The kid could earn a few bucks, and his parents didn't have to worry about their firstborn working at a convenience or liquor store. Our boy -- chosen to be one of Father Schaefer's altar boys and given a job in the rectory. We'll keep his dinner hot for him and pick him up at the rectory at 9 p.m., his father thought. "What could be better?"

The boy's parents welcomed Father Schaefer into their New Carrollton home for dinner and shook his hand after each Mass.

The pastor's room was down the familiar hall from the boy's desk in the rectory. The Rev. Thomas Sebastian Schaefer was like an uncle to the boy. He was also the "touchy-feely type," the boy noticed. One night in 1972, the boy remembers Father Schaefer telling him, "You could answer the phones from my room." The boy did what his priest asked.

The boy remembers Father Schaefer asking him, "Do you know how your body works? Let me show you." The boy did what his priest asked. And before and after making their bodies work, his priest showed him pictures of naked women and supplied him money from the Sunday collection, the boy remembers.

How could he say no to such moral authority?

The man is now 34. For years, he willed himself not to deal with his secret. And no one got close enough to him to force the issue. Then, the man married, and the barriers he built began to break down. Last year, he told his wife about his years of abuse at St. Matthias. The secret split them apart.

In January, he told his parents. Finally, he told the Archdiocese of Washington. Father Schaefer and three other priests were indicted on child sexual abuse charges involving the man and other alleged victims. The priests have pleaded not guilty. The trial is in August.

The man, described in newspapers only as a "Baltimore-area businessman," doesn't want to reveal his name publicly. He says he's not ready. He wants to understand how the abuse happened and why it lasted six years. His parents want to know why, too. "You get eased into it," the man says. "I felt special."

He wants to know what's left of him.

The man doesn't feel special now: He feels angry and embarrassed. He found a book that has helped him understand what happened. "A Gospel of Shame," written by reporters Elinor Burkett and Frank Bruni, is a 1993 book about sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests. The man sent his parents the book before telling them. The book was intended as an icebreaker, of sorts. An education, mainly.

"Trust provides an abusive priest almost unparalleled opportunity," wrote the authors. "But it is his power and influence that enable him to exploit that opportunity so well, seducing his victims into sexual acts and enlisting their silence.

"Since most children are not forced but cajoled by adults into sexual acts, their perception of an adult's integrity and authority significantly influences their vulnerability to that adult."

He learned more from the book.

"Child sexual abuse by teachers and scoutmasters, coaches and day-care workers are serious, damaging crimes. But the betrayal of trust by a man of the cloth strikes closer to the core of a child's soul; the wounds inflicted are clearly, inevitably, deeper."

The book is under a magazine on his parents' coffee table. Both are in their 60s and live in a retirement community. Both still attend Mass. Their son stopped going to church years ago, and he doesn't believe in God. He has no faith in himself, either.

Everything has changed since January, when he told his parents about his years of abuse. He doesn't drop by as much. When he does, everybody is tense. The unspoken is their new language. Their lives are out of a horror story from a newspaper, his mom says.

"It's unbelievable. How do you explain something like that?" she says. "You just feel empty . . ."

". . . and betrayed," his father says.

No defense

His parents won't identify themselves because their son wants it that way. So, his parents keep quiet when they hear people talk about St. Matthias and the anonymous man who brought the charges. "Why did this person wait so long to tell? Why didn't he keep his mouth shut?" the man's parents overheard at a recent dance. They cannot defend their son.

They also want to tell their friends from St. Matthias. "They had sons who worked in the rectory, too," the father says.

The older man is ruggedly handsome, just like his son, who is named after him. Both Irishmen are built like small linebackers. Both fold their arms when they talk about private matters -- and the words don't come easily. Try reading the heart of a father who has just heard his son say he was sexually abused at the safest and most revered institution in their lives: the church.

His parents are left to replay the past, to revise their judgment ("I never liked Father Schaefer"), and to remember simple times that now seem like calls for help.

She got a call from the rectory. "I'm ready to come home now," her son said on the phone. It wasn't 9 p.m., but his mother picked him up anyway. Oddly, he was sitting outside on the curb. The boy looked pale. He said he didn't feel good. "Maybe if you eat something," his mother said. But when he got home, he just showered and went to bed.

"When I think back . . ." his mother says. "What a fool I was."

The present makes for lousy conversation. It's easier to talk about the old house and those routine conversations during routine days in the life of this big, devout Catholic family. All those "tragedy-free years," the father calls them. It's easier to talk because their son isn't in the room with them now.

Their oldest child was the sports nut, a popular kid with good grades. "Who's the girl at his side now?" was the family's joke on any given summer vacation at Ocean City.

The family's church was St. Matthias, a solid but unspectacular church built in 1962 on Annapolis Road in Lanham. All the kids in the family went to grade school here, where parents are required to pitch in. The mother pulled plenty of playground and bingo duty. The father was on the parish council. And every Sunday, the family prayed here.

"We grew up in an atmosphere where a priest receives immediate respect. You just don't think negative things about a priest," the father says. He grew up Catholic. "I stood in awe of priests."

At St. Matthias, their pastor was Father Schaefer and after him, the Rev. Alphonsus Smith.

"They knew us," the father says, of the indicted priests. "They shook our hands as we walked out of the church every Sunday -- and at the same time they were abusing our son."

His arms are folded like a steel gate.

'I was passed around'

They're now called altar servers, meaning boys and girls. But for generations, only altar boys served. And it was natural to want to join the "elite group of little boys in their cassocks," the 34-year-old man says.

For Catholic boys, it was an ego boost to have a priest give them attention and responsibilities. As one of Schaefer's altar boys, the boy got out of homeroom for special Masses, weddings, funerals. He rode in the pastor's big car and tagged along for the free dinners. Then he was chosen to work in the rectory under the supervision of Father Schaefer. A good opportunity to get your homework done, his parents thought.

The boy sometimes did his homework, but mainly he did nothing. It was an easy job. And Father Schaefer was always very friendly -- joking with the boy, rubbing his shoulders.

"He started calling me into his office in the evenings. He'd make sure no one else was there," the man says. Father Schaefer told him he could answer the phones from his room. The boy did what his priest asked.

After hours in the rectory in 1972, Father Schaefer began slowly, professorially. Let me teach you about your body. The pastor later took out Playboy and Penthouse from his desk drawer. A first for the boy. "The pornography was exciting and new," he says. Films came later.

His pastor started fondling him. The man's memory is vague here; he doesn't remember the first time. He does remember the magazines and Father Schaefer undressing. The fondling led to masturbation and oral sex. Father Schaefer took Polaroids, says the man. "I wish I knew where those pictures are now."

His parents had no idea. Their son certainly never told them. They let him go on overnight trips with the priest. He remembers one trip to Williamsburg, remembers the two of them alone in a hotel room. "That night I got physically ill."

Pornography wasn't the only enticement. Father Schaefer was generous in other ways, the man says.

"He'd give me $ 10, $ 20 out of his pocket. Then on Sundays, Schaefer would count the take and give me money, $ 50 sometimes."

The man says he was involved with Father Schaefer between the ages of 11 and 15. They met maybe two, three times a week. The relationship continued after the pastor left St. Matthias in 1975 to become pastor at St. Joseph's. The boy was 14. "I would go to see Schaefer at his new church and have sex with him."

He knew it was wrong, always knew this. But part of him didn't want it to stop. He wanted the money and the pornography. "In a way, I had to go through Schaefer," the man says.

"I didn't feel like I was in a relationship with him," he says. "Technically, I guess I was."

After Father Schaefer left St. Matthias, the boy worked for the new pastor, the Rev. Alphonsus Smith. The pattern of sexual abuse continued, the man says. "It was just more of the same. I thought this was normal," the man says. Normal.

"I do believe I was passed around."

He says he was sexually abused once by another priest at St. Matthias -- the Rev. Edward Pritchard. And the Baltimore man says he was sexually abused once by a fourth priest at St. Matthias, the Rev. Edward Hartel.

Father Hartel and Father Pritchard were also indicted on child sexual abuse charges. Attorneys for the four priests say their clients have no comment for this story.

The teen-ager graduated from St. Matthias and went to high school, where he dated and played sports. During these years -- when he was 15, 16, 17 -- he says he lost interest in Father Schaefer. "I didn't feel comfortable anymore." Father Schaefer kept calling the teen-ager, who stopped taking the calls and stopped seeing the priest.

"Another time, Father Smith called . . . I shouldn't even call him 'Father,' " the mother says. "Tell him I'm not here," her teen-age son said.

The 18-year-old went to college, partied hard, double majored in psychology and business, and began a successful career in sales. His job worked; his relationships didn't. Oh well. Doesn't this happen to everybody? People get together, then break up for no big reason.

He didn't think he had a problem.

A false spring

They met at work. She didn't think much of him at first -- this serious, guarded man who walked with such purpose through the office. The co-workers ran into each other at bars. She watched other women fake laughter at his smart jokes. She could keep up with his jokes and smarts. He made her laugh a lot.

He was the strong, silent type.

She was the strong, opinionated type.

They were each other's types.

When he was 30 and she was 28, they married in the church. His parents called her "the one." A good, sensible Catholic girl from a large family. A wife who could get past his guard.

Their first year of marriage in 1990 featured the usual nitpicking over money: Do we have enough money to go to McDonald's and rent a movie? Next year, they made a little more money and felt more at home with each other. They cooked for each other, and made sure they didn't miss Jimmy Buffett when he'd tour here. Joining all other mortals, they collected Disney videos -- from "Bambi" to "Beauty and the Beast."

They splurged on a trip to Las Vegas; she nearly had to be pulled away from the slots. Her husband lured her from the money machines with the promise of chocolate, her vice. Every couple has their inside jokes and information. But not every couple fits. "We were like old baseball mitts," she says.

On rainy Sundays, they'd hunker down in their home, stocked with pets, bulk food and movie rentals. They'd pig out during their "movie weekends" and plan meals around their favorite television show, namely "Star Trek: The Next Generation." And it always bugged him when she'd leave a spoon in the sink and not put it in the dishwasher. Little things they joked about then; little things that hurt now.

Last year, he told his wife his secret. "I cried and cried and cried and cried," she says. "He felt so hopeless." Something had happened in their marriage to trigger the unearthing of the man's story. The years of denying and concealing what happened at St. Matthias were over for him. The bomb went off.

They don't want to discuss the issues that separated them. The bare facts are he felt he couldn't be married; she moved out of their home; and she does not wear her wedding ring.

"He is my best friend. I miss my life with him terribly," she says, buying him time. "He knows that I'm not going anywhere."

She doesn't know if they'll get back together. There is no "we." There is only "him." He has to find out whether he can love himself -- much less someone else. She believes in fate: If it took their marriage to cause him to confront his problem, then it's worth it.

"I've done all that I ever wanted to do -- which is love my husband and stand by him."

She's working hard at a job she loves and leaning hard on friends and family. She's only told her therapist about her husband's secret.

She did most of her crying last year. But sometimes she is overcome again. A false spring weekend in March, and all she could think about was planting in her yard, walking their dogs, or renting a movie with her husband.

"I wish I was home."

Taking action

After seven months of therapy, the man felt ready to open up to his parents. "They want to help, but I don't need their help right now," he says. "I have to deal with their guilt." His parents ask a therapist questions their son can't or won't answer. His parents ask themselves whether they are wrong for going to church and "did we really know our son then?"

The man hired a lawyer. He and attorney Keith Rosenberg placed an ad in the Washington Post, asking possible victims to call LINKUP, a Chicago-based group for victims of clergy sexual abuse. Based on calls to LINKUP, the man was satisfied that more men had been abused. Now, he had to tell the church and hope someone would believe his 20-year-old story.

He went to Monsignor William Lori, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Washington. He told about his years of abuse at St. Matthias. Unlike in the past, the church quickly went public. Church officials announced that all four priests confessed when confronted. The priests were immediately dismissed from their duties and ordered to undergo psychological treatment at the church's expense.

The man's credibility wasn't questioned.

"I have heard heart-rending stories of young and middle-aged adults who have indeed lost their faith as a result of the abuse they suffered years ago. I believe them," Cardinal James Hickey wrote in the archdiocese's newspaper, Catholic Standard. "As pastor of their souls, I grieve deeply for these victims."

Church officials said Father Schaefer and Father Pritchard had been accused of pedophilia and treated for the disorder years ago. Among other counts, the 69-year-old Father Schaefer was charged with sodomizing a youth he supervised while he was pastor at Sacred Heart Church in St. Mary's County in 1966. He and Father Pritchard had been returned to parish duty on the recommendations of their therapists.

"I feel they were harboring criminals," the man's mother says.

As for the church, "The prevailing sentiment at that time in society and in the church, was that pedophilia was an oddity -- but treatable," says Dawn Weyrich Ceol, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington. "Of course, we now know that it's more complicated than that. It is an insidious disease."

The man's former church, St. Matthias, seemed wounded by the news of its former priests. The church began offering therapy and counseling to its members, many of whom weren't members when the problems occurred. Still, they needed help.

"Yes, these things happened here. We're not sweeping anything under the rug," says the church's pastor, Monsignor John Scanlan. "There is healing that needs to take place. People have suffered a betrayal."

Atlas shrugs

In Baltimore, the man's attorney assesses the damage.

"He doesn't trust himself," Keith Rosenberg says. "He lost a lot of natural growth; part of his childhood is completely distorted."

In Columbia, the man's wife assesses the damage.

"When you have God violate you -- what's left? They have ruined his future."

Her husband can't picture his future. He knows this year too well: telling his parents, telling the archdiocese; living apart from his wife and best friend; waiting for the trial's outcome; and deciding whether to sue for damages. They are talking to church officials about settling his client's claim for a "significant amount of money," Mr. Rosenberg says. "If that breaks down, a civil suit is almost a given."

After this year, who knows? "I would not get married. And children, forget it. I don't think I'd be a very good father."

He's too hard on himself, his parents say. He must have a tenacious spirit. How could he have survived his childhood? If they could just pick him up from this fall. But this is no broken leg. There is no cast.

"As parents, you think you know all the answers," his mother says. "I don't know anymore."

The man tells his story in technical, measured tones. The only time he shows anger is when asked about the priest's possible punishment. The abused man pictures his former pastor in prison. He imagines Old Testament justice for Father Thomas Schaefer. Then, he snaps out of the fantasy.

He took the morning off, but he's got to get back to work. Compared to everything else, work is easy and safe. After long hours at the job, he goes home to a mini-zoo of pets. Just a regular guy -- mowing the grass, playing racquetball, and considering offers from "Donahue" and "Dateline" and wondering whether he should write a book.

He's always admired "Atlas Shrugged," Ayn Rand's opus on the murder and rebirth of man's spirit. The man gave a copy to his wife when they were dating. It was a telling gift from someone finally ready to share himself with "the one."

The book includes this passage: "It still seemed simple and incomprehensible to him: simple that things should be right, and incomprehensible that they weren't.

"He knew that they weren't."