I wrote this 5 years ago. I’d forgotten about it, and you probably did too. It showed up in my Facebook memory feed, and re-reading it today, my anger returned. Stone-cold rage does not often inspire good writing, but in this case I think I held it together fairly well.
I received a lot of feedback when it was posted. More than a few riffed on the same theme. They were glad their own parents were not around to read the report. It would have devastated them, they said.
The Church was the fulcrum that we pivoted around growing up. But after 16 years of abusive nuns and creepy old guys in robes, I’d had enough. I finally saw the church for what it was, and turned ragingly atheistic. Not that I shared any of this with my parents, of course. I would do anything to not hurt them, including damning myself to hell. I lied to them for 30+ years about my Sunday mornings and never once felt bad about it. I gave the eulogies and even took communion at both of their funeral masses, just in case they were still watching.
These masses, by the way, were presided over by the former Bishop of Scranton, a family friend who had been covering up sexual abuse for decades.
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8/15/2018
What’s being called the largest and most comprehensive report on the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church ever done in the United States was released yesterday by a Pennsylvania Grand Jury.