a cheque to help the priest’s mission and gave it to him. I carefully considered the Caribbean teaching offer. I never accepted or declined it; I soon came into a newspaper reporting job and gradually ceased to ponder it. Years later, before the sad news stories appeared, was when I asked my parents for any update on him. I was told that a family friend’s dear friend had recently revealed troubling things about that priest from the time he had been in high school. Knowing that allegation didn’t do much to soften the blow of this week’s coverage for my parents. I came to be student president at that high school. My time there was great for me. I experienced the effort to deliver “goodness, discipline and knowledge,” as was the motto of the order that guided the school. Two years after graduating, I wore that hat in writing some letters to the editor. They defended the school and boasted of my experience with it in light of a Toronto Star column by another of the school’s former students. I didn’t know that writer. He painted his time at the school as being abusive and intimidating and touched by the suggestion that students might be sexually targeted. I felt compelled to publicly and prominently register how different my experience with it had been. I won’t engage in another mass letter-writing effort. I’ll talk to God about this mess and all this pain. I have had a life of many blessings. I continue to count my church, my faith and what I experienced as a student and student-teacher among them.
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