Trust, and Vows of Chastity
Seems just about universal. Everywhere one looks, reads, hears there are ongoing reports of Catholic priests abusing their trust, violating their oaths of office, expunging faith in the nobility of the priesthood, becoming living travesties of predatory, child-molesting beasts in their dotage. Rewarded by the silence of those they abused for so many years because their traumatized victims knew no one would believe them.
Their sins only now unleashed to the light of day and finally - justice.
That men, despite vows imposed upon them by the rigidity of a Catholic hierarchy wedded to the fiction that the sex drive can be effectively internalized might turn to the abuse of children as a result of their inability to successfully sublimate their desires is not surprising. It is the numbers of such men who submitted to their physical needs while in office, instead of leaving their positions and living like all other men, co-habiting with women in normal relationships that is surprising.
And when one adds in the fact that these men whose misdeeds were eventually revealed within their parishes, were not denounced and defrocked, but were instead protected, the mind boggles.
The Roman Catholic Church which espouses truth and justice and the word of God incarnate sought to deny, to breach faith, to smother criticism, to shelter the guilty. And moved such child molesters from one parish to another, where they succumbed to the allure of gratifying their needs, in the process sacrificing the innocence of children.
The latest, Msgr. Bernard Prince, now 72, no longer perhaps victim to his urges, has pleaded guilt and apologized for his "legal and moral" wrongdoing, claiming that "It's my hope in the future I can contribute in some small way to restore to those persons I have hurt in the past." Well, how do you restore a life's trust taken away in stealth through what can only be construed as predatorily vicious aggravated assault?
"I see him as the abuser and pedophile that he is" said one 42-year-old man who was an altar boy sexually assaulted by Msgr. Prince when he was between the ages of ten and thirteen.
That the Church was aware of the allegations against Msgr. Prince seems assured by virtue of the fact that he was sent from one administrative post to another. His career included postings with the Vatican as secretary-general of the Pontifical Work for the Propagation of Faith. Is that not delicious irony?
A long and varied and respected career had he, beginning with parishes in Arnprior and Pembroke, then a post at the Apostolic Nunciature in Ottawa. From there to the Canadian Conference of Bishops in Ottawa, and a teaching post at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Finally, moving to Toronto as director of Canada's Pontifical Mission Society, before going on to the Vatican.
The achievement of high stations within the Church despite the destroyed lives he left strewn in his path: "I was morally and spiritually destroyed. He had stolen my life. How could I survive? I had met the devil." That's the testament of one destroyed life.
"It is the deep breach of trust that underpins the sentence you will receive today", said the presiding judge. "It was a trust you abused in the most fundamental manner." The frailties of humankind, our humiliations and failures, our misery.
Their sins only now unleashed to the light of day and finally - justice.
That men, despite vows imposed upon them by the rigidity of a Catholic hierarchy wedded to the fiction that the sex drive can be effectively internalized might turn to the abuse of children as a result of their inability to successfully sublimate their desires is not surprising. It is the numbers of such men who submitted to their physical needs while in office, instead of leaving their positions and living like all other men, co-habiting with women in normal relationships that is surprising.
And when one adds in the fact that these men whose misdeeds were eventually revealed within their parishes, were not denounced and defrocked, but were instead protected, the mind boggles.
The Roman Catholic Church which espouses truth and justice and the word of God incarnate sought to deny, to breach faith, to smother criticism, to shelter the guilty. And moved such child molesters from one parish to another, where they succumbed to the allure of gratifying their needs, in the process sacrificing the innocence of children.
The latest, Msgr. Bernard Prince, now 72, no longer perhaps victim to his urges, has pleaded guilt and apologized for his "legal and moral" wrongdoing, claiming that "It's my hope in the future I can contribute in some small way to restore to those persons I have hurt in the past." Well, how do you restore a life's trust taken away in stealth through what can only be construed as predatorily vicious aggravated assault?
"I see him as the abuser and pedophile that he is" said one 42-year-old man who was an altar boy sexually assaulted by Msgr. Prince when he was between the ages of ten and thirteen.
That the Church was aware of the allegations against Msgr. Prince seems assured by virtue of the fact that he was sent from one administrative post to another. His career included postings with the Vatican as secretary-general of the Pontifical Work for the Propagation of Faith. Is that not delicious irony?
A long and varied and respected career had he, beginning with parishes in Arnprior and Pembroke, then a post at the Apostolic Nunciature in Ottawa. From there to the Canadian Conference of Bishops in Ottawa, and a teaching post at Saint Paul University in Ottawa. Finally, moving to Toronto as director of Canada's Pontifical Mission Society, before going on to the Vatican.
The achievement of high stations within the Church despite the destroyed lives he left strewn in his path: "I was morally and spiritually destroyed. He had stolen my life. How could I survive? I had met the devil." That's the testament of one destroyed life.
"It is the deep breach of trust that underpins the sentence you will receive today", said the presiding judge. "It was a trust you abused in the most fundamental manner." The frailties of humankind, our humiliations and failures, our misery.
posted by Pieface | 6:31 PM
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