I was born Boston Irish Catholic, did First Communion and Confession (but balked at Confirmation, I am pleased to note), went to a Catholic junior high and a Jesuit college, and taught at a Catholic high school. The first and only CCD (think “Sunday School”) teacher I ever had was the now-notorious rapist of children, Father Paul Shanley. Suffice it to say, I know the Church, and can still recite the “Our Father” prayer in Latin. Pater noster, qui est en chaelis, etc. etc. etc.
I abandoned the Church years before the pedophilia scandals erupted into public consciousness, but when the pedophilia scandals exploded two blocks from my house on the doorstep of the cardinal’s residence in Boston, I realized who Shanley was, and how close I had come to danger (I very specifically remember him looking like an animated cadaver as he stood in the light from the window, so I skipped all but the first CCD classes because he creeped me out so much). Behind all the incense and the soaring cathedral walls was an edifice built on hiding the tears of children that were shed because of the actions of trusted priests and the church leadership who protected them.
My relationship with the Church began with fear, then morphed over the years into fearful respect, then respect in disagreement, then disdain, until I finally landed in a cold puddle of perfect horror … and that was all before the Pennsylvania report this week:
A priest raped a 7-year-old girl while he was visiting her in the hospital after she’d had her tonsils removed. Another priest forced a 9-year-old boy into having oral sex, then rinsed out the boy’s mouth with holy water. One boy was forced to say confession to the priest who sexually abused him.
Those children are among the victims of roughly 300 Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania who molested more than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — since the 1940s, according to a sweeping state grand jury report released Tuesday that accused senior church…