This is my very first time using something like this. Technology scares me…but here it goes… I am a priest, a Catholic priest, a Roman Catholic priest and I have alot to say about the priest sex abuse scandal. Wow, I really don’t know where to start.

There is an awful lot of lip service coming from the “Church” about how much they care and how much they want to help victims…but what are they doing? Meeting with victims is woefully inadequate because NOTHING ever seems to go on to actually help. There are a lot of people in a lot of pain. Some blame God, (it’s not God’s fault), so hate God. Some blame that mysterious entity, “the Church”. (We are the Church NOT the hierarchy.) And some blame priests and there are priests who deserve blame. But not all of us.

My take thus far is that if the esteemed, (and I use that word loosly), members of the hierarchy delt with molesting and sexually active priests immediately and not tried to hide it; keep people in the dark about it and made everything a big secret, then there would not be lawsuits. But it is with lawsuits that those voices of victims were finally heard, forcing the Church to listen. How sad it is that it had to get to that point.

One thing I often hear is that the lawyers are just in it for the money. That issue is one large, stinky red herring. If the hierarchy acted justly and honerably in the first place then there would be no need for lawsuits thus no need for lawyers. No, the problem is an internal one and has to do with attitudes and a disconnect from reality that many priests have.

…so much more to say about all of this… And I will.