BishopAccountability.org
	A Test of Faith By Rev. Kenneth J. Doyle Albany Times Union February 13, 2011 http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/A-test-of-faith-1010217.php In Pittsfield, the trial of a priest has concluded, and Gary Mercure has been found guilty of raping two boys. I want to tell you how I feel about this. I am saddened, ashamed -- and, above all, I am angry. A woman on our parish staff told me the other day that she was praying for Gary Mercure. I told her that she was much kinder than I and that my own instincts toward him were more aggressive. But reason took hold and I realized that her response was the more noble and the more Christian one. That night, I did pray for Mercure --- prayed that he would grasp the horror of what he has done, find his peace with God and spend his remaining days praying for the children whose lives he has destroyed. Why am I ashamed, since nothing I did myself led to this tragedy? I am ashamed because someone in my own family of faith -- a brother priest, no less -- would commit these acts of cruelty. And I am deeply saddened because this whole sordid saga has damaged that family of faith, the Catholic Church that I love. This is the same church that opened the first orphanages and medical clinics in history, that kept learning alive during the Dark Ages and founded the first universities; the same church that today sponsors one-sixth of all the hospital beds in America, has (in Catholic Charities) an operation that serves more of the poor that any other private agency in our land, has annually resettled nearly a third of all the refugees who come to our shores. But when people read a story like Mercure's, all of that good fades into the background. The primary image is of abusive priests. Most of all, I am angry -- angry at what has been done to children. I am well aware that darkness is part of the psyche of us all, that temptation surrounds us, that our resolve is frail and we easily can fall. This awareness has made me, for 50 years, say three Hail Marys each night that Our Lady will help me to be faithful to my vocation, because I know that I can't do it without help from above. But abusing a child is a different thing entirely. How can a priest -- or any adult -- ever rationalize doing that, wrecking a child's life for selfish and momentary pleasure, taking away forever any trust in grown-ups or in religion, leaving a person 30 years later to rehearse that graphic violence in an open courtroom and be traumatized all over again? The matter of Mercure, this whole gruesome story, leaves me very sad, as does each and every case of sexual abuse of a minor. I have served as a priest for 45 years and would do it again in a heartbeat. Last Saturday, I heard confessions for four hours for 65 second-graders and their families. Some of the grown-ups, especially, including a few who hadn't been to confession in a long while, spoke to me of the peace the sacrament brought them. So life as a priest is not without its special rewards. But I have to say that the last few years have been for me a time of real sorrow. I worry, when people read stories like Mercure's, what they think of all priests. I know the numbers -- 24 priests removed for abuse among the 900 who have served the Albany diocese over the last 60 years, between 2 and 3 percent. But that doesn't comfort me at all. Even one offender is too many. There should be none at all. People have been good. In 2002 and 2003, during the worst of the church's sexual abuse crisis, they would go out of their way to say to priests after Mass, "I can imagine what you are going through. Please know that we appreciate what you are doing at our parish and that we are praying for you." So it isn't really true that they judge every priest by one bad one -- it's just that you feel they might. I worry, too, that people will stop coming to church when they read stories like the ones about the Pittsfield trial. People, it would seem, are smarter than that, unwilling to deprive themselves of the comfort of the Eucharist because some priests have been unfaithful. But you worry about it anyway. And just when you think that the crisis might be over, just when you relax a bit and start to feel this shameful chapter in the Church's history is finished, just then something like the Mercure trial comes along. And so, once more, you go to sleep each night troubled and you wake up feeling the same way. But then you get up and you resolve, for one more day, to keep on doing what you were called to do. The Rev. Kenneth J. Doyle is pastor of the Parish of Mater Christi in Albany and chancellor for public information of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.