As an immigrant son, growing up in the working class Bronx, I was grateful for my Catholic education…first with the Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers at St. Raymond’s and later with the Jesuits at Fordham Prep.
Gratitude is not without its limits.
When a Pennsylvania grand jury issued their report on August 14, 2018 charging that over 300 priests (in that state alone) have been credibly accused of sexually abusing over 1,000 child victims, memories returned. Those memories were rooted in the special and unlimited trust our families placed in the consecrated people of God who taught us. In many cases, that trust was well-placed. In some, it was terribly abused.
Here is a story from my 1962 eighth grade class…
On the first day of the school year our new teacher, Brother Bernard introduced himself with these words: Continue reading “The Pennsylvania Report: Sadness and anger…”