I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school throughout elementary and high school. Catholicism is what I was taught and what I knew. I am no longer Catholic and as an adult am in complete disbelief at how everyone just looked and still looks the other way when it came to pedophile priests.
I write about this now because, yet another, priest was outed just yesterday as a pedophile in my hometown and this is the second I knew and had contact with when I was a kid.
The picture above is from my elementary school yearbook and so far two out of the four priests are known pedophiles. The woman, who I won’t name was a nun (is no longer) and was caught stealing from the local supermarket.
The priest that was outed yesterday is Pedophile Lutz for abuse at St. Christopher’s Church from 1982 to 1986. It was in multiple news outlets but here is the one from 10 TV.
The second one is Pedophile Hanrahan who is already on the list of “Credibly Accused Clergy” and was convicted of gross sexual imposition back in 1984.
Source from the Columbus Dispatch: Link
Hanrahan was convicted of gross sexual imposition and sentenced to four years in prison in 1994 after admitting to sexual misconduct with a boy during the 1980s while serving at St. Ladislas and St. Christopher parishes in Columbus. Allegations by other boys were not prosecuted as part of a plea deal. According to court records, Hanrahan admitted fondling the boy, who was 11 and 12 at the time, and lying naked next to him when the boy slept over at his home. Hanrahan resigned from the priesthood in 1993 and moved to Connecticut to seek psychological treatment. Three victims later filed civil lawsuits against Hanrahan. Those lawsuits included allegations of abuse of a child who worshiped at St. Mary’s Church in Columbus. At least two of the civil lawsuits were dismissed.
Bishop Accountability Website: Link
Columbus Diocese Clergy Credibly Accused: Link
Now that I’ve got the facts and links down I want to get to the main point of this post. At 42 years old and a parent myself I am in complete shock, disbelief, bewilderment that this was allowed to happen and EVERYONE looked the other way. Cover it up, shuffle the priests along, don’t talk about it, we don’t want to look bad now do we!
When yet another priest is outed Catholics will say it is another “bad apple,” or they’ll say priests should be allowed to marry. A new priest will be installed and they’ll all shuffle back to church just like a “flock of sheep.” It is in fact a sad comedy that makes me want to laugh.
“Oh dear, Father Dick got caught piddling little Tommy. Bad Father Dick, such a bad apple. Oh look, we now have Father Stiff, here Father Stiff have some children, go on to Father Stiff little children.
Two months later.
Oh dear, Father Stiff touched little Sammy’s balls. Such a bad apple. Oh look we’ve got a new priest,, here priest have some children!
And on and on it goes.
I cannot believe there isn’t outrage, people pulling out of that seriously dysfunctional religion left and right. Instead they are silent, and whisper among themselves.
We’re not talking about one bad apple here, just look at my own example. We’re talking about three out of six people in positions of authority in my elementary school! And guess what, more pedophiles came after them. And the congregation still goes and shakes the new priest’s hands and bows to their authority.
I don’t like priests. At 42 years old many of them are now in my age bracket. These are not the types of people I’d be friends with. What kind of man would want to be a priest? I’ll tell you, a closeted one with unnatural sexual desires. If not quite that then one who wants to run from the world. Or perhaps they want to please Mommy and Daddy who expect this of them. Or perhaps they are just FUCKING WEIRD!!! How could the adults not see this when I was a kid?? Why do they submit to priests authority over and over again when a very high percentage are known pedophiles???
I’ll tell you why. The Catholic church is a cult. It is an extremely large cult that has been around for a very long time and people cannot break free from past tradition. Their parents were Catholic and thus they are Catholic. If you go back far enough, the invading armies were Catholic and forced the natives they were conquering to be Catholic. Rulers found this religion to be very useful in subduing the natives and it worked. It continues to work even today with President’s talking in simple terms such as good vs. evil, evildoers, and so on. No need to get into difficult details my flock of sheep, just know we’re the good guys and God loves us while that other group is the bad guys and God hates them. So why can they not see it when things have gotten very strange? Because they don’t want to see it. The church is what they know, it is what they’ve known their entire lives. You can ditch a priest but you cannot ditch what you’ve known and believed in your entire life. One apple after another could go bad, in fact, half of the entire barrel might spoil but the solution is to just rearrange the apples and never look at the barrel itself as a cause for spoilage.
But going back to priests just being weird I remember Father Lutz and having to go to his choir practice. It was up on the balcony in back of the church where the was an organ. It would just be a bunch of boys and we’d have to sing songs in Latin. I remember one word from one song and it was Erebus. I had no idea what it meant but now a wry smile forms as I’ve just looked it up and it is “personification of darkness in Greek mythology.” How wonderfully poetic, it fits into my story so well!!
For fuck’s sakes, who gets a bunch of young boys together to sing songs in Latin to organ music??? It seems to me life is an absurd comedy where from time to time people wake up and realize, “Hey, this thing we’ve been doing for hundreds of years and thought was completely normal is absolutely ridiculous isn’t it!”
Slavery, genital mutilation, wearing high heels (shoes designed to shoot arrows from horseback, not to walk in) painting the face (aka makeup), seeing breasts not as food providers for infants but making people cover them up because guys think they are sexual, wearing burkas because, again, men cannot control themselves, believing in a religious book that is full of silly stories, portraying Jesus as white when he would have been dark, electing Trump (examples are seemingly infinite, just open the news), bigotry because another human is a different color, mental gymnastics required to continue believing in religion in a modern world, thinking that we’re an important species and that God looks like us with an incomprehensible universe right in front of our face if we just look up at the stars and so on and so on.
A bunch of boys singing in Latin to organ music played by a single male adult all dressed in black. Life is an absurd comedy indeed.
Let’s do a comparison for fun to show how the mind doesn’t quite work as it should when it comes to the Catholic congregation.
Let’s say we’re at the ocean on the beach and the waves are perfect for surfing. However, there are a couple of sharks out there. Danger for sure although it is really rare for a shark to attack a surfer. There will be about 2 deaths per year but that is to drowning. In the 10 years I’ve lived next to an ocean there was only one shark attack which bit a kayak. Nobody has died, maybe not ever, I cannot be sure. But would the parents let their kids go surfing knowing sharks are lurking out there? No, probably not.
Well, what about spending time with a priest when almost HALF OF THE PRIESTS IN THE PAST DECADE FOR THEIR PARISH ARE KNOWN PEDOPHILES???? No problem then, go on little Timmy, get out there and be with that priest!
Here is another story to illustrate how dark the environment truly is. There was a kid in my parish whose mother had him play the organ during mass. He was young, maybe 12 or so and very good at the organ. He was the perfect little Catholic boy. But there was an issue. This little boy was gay. His mother was your model Christian, always dressed nice, saying her prayers, couldn’t ask for more from a Catholic. But she really didn’t want her child to be gay. Well, as I learned many years later this little boy grew up and committed suicide.
Does anyone blame the church for an absolutely awful environment that teaches a little kid there is something wrong with him to the point where he kills himself? Nope. It is just forgotten, some words are said and the flock shuffles to church the next Sunday.
Well, I’ve written enough. I want to enjoy my Sunday and dwelling on this topic brings me down. I’m glad I’ve got it written however as I want my descendants to know how I feel on this topic and also simply for reference in this journal of my life.
