Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God Page #2

relationships, involvement

and even criminal involvement

with children.

And the more I got into it,

the more and more discouraged I got.

They know that celibacy

is not practiced.

By "they", I mean

Vatican authorities,

I mean bishops,

I mean religious superiors.

And the higher you go,

the more they know.

You may not be keeping

your celibacy,

but as long as it's secret, it's OK.

Sipe found that clericalism,

setting a priest on a pedestal

above ordinary lay people,

helped to prop up the secret system.

Kids would come forward

to their parents and say,

"Well, Father did this to me."

"Oh, don't you say that!

You can't say that about a priest!"

Which then allowed priests

to express themselves sexually,

some from time to time

and some in horrendous ways.

Sipe recognised the syndrome that

police call Noble Cause Corruption -

a belief that good intentions

purify bad behaviour.

For a priest, belief in his own

goodness can transform,

like turning bread

into the body of Christ,

a perversion into a holy act.

A priest who had an affair

with this 12, 13-year-old girl

brought to one of their encounters

what he said was a consecrated host

and he touched it to

her vagina and he said,

"This is how God loves you."

And then,

he raped her.

It goes from just

this broad social acceptance

that the priest is perfect,

the Pope is perfect,

to this kind of perversion of power

that can be twisted in this way.

The system

of the Catholic clergy,

for which I have great respect

and to which I have given

many years of my life,

selects, cultivates, protects,

defends and produces

sexual abusers.

I went to bed one night

and, before I fell asleep,

I could see Murphy

creeping into our room,

like a ravenous wolf.

I could see him sit on a bed

in the dim light

of the illuminated exit sign.

And I saw that he was

molesting a boy.

I imagined Jesus crying

on the cross with a broken heart

wondering why Murphy

was doing this.

Why was Jesus just watching?

He would walk in like a cat.

Of course we couldn't hear him,

but someone would open their eyes

and see a dark shadow passing by

and they knew it was him.

I would see how he would go

and pick out certain boys.

He knew which boys wouldn't object

if he went to them.

The boys noticed that Father Murphy

would single out students

with hearing parents

who couldn't sign

so that the children

couldn't tell their parents

what was happening to them.

He favoured me. He wanted me.

He wanted me.

He liked seeing me ejaculate.

He got what he wanted and he would

leave, that was his thing.

He was..

sick.

I was afraid to tell my mother

because I didn't think

she would believe me.

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