Who Can Stand Before the Judgment Seat of God? (Nahum 1:6)
That is a rhetorical question. The answer is: no one.
However, when it comes to sins, there are some things that are lesser,
and there are some things that are greater.
And then there are some things that even a little bit is intolerable in
the eyes of God or man. In the natural
world, the best example I can give you is seasoning food. You can put a ¼ of a teaspoon of vanilla into
a milkshake, or you can put a whole teaspoon and it will take a while before it
is obviously way too much. You can put a
¼ of a teaspoon of garlic into something and even more than that just makes you
go, “bleck! Too much garlic!” Then there is GHOST PEPPER. Last June, the waitress brought a tiny cup of
ghost pepper to my friends at our table in a restaurant … wearing gloves. She said, “Even if I get a bit of it on my
fingertips and accidentally touch near my eye, I will be in a world of hurt.” And then my buddy took a tiny bit in his
mouth. I have never seen a human being
turn PURPLE before from a substance that miniscule. And there you have it.
The scandals were erupting all around the country. This priest.
That priest. Bishops covering up. Bishops declaring ignorance. Bishops denouncing. There were tales of cultural raunch that
existed in a couple of seminaries. It
was like a lesson in Disgust. Every
story that came out was a little different; every story that came out was a
little the same. And we all wondered how
many stories were left untold due to shame, fear, regret. Or worse, how many adults were victimized as
young people and are now scarred for life from the past and coping by substance
abuse or ultimately committing suicide?
How could we abide all of this?
What the heck was happening? How
did the grooming-and-abusing process occur almost under our noses and we not
see it for what it was? And, for the
love of heaven, How did an Institution that was created to be HOLY include and
tolerate some leaders that were decisively, well, UN-HOLY PREDATORS?
Doing music ministry in parishes where the choir stands in
front to the side of the altar has its advantages … and disadvantages. Looking out in front of you are the smiling
faces of fellow congregants praying, singing, listening, participating. But then you, also, are in front of them so
your reaction to any surprise is, well, right up front, literally. Like the day that the Deacon of
Disconnectedness stood in front of us and declared cheerfully and triumphantly,
“The Church WILL survive this!” I
watched the question marks go across people’s faces as they processed that odd
comment, even as I felt my own soul roar within me. I was appalled that he would shift the focus
from children who were abused to whether or not the Institution would make
it. He came up to me afterwards and
shook my hand and thanked me for how well the song we played at the Offertory
Procession “went with his homily,” which was, for my part, sheerly accidental. He had misread me completely; I began to
crunch his hand to lock him into the brief clarification we were about to
have. I said to him, “Actually I have a
BEEF with your homily: Nobody CARES
about the Church right now. Right now,
we care about OUR KIDS.” He looked
baffled and walked away.
The following week, our precious, godly pastor got up to the
pulpit for his turn to weigh-in. His
religious order focuses on the theme “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” for
their way of life. He told parents that
because the topic he wanted to address was sensitive and “little pictures have
big ears” he was going to use veiled language. He explained that they should not be alarmed
if they saw him wearing street clothes for a while instead of clerical garb
when he is out in the community. He felt
just the sight of a man-in-black with a white collar was too much for some
people. Indeed, he had walked into a
grocery store and saw a mother physically grab her youngster and pull the child
towards herself while glaring at this priest. This is a guy who has the
sweetest, kindest disposition. If you
knew him, you knew there was no malice in his heart towards children. Then, to address the reality of the
perpetrators, he held his left arm extended out from his side. He declared, “I’ve got a solution: I’ve got a rope and a tree.” I guess the new theme would be, in this
instance, “Make Me a Channel of Your Piece,” he was feeling the vibe of at
least some of the people: once the
initial shock of what we are talking about tames down, you get just plain MAD.
I think Five Stages of Grief and Dying taught by Dr.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross apply handily to what we have walked through as a People. The Denial process: “No. This can’t be happening in our community.” The Bargaining stage: “If we just put
everyone through classes and pay money, this will all go away.” The Depression: “This doesn’t seem to be dead
quite yet. Why the heck is that?!” The Anger: “I’m mad as HELL and I’m not
taking it anymore!” The Resolution &
Acceptance stage … um, I don’t think we are near there yet. Probably because no one really knows exactly
how to get there.
A few weeks ago, someone recommended I read EJ Fleming’s
book Death of an Altar Boy. I
think that person did not realize I could write a book about some of MY experiences
with the clergy. I remember each of them
by face and name: The lewd comment to me
and his snickering as one explained to his housekeeper, “I took a vow of
celibacy, not chastity.” Then there were
the inappropriately-delivered hugs. In
one case, a college girl came to me and said, “Why do I feel so uncomfortable
when he wants to hug me after Mass as I’m leaving the church? He just pulls me right into his vestments and
I want to pull away.” I advised her just
to exit via the other door and avoid the interaction. (That was back in the day before the whistle
blowing REALLY started.) I have had more
than one cleric personally deride me and/or my extensive educational
experience, assessing me with a sneer as “so conservative”. Then there was the misogynist who belittled
every woman employee who walked into his office, to the point of making them
cry, and two of them retired that year just to get that stress over with. And these instances were not just one person;
there were at least five+ that didn’t have “Gentleman” or “Respectful” as part
of their character traits.
Did they have people or parishioners who liked them as
people? Yes. Of course.
Everyone has friends of some sort.
Did they help anyone or minister to anyone in their tenure as
clergy? I imagine so. Two of them are no longer priests. Yet there are also parishioners who, in the
name of getting this process behind us, want to try and jettison through this uncomfortable
purging stage and pretend it is not happening.
Perhaps those are the people who feel it’s someone else’s problem or do
not know a victim personally … but I do.
I know of a young man who met an older gentleman (not clergy
or church-related) with a PhD whom everyone just called, “The Doctor.” The Doctor took this young man away on
vacations. He bought him a brand-new car
for his high school graduation. He
showered him with presents. The kid’s
parents thought that he was a nice man who found their son as wonderful and
worthy of good things as they did. Mistake. When something gets obviously excessive with
gifts and trips, all the yellow and red lights should be flashing in the
parents’ heads that says: “Grooming alert.
Grooming alert. Predator in
vicinity.” The young man, after years of
being abused and bribed to cover it up, finally came clean… and fell
apart. Then, after years of drug
addiction, he took his own life. I do
not know where the “Doctor” is today.
But I hope he packed his marshmallows and a stick. He’s going to need them.
“Jesus said unto them: ‘It would be better to be thrown
into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these
little ones to fall into sin.” (Luke
17:2)
So, in spite of my personal experiences, which I only hinted
at here, I still read Death of an Altar Boy to learn more of the scope
of the crisis because it happened in my home diocese of Springfield. The one notorious cleric who so clearly had abused
many young men, and most possibly murdered one of them, never served jail
time. According to the journalist’s research, the
bungling of the evidence at the crime scene and disappearance of key items would
have made for a difficult case “beyond reasonable doubt,” so he was a
registered sex-offender on parole until he was 80. Just when they were preparing to arrest him,
he died of COVID. To wit, there was implied
connection between The Church, The Politicians, and The Law, in making sure
this cleric did not have to face a murder conviction.
What I found most disturbing and curious about the book was
the linking of adult males, clerical and non-clerical who seemed to have a ring
of vice going in trafficking the young men.
How did this go undetected for so long?
For pages, Mr. Fleming named people and behaviors and events that the most
genteel of readers would not be able to plow through. It made me think of a conversation two or
three guy friends at my college were having about their experiences in seminary
back at the end of the 1970’s. Both of
them left the seminary due to the rampant sexually promiscuous behavior among
the ranks. Is it just me, or is it
really very incongruous that someone would enter seminary to follow CHRIST and
end up giving in to wholesale debauchery?
For this, there is no excuse. And
because of this, we are where we are as the Catholic Church.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the
kingdom of heaven; but only those that do the will of my Father.” (Matthew 7:21)
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