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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
But that doesn’t excuse the piling on that we are witnessing, the barrage of cheap shots. I have just read headline stories in both New York and Connecticut newspapers about two priests who have been charged with sexual improprieties with teenage boys over twenty years ago. Both priests have had exemplary careers up until these revelations. Their parishioners speak with great fondness and respect for them. The New York priest, Bronx Monsignor Charles Kavanaugh, is the initiator of some of the most highly praised youth and anti-crime programs in New York City.
And? Am I saying they are innocent? No. I don’t know that. But, from what I can tell, the only charge against them comes from a single accuser. That seems to be sufficient to assume a priest’s guilt these days and to get his picture spread across the front pages of the newspapers. A New York Post story (May 27th) quotes Monsignor Kavanaugh’s brother on the double-standard: “We have an unnamed person, giving unspecified complaints on unproven allegations…Is this the McCarthy era? You know, where I say you’re a communist, so you are a communist.” Precisely.
Will I have to eat some crow for raising these objections? Maybe. It has to be admitted: Very few protestations of innocence by priests accused of molesting young boys have held up under scrutiny. Even so, the point is that enemies of the Church are using these scandals as an excuse to slash away at the Church for ideological purposes. Their goal is to weaken Catholicism by picturing the Church as a corrupt and backward institution, undeserving of respect. Christopher Hitchens in his column in The Nation described the Catholic Church as a “protection racket for child rapists.”
Look: The priests involved in the sex scandals are not typical. They’re vile, but not typical. And I am not the only one who undersands that. We all know it. Over the past weeks, whenever this topic came up — at my barber, dentist and car dealer, for example – I repeated my mantra: “Yeah, this stuff is horrible. But, I’m not exaggerating. I went to Catholic schools from first grade through graduate school. And I never, ever, came across priests anything like this.”
And you know what? My barber, dentist and car dealer say the same thing; they have never known of a sexually abusive priest either. It is not their experience of Catholicism. Their faith in the Church has been shaken – but by the stories they see in the newspapers and on television, not by their personal experiences as a Catholic.
Please don’t misread me. I am not suggesting that these scandals are witch hunts. That is not the case. But I am saying that we should not forget all the good things about life in the typical Catholic parish in the United States. These stories about sex-abusing priests make the headlines because they are shocking, because they are so hard to believe, because they are man bites dog stories.
The priests and members of religious orders in my life, from the time I was a young altar boy until the present day, are not like the priests in these newspaper accounts. The priests in my life are very different men indeed. They are men who may have been stern and austere at times, but who never threatened me or anyone I know. Quite the contrary.
They were men who educated me in classrooms that were orderly and safe; who made clear that they expected the best from me and wanted me to succeed, both academically and spiritually; who convinced me that they would be saddened by any sleazy or half-heated behavior on my part, who taught me to strive to be my best.
They were dignified, well-groomed men who offered an alternative male image to the sleek wise guys on the street corners. Many of them really did look like Spencer Tracey and Pat O’Brien. They were men who fostered in their students and young people in their charge a healthy and balanced version of what the psychologists call “self-esteem” these days. “Self esteem?” I’ll say. I can remember sitting in my classes and wondering how I could have been so lucky to have been born a Catholic and an American, when so much of the planet lived in misery and degradation.
They were men who demonstrated that there was nothing incongruous about being both pious and scholarly. The impact on a young man is lasting when he sees the same man who taught him logarithms or Constitutional law the day before kneeling in private prayer in the school’s chapel. Posturing leftist professors always seemed childish in comparison.
They were men who gave their parishioners a model of clean and manly Catholic camaraderie at school and parish rallies and social gatherings. The mood was often boisterous, even raucous, at these functions, but worlds apart from the coarse humor of the modern talk shows. We discovered that being a “good sport” did mean acting like Howard Stern.
Perhaps more than anything else they gave young people an understanding of our responsibilities for the poor and the downtrodden, often through their own years spent in the overseas missions or poverty programs. Their sacrifices put into perspective the modern phenomenon of movie stars and politicians’ wives spending a few days in front of the cameras with Third World babies or a newly discovered species of endangered wildlife. Those who were once their students can tell the difference between loving our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God, and being politically correct.
I would venture to guess that most Catholics have similar recollections of the priests and brothers they have known. These are sad days for the Church, but we should never forget why we love the Church as much as do. In the main, it is because of the priests and religious in our lives. We would be remiss if we did not make them aware of that fact during these difficult days.
