Santen, demons the demonic, that’s what the whole abuse issue is, not only in the Catholic Church but in every church and also in the world at large. The corruption of innocence by demonic evil is a great victory for hell. It is a great victory for the devil. Some of the abused turn to drugs, (a great evil). They turn to alcohol, (a great evil). Some choose sexual promiscuity, (a great evil). Murder, suicide, abandoning God, embracing the occult, all great evils. And there are more.

God is there for our salvation so those of us who have been abused need to know that God did not abuse us so we can not abandon Him. I am a priest and yet I know that the abandonment of God takes many, many forms. It is not just leaving the Church it also takes place in the abandoning of confession, the Eucharist, all the sacraments in general and this is the one that is insidious and done by most of us, the flagrant disregard for the commands of God.

I, for one, am bothered by the people who disregard Church teaching. Also the ones like me who are not always the most charitable. I once had a professor who frequently said, ” If you don’t know that what else don’t you know? ” I am sure he got it from someone else but I haven’t come across it. As I age I understand it more and more. I come across people that haven’t a clue what the Church teaches about life issues, about gender issues, about our human sexuality. And then there are a plethora of things that I freely admit that I am clueless about. To all of us I must ask if we don’t know that what else don’t we know? What I do not know could fill volumes.

There is an experience that I had that was a very particular evil that I had a second hand experience of. I was called to bless a home. It was an odd experience to say the least. Even writing about it now I’m getting tingling sensation. Back to the story. I walked into the house and felt nothing. In the kitchen I felt something. Disclaimer: Before going to this house I thought that the owner was nuts. I don’t any longer. In the kitchen I had the tingling sensation. Sitting at the table I don’t know what I felt. There was a fish on a stick decorative statue. I was getting very bad vibes from this fish. We prayed and I really felt like the fish was staring at me. the tingling continued. I said, ‘Ged rid of the fish.’ He told me it came with the house but he had the same feeling about it. During the tour of the house and continual blessings I had the same “FEELING” about other objects. He promised he’d get rid of the objects. I don’t even remember what they were but I remembered that fish. Obviously the objects in and of themselves were innocuous. But I seem to remember they all came with the house. Who lived there and what were they in to?

The owner went to confession. I gave him my rosary and told him to say it daily, and get to mass as frequently as possible. I also scheduled a day to go back. I took a half gallon of holy water with me and told him to drink it and use it around the house. He promised he would. Subsequently I saw him at mass and he told me about an inner voice telling him to destroy the rosary, get what he had thrown away out of the trash and bring them back in the house. All I could muster was to say that was not God, and don’t listen to that voice. It got weirder and I got more freaked out.

He got in with some really good people at the parish. And of course I got transferred. God got him with who he needed to be with. Now he has a support system that he did not have before. I’m grateful. Good people can and will fight evil. Good people help one another seek God.