My op-ed on the Catholic Church molestation scandal
My op-ed on the Catholic Church scandal ran today in the Daily Cougar and can be read here.
I really wish my deadline for the piece had been pushed back a day given this gem from Cardinal Angelo Sodano at the Vatican’s Easter service:
Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers,” Cardinal Sodano said.
How stupid are these guys? Now press coverage of decades of child molestation pervasive throughout the Church all over the world and the Church’s cover-ups is simply petty gossip? Is there no line they think they can’t cross? It’s pretty clear that they think that raping children just isn’t really that big a deal.
In my parish, St. John the Evangelist in Goshen, NY, the first major pedophile scandal materialized in the early nineties. The priest in question, “Father Ed” had been molesting boys in their early teens. To say that the parishioners were traumatized by this would be an understatement. They were devastated. Then something wondrous happened….
Father Ed was eventually replaced by Father Trevor Nichols. Father Trevor had been an Anglican in merrie old England when he converted to Catholicism. On becoming a Catholic was transferred to Saint John’s – WITH HIS WIFE AND TWO DAUGHTERS! A married priest! WITH TWO KIDS!
You want to hear the punch line? Our little parish did not implode. The sun did not fall from the sky. Huge cracks did not appear in the earth’s surface. In fact, it was nice having them. They were – and are to this day – deeply beloved by the people of St. John’s.
Allowing priests to marry would transform the Catholic Church. Having Father Trevor, his wife Marian and their two lovely daughters in our midst certainly transformed the people of St. John’s.
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Tom Degan