AUSTRALIA
Penrith Press
31 May 12 @ 02:09pm by Former Glenmore Park parish priest Kevin Lee
I HAVE been very moved by the overwhelming number of positive text and Facebook messages that I have received in response to my recent announcement of my marriage last year to the beautiful Josefina.
I know it must have come as a complete shock to everyone but it was deliberately orchestrated that way to draw attention to an issue that has fermented in the Catholic Church for decades, that of abuse by teachers, priests, brothers and even nuns in the church, and that many priests are living duplicity by having homosexual relationships.
In my role as representative of the Catholic Church in nine parishes throughout the Diocese of Parramatta I have observed one constant: people keep telling me that they don’t go to church because either they or someone in their family were abused.
All the while I wanted to believe abuses were rare and infrequent but in my experience they were so commonly talked about.
The church will contend that the percentage is quite small but in my mind it should not be any. Being around kids who enjoy my company was always uncomfortable because of general suspicions about priests who play with kids.
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