BishopAccountability.org
	In My World, Priests Were to Be Revered, Not Feared By Roger Chesley The Virginian-Pilot September 12, 2011 http://hamptonroads.com/2011/09/my-world-priests-were-be-revered-not-feared If you wanted to play on the baseball team at my Catholic elementary school, the priests and nuns "encouraged" you to also become an altar boy. And this fan of Willie Mays wanted his turn at bat. So, as a fifth-grader at St. Francis Xavier in Washington, D.C., I learned the tasks and discipline that was expected of the young men who stood before the congregation at Mass. (Some 40 years ago, girls weren't allowed to become altar servers.) I didn't mind stepping up. I thought the role was pretty cool - honorable, even. I got to wear a long, black cassock and a white surplice. The priests taught us where to genuflect, when to ring the bells during the Eucharistic Prayer and how to hold the paten at the altar rail at communion. Sometimes you got a chance to serve at funerals. That meant you had an excuse to skip class. Relatives of the deceased might even slip you a buck or two afterward. Looking back, it is beyond comprehension that priests in our parish could have sexually abused me or my classmates. They were revered, upright men. Leaders of the flock. Beyond reproach. Thus, it's an understatement to say that I've been stunned - and repulsed - by the ongoing scandal involving pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. The issue re-emerged recently as part of an ongoing dispute between the Vatican and the Irish government. The New York Times reported that the Vatican said it had never discouraged Irish bishops from reporting the sexual abuse of minors to police. In July, Irish authorities had released the latest in a series of abuse reports and evidence of a widespread cover-up. Last week, The Times reported that a diocese in Minnesota had agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit with a 21-year-old woman. She said she was sexually molested as a teenager by a priest serving parishes in the diocese. Many of the reports over the past decade were spurred by revelations in 2002 of wrongdoing by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston. The archdiocese settled a massive, multimillion-dollar lawsuit. These reports are based on horrendous, unspeakable acts. They still seem alien to me, given the parish I grew up in. My father, an ex-D.C. cop, would have gone ballistic had anyone tried to molest me or my siblings. He attended church every Sunday, and folks at the church and school knew how tough he could be. I now know that many victims were altar boys; their parents thought priests would help guide their children, and they allowed their sons to be in close contact with these men. Some came from broken families, making them vulnerable to predatory clergymen. Articles and books have documented the huge betrayal of trust. Late last year, The Washington Post reported about accused priests in the archdiocese there. The article mentioned Robert J. Petrella, defrocked in 2002, who church officials said had been accused by at least 25 men of molesting them when they were boys. The Post included a list of 30 other priests in the Washington region, some of whom were ordained decades ago, who had been accused of abuse. I looked at the names with some anxiety, worried that I might find a familiar one. Fortunately, I didn't recognize any of them from my days at St. Francis Xavier. Roger Chesley, (757) 446-2329, roger.chesley@pilotonline.com pilotonline.com/chesley
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.