Same church, different pews.
Back in 2005, the Philadelphia Archdiocese - and in fact the entire Catholic church - was rocked to its core by a grand jury report issued by then Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham.
The grand jury laid bare the deepest secret of the Catholic church, decades of abuse by clergy of young, vulnerable victims. And perhaps worse, a pattern of cover-ups by church official, policies clearly devised to protect the church and its minions, not the most vulnerable members of its flock, its children.
The grand jury detailed policies - in Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton - that clearly indicated archdiocesan officials took pains to cover the tracks of abusive priests, even to the point of simply moving them from one parish to another - often without the benefit of alerting the faithful to the predator being dropped into their midst.
Eventually one church official faced a criminal charge - reckless endangerment. That charge has been bounced back and forth in the courts, fighting over the legalese in whether the statue used to charge Monsignor William Lynn actually was in effect at the time. Lynn is now awaiting a new trial on the charges.
It is a sad saga repeated in dioceses across the nation.
It became the focus of an Academy Award-winning film, "Spotlight," detailing the work of an investigative team at the Boston Globe to unearth a similarly ugly, decades-long pattern of abuse by priests in Boston.
We thought it could not possibly get worse.
We were wrong.
Tuesday's release of an 884-page grand jury report on six Pennsylvania dioceses hits depths the faithful could not imagine. The report indicates more than 300 priests abused at least 1,000 children, and very likely many more. And once again, it portrays a church leadership that went to great lengths to cover up the abuse, dismiss the victims, and protect the church at all cost.
I suggest every person read the grand jury report. You can see it here.
I say this as a practicing, lifelong Roman Catholic and former altar boy.
I was never abused by a priest. Never really had any inkling of such a thing, aside from one priest who once came in for a hug and whose stubble grazed my young face.
It's not like there was not opportunity.
As an altar boy I spent time alone with priests, in the sacristy and other places.
They would actually take us out of school at Assumption Blessed Virgin Mary in West Grove to serve a funeral Mass in my home town of Oxford. There was no Catholic cemetery in Oxford, the closest was 10 miles away in West Grove, where the school also was located. We would serve the Mass, then ride with the priest - alone - to the cemetery. After the service, the priest would drop us off at school. How many parents do you think would allow that today.
My first reaction on reading the details of the grand jury report was disbelief.
Then revulsion.
Then anger.
It has once again shaken my faith, something that as a member of St. Joseph's Parish in Downingtown seems to be happening with some regularity these days.
I have begun to question whether I need priests - or the church at all - to have a relationship with God.
But I do not miss the God-less acts of a church that can only be labeled for what it is at this point.
A fraud.
One engaged in a criminal conspiracy to conceal acts that devastated thousands of children.
And one for which there now is very little in the way of justice.
Faith? I have plenty of it. I just have little or none left for a church and its leaders who could have possibly allowed such craven, un-Godlike acts to go on for so long.
On Wednesday's front page, we used the headline, "Thoughts & Prey-ers." It was a play off the often-used term that has followed other similar acts, school shootings.
It was not my first choice.
This was:
Let Us Prey.
The truth is I decided not to use it, thinking it would be unfair to mock something that is actually part of the Mass and other worship.
Then I read the grand jury report.
Now I'm not so sure.
About a lot of things.
I'll likely have more to say about this story, both in this blog and our editorial page.
They say faith will set you free. In this instance, it just might free a lot of the faithful from their church.
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