Lack of Transparency

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I was raised an atheist and converted to Catholicism when I got married. Fast forward 15 years, my husband and I were having a rough patch, and I went to church seeking some help. Our parish priest offered to help with marital counseling, and then later on kissed me and propositioned me during confession.

I told my husband and the Diocese about it immediately. It took 6 months, but the priest was finally put on administrative leave and then removed from the parish. The Vicar of Priests at the Diocese apologized to me and had the Diocese pay for me to attend counseling with a professional. He and the Bishop, however, refused to apologize to or acknowledge the suffering that my husband and children had to endure. This was 5 years ago.

I am still afraid of going to church, going into a confessional, seeing a priest on the street, and what could happen to my children if I were to leave them alone with a priest. In retrospect, I should have filed a complaint with the police and sued the Diocese because it seems like all they cared about was me NOT taking legal action. They didn’t and don’t care about the PTSD which I have now, nor the secondary PTSD suffered by my family.

Yes, I get that I wasn’t raped. But, when I was 18 and a trusted teacher took advantage of me, I blamed myself. The priest was the first person to whom I told the full truth, and evidently, he saw that as an opening for his solicitation. I blamed myself, again, for a long time.

I understand that priests are human and sin, and it appears that he has been placed on “Prayers and Penance,” ergo he can only work within the Diocesan offices and no longer in a parish. But my family and I have lost our faith, and no amount of prayer is bringing that back. After 5 years, we are no closer to ever going back to organized religion. I remain morally wounded, and I feel doubly stupid for ever believing in God or that I could trust being alone with a man in a position of authority again. I should have been safe in church, but because I am “too smart, pretty, and nice” (his words) somehow I brought this on myself.

My sister’s answer is that men are pigs. I guess that I could just lump this priest in with wolves in sheep’s clothing. But it hurts that the Diocese doesn’t care about my family, hasn’t reached out to them, and still feels obligated to pay for the room, board, and pension of a priest who, by his own admission, is a “bad man.” I guess it’s along the lines of the lessons that Jesus was more loving towards those who had sinned and come back than those who had followed him faithfully without wavering.

Grown women are not protected by any policies in the Catholic church. All of those statements about “vulnerable adults” per the Victims Coordinator at my Diocese only apply to adults with developmental disabilities. This is a real issue which the Victims Coordinator acknowledged was completely inappropriate, but she said that as women, we have no say in it. All she can do is to continue to remind the powers that be that this priest should never be put back into parish circulation. And if she leaves the position, will she make sure that her successor knows to keep that up?
 
I’m so sorry that this happened to you. People often recommend going to a Priest for relationship counselling but I would never do that. There are rules and protocols that are properly addressed by sound education that can guide you through. Always, always, always go to a Catholic counsellor for relationship guidance rather than a Priest.
 
Not to seem harsh, but for what?
Is there a crime that was committed?
And, anything at all that happens in the confessional is “off limits” for the priest to talk about, even if he is trying to defend himself.
OP, I am sorry this is taking such a toll on you and your family. Please seek some outside counseling and remember that one bad priest does not represent the whole Church.
 
I am sorry that this has happened to you.

I realize that I’m not your Bishop, nor your Vicar for Clergy, so what I say isn’t ever going to mean the same thing as it would from them, but I am very sorry that you have been hurt by the actions of another priest.

I will offer Mass for you and your family and for your healing.

Lord have mercy.
-Fr ACEGC
 
CryingInside said:
But it hurts that the Diocese doesn’t care about my family, hasn’t reached out to them, and still feels obligated to pay for the room, board, and pension of a priest who, by his own admission, is a “bad man.”
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I read a Washington Post article recently that was about offending priests who left the Church to sometimes move on to offend outside of the Church. And therein lies a possible reason to keep paying for some of them. In “exchange” for the benefits, the Church can essentially keep an eye on the priest instead of letting them go outside the Church. This would only apply when there is no criminal conviction of a priest. Because, apparently, there is a legal threshold (a conviction) that must be crossed in order for the Church to warn any other entity about an offending priest. Without a conviction of a crime, the Church can’t legally say much of anything about a priest. So the Church may feel morally obligated to keep its offenders that don’t have a criminal conviction within its ranks.

I’m not defending or criticizing this. I’m just trying to provide information. You may already be aware of it. But it was something I had not heard until I read the Washington Post article a couple months ago.

But I agree that there should be more transparency within the Church about these things. What that transparency would look like I don’t know.
 
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In a face to face confessional, he picked me up, put me on his lap, kissed me, and then asked me to have sex with him. I’m pretty sure in this day and age that is considered sexual assault. This “what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional” only empowers those who would like to do harm. When I asked him what he thought that he was doing and told him that I wasn’t interested in him in that way, he got upset and threatened me. When I complained, I was told that I was the first woman in the history of the Diocese to ever complain. I guess that most Catholic women just keep quiet. There are perks to being raised as an atheist, I guess. One of which is that I won’t let any man, even a priest, treat me like garbage.
 
I realize that this might sound flippant, but I’m trying to imagine this happening in a traditional booth-type confessional. It simply couldn’t, I think.
Do “reconciliation rooms” make this type of behavior easier, compared to a booth-style confessional?
 
Years ago I was victimized by a priest. It’s a very long story but he exposed himself to me twice at my boyfriend’s house. He had made himself at home there after my boyfriend’s father died and entered into an affair with the mom. Over a year into dating my boyfriend, I learned the priest had been molesting him since my boyfriend was in junior high…the time his dad died. Yes…sleeping with Mom to get access to the son. My boyfriend and I were in college by the time I found out and the priest was still manipulating him. We broke up…we had hoped to marry after graduation. It was hideous.

But I am telling you this for one reason…the church was used and victimised as well. This is not Catholicism. This is criminal predation. As appalling as the percentage of predators are in the priesthood, they sadly match percentages in the general population. Yes, it is equally prevalent wherever you go…coaches, teachers, employers, medical professionals, counselors.

Predators go where they can manufacture the opportunity for abuse. Predators are rats and can similarly squeeze through a nickel sized hole anywhere in society to do their evil.

I left the church for over 20 years over this. I never left Catholicism or God but the institution was corrupted and I was a Catholic woman without a church. My return took ten years and I am still working on it. I came to this site for help in the last bits of the struggle. It is arduous.

I am still furious with leadership who put legal maneuvering and gamesmanship above the moral imperative to care for impacted parishioners in this scandal…far too little, far too late. It still is going on and those responsible are frankly depraved.

However, I am taking my church back from evil. I sought a parish which is true to church teaching. I have taken up the cause of defending and praying for the vast majority of priests who are not predators and have been deeply hurt by this mess. Imagine if every teacher and coach were presumed to be perverts as priests too often are. It is horrible.

The cassock should not be a Scarlet letter. It is a sign of humility, simplicity, piety and service. Any who abuse it must be expelled moving forward, and whenever possible, prosecuted. They are not priests but imposters. Protecting predators is the opposite of “protecting priests”. Protecting priests requires we have the will to remove from their society those who will corrupt and pervert their sacred calling.

I hope you will find your way back as I have. I am sorry for what was done to you, and the lack of support afterwards. There is no excuse for it and it certainly was not an expression of Catholicism…none of it.

And I am sorry for all people religious who have innocently carried the burden inflicted on them by evil permitted to fester among their ranks. They do not deserve the broad brush of harsh judgment and mockery that has befallen the vocations and are in my prayers.
 
Yes. It kind of like being in a medium sized walk in closet. Two chairs 90 degrees to each other with a small table and a lamp. I suppose I could have screamed, but I kind of froze. It felt like an eternity until I stood up and told him that I wasn’t interested. Then he told me to sit down again, and I just did. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. That’s when he told me not to tell anyone. I said okay, then left, completely shocked. It took me a day to feel safe enough to tell my husband, a few days to tell the head priest, and a week to call the Diocese.
 
I am so very sorry this happened to you. The betrayal is so great! I encourage you to remember Jesus, who was also brutally betrayed by someone who should have known and done better. And of course the deep humiliation of the cross. He knows how you feel. You wouldn’t be posting if you didn’t miss God in your life. Jesus is so good. Make a place for him in your life, and feed on his perfect love. Read the gospels, maybe find a daily devotional that resonates with you, listen to teaching CDs (lighthouse Catholic media). I guess I want to encourage you - don’t throw the baby out with the bath water - don’t lose the abundant love of God as a force for good in your life because of one despicable person. I’ll say a prayer that God would comfort your heart as only He can.
 
I’m also sorry for what happened to you. Sadly things like this remind us of how all of us are sinners, even the clergy. As hard as it may seem, please find it in your heart to pray for this priest, and to forgive him. Holding on to the pain only hurts you. As Catholics, we are called to forgive others. It’s hard, I know. It can take time. But find it within yourself to forgive. Come back to the Faith. Ask to do confession in the pews if it makes you more comfortable. Don’t let this priest keep you from our Lord, who is the only perfect one. God Bless.
 
I’m so sorry that this happened to you. It is so disheartening to hear of things like this. And to make matters worse there is the poor response of the diocese. Sadly, your story has been repeated many times over in the last several decades.

I would ask you to please remember that there are essentially two churches. There is the fallen, human church made up of the unfriendly church secretary, the irritable nun, the gruff priest (or in your case and the case of many others, the assaulting priest); all the mistakes, sins and even crimes.

Then there is the higher, divine church. This is the church of all the graces won for us by Christ through his act of love on the cross, all the loving acts of the saints, the selflessness, the wisdom, the beauty of the art and architecture, the witness of the martyrs, the unity of the Church’s teachings; the example of those who loved truth and goodness so much that they would rather die than deny it.

It’s the church of those like Mother Teresa and St. Katherine Drexel whose selflessness was a light shining in a dark world; and those like St. Therese and St. Maximillian Kolbe whose heroic suffering continues to inspire millions of Catholics and even unbelievers. Millions of good, holy men and women who with the help of God’s grace mastered their sinful tendencies.

This church exists side by side with the human, fallen church. But in order to gain access to the higher church of grace we have to put up with the human church of sin, always struggling to forgive that human, institutional church.

Secondly, we have to remember that the reason these things have happened so much over the last 60 or more years is not because of anything inherently deficient in the Catholic faith. Rather, it is a rejection of that faith. It has happened because of an infiltration of worldly values into Christ’s Church. Namely, the worldly values of instant sexual gratification and power over and above the Christian values of service and self-denial of sinful impulses.

This is what we see over and over again whether it be the assault of a child, of a young seminarian by a homosexual priest (or even a bishop), or the assault of a woman like yourself. (And then there is the ever-present worldly temptation to lie, to cover up, to blame the victim, to protect the reputation of the diocese or the bishop or whatever.) What happened to you and many others comes from the world’s and the devil’s spirit of lust, power and deception. It does not come from Christ’s spirit of love, service and truth.

So by going away from the Catholic faith and back to atheism you would be rejecting that higher Church that I spoke of with all that Christ established, namely his Eucharistic Body. You would essentially be letting the Devil win. Don’t take the bait. Remember that Jesus too was betrayed and victimized by the religious authorities of his time. I highly encourage you to stay with the Church. This is a heavy cross to bear, no doubt. But with God’s grace flowing into you from the sacraments, you can move past it in time. You and your family will be in my prayers.
 
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I am sorry for those who are victimized by priests.

Regarding the comments about “I guess that most Catholic women just keep quiet, there are perks to being raised as an atheist”, I would note that many if not most Catholic women have not experienced sexual abuse by a priest. The percentage of sexually abusive priests is low, and sexual abusers tend to single out and prey upon a subset of vulnerable targets, which unfortunately often means persons in trouble who are seeking help/ counseling, and persons who have been victimized before. So it’s not so much a case of us all keeping quiet as it is that many of us just don’t have anything to report. I have never been abused or anything close to it by a priest in my life, and neither have any of my Catholic friends.

Again I’m sorry that this happened to you, and I would hope that any person who has a similar experience would report it not only to the Diocese but also to the police. Regarding “what happens in the confessional stays in the confessional”, the person confessing (the penitent) can disclose anything that happens in the confessional, to anyone, anytime. There is no requirement that the penitent keep the confession, or anything that happens therein, secret. That requirement only applies to the priest.
 
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I have talked to a couple of lawyers, and while they empathize with me, don’t feel that I would be able to win a case against the Diocese. I believe that my efforts would be better served agitating for legislation to protect laypeople from persons religious who counsel them. Many states, including Texas and Minnesota, have rules on the books. I think that it the next few years I will begin pursuing this. For now, I continue to give myself time and space to heal my soul, and hope that some day thinking about it won’t hurt so much.
 
Those saints inspire me, as do St. Maria Goretti and St. Agatha. Even if my atheist roots are true and there is no God, Jesus and these people were good and my goal, regardless of whether there is a Heaven or Hell, is to be like them.
 
Thank you for this. I think that I will contact the reporter who wrote this article, and maybe she will put me in touch with the woman mentioned. Her experience sets something of precedent for my case and might help me in finding a lawyer who is not afraid to take on my local Diocese. If this priest had been a psychiatrist, psychologist, or social worker, he would have lost his license, and it would be a no-brainer for me to seek compensation for the past 5 years of emotional distress.
 
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