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Reflections on the Priest Scandals

© Kathryn Morse

It’s been about two years since, to use media terms, the Church sex scandal story broke. It was like a volcano erupting after many years of just groaning under the strain of pressure from molten lava.

I think most of us knew of instances of inappropriate conduct by priests and then the subsequent moving of that priest. Sometimes the priest would go on “retreat” in between assignments, presumably for counseling. I’m not sure any laypersons were aware of the magnitude of the problem. I know I hear very little about what goes on in dioceses other than my own.

As a parent, I had always thought that priests accused of inappropriate behavior were treated too lightly. My daughter asked me about that once. And my frank answer was, “Sometimes the priesthood looks like an all-boys club to me. And they stick together; make excuses for each other and cover-up for each other.”

More than once I had even argued with other Catholic parents about whether or not bishops were too lenient with priests. Some Catholics worry more about what the might happen to the Church’s reputation than they do about children in their own parish. I’ve heard statements like, “We can’t discuss these things, Protestants might hear,” and “We can’t say that, people might not come to our church.” And to that I say, “Your priorities are not in order. Be brave, do the right things, and let God take care of what Protestants think and attendance.” I really believe that doing the right thing will have wonderful consequences for the future.

However, I do not believe all allegations against priests. Though, recently I was disappointed to be proven wrong in a courtroom about one priest whose masses I had attended.

A priest had been moved from the parish next to ours to a year-long “retreat.” There were rumors of misconduct with an altar boy. The bishop would not address the reasons for the retreat except to say that the priest had been under severe strain lately. We all knew that his father had passed away, so that seemed plausible.

The rumors persisted, but I heard a story that seemed to fit the bill. Some of our good friends have an altar boy son with ADHD. The priest had said something to the young man because he wiggled and moved around so much when serving. This had hurt the family’s feelings. I thought that maybe that was the beginning of the “misconduct” story and it had just been stretched to be scandalous, but was really innocent.

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