“Bless me, Father...”

For the last several days I have been involved in yet another pointless discussion about the Catholic Church and the clergy sex scandal that always comes as a result of such discussions. I am genuinely tired of it. My point is simple (I think) - bad things happened and that should never have been allowed. Terrible mistakes were made at a time when much of America couldn’t even bring itself to admit that such a thing as pedophilia exists. My bottomline is prosecute sex offenders to the fullest extent of the law. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Don’t wait for some old guys in another country to do it. Prosecute here and now.

But do NOT paint all clergy with the same brush. Someone in the discussion said, “Now, every time I see a priest I am suspicious.” That is past stupid. By that line of thinking, since the largest numbers of sexually abused children are abused in their own homes, wouldn’t it be more logical to say, “Now, every time I see a parent I am suspicious”? Things like this make me crazy.

In the midst of all this discussion I happened to read the online version of my hometown newspaper with an article about the 50th anniversary of the parish I grew up in and the following photograph:

Front row: Fr. Leon Hont, OSB; Fr. Flavian Yelinko, OSB; Fr. John-Mary Tompkins, OSB; Fr. Daniel Wolfel, OSB; Fr. Jeremy Bolha, OSB; Fr. Noel Rothrauff, OSB. Back row: Fr. Kurt Belsole, OSB: Fr. Meinrad Lawson, OSB; Fr. John Kuzilla; Fr. Eric Vogt, OSB: Fr. Matthew Laffey, OSB: and Fr. Chrysostom Schlimm, OSB.

What wonderful memories it brought back! So many of the priests pictured above were much a part of my young life - all the memories are happy ones and I am glad to have had this reminder. The biggest surprise was seeing Fr. Flavian again. He was our pastor when I was confirmed. Fr. Flavian loved my Dad and liked to come and hang out in Dad’s workshop where Dad worked on cabinets while guys from the neighborhood sat around and talked in the evenings. I think in his heart Fr. Flavian longed to be a carpenter (a respected tradition among Catholics) so spending time with a carpenter pleased him. He was a funny, warm, charming man.

Also in the photo are Fr. Daniel, who is my cousin and who presided at my sister’s wedding, and Fr. Kurt. I have childhood memories of both of them before they were priests and were just fellow kids - Fr. Kurt especially. Back then his name was “Jimmy” and he and his brothers and one sister lived out in the country and had a barn, which I thought was a wonderful thing, and horses. On summer Sundays my Mother would pack hampers full of food and we would spend the day with their family picnicing in their back yard and riding horses. The house and barn Fr. Kurt grew up in is much the model for the setting of Treat Yourself to the Best, the short story I still need to rewrite for my collection.

I was very happy to see Fr. Meinrad and Fr. Noel in the photo. Fr. Meinrad was from a later era, when I was first out of college and teaching Sunday School at Queen of the World. Fr. Meinrad was a young priest then and we all thought him very cool. He had a beard and wore sandals and, during that late hippie-era, of the Seventies, was a little shocking in our part of the world. But most of all I loved seeing Fr. Noel again. As a kid I thought him terribly handsome. He was quite tall and dark with a quiet serenity that made silly junior high age girls giddy with fanciful ideas. I remember sitting in church with my friends Patty and Marcia and Sue waiting to go to Confession and hoping we would not have to go to Fr. Noel because we were sure we would absolutely die if we had to tell him our “sins” - terrible things like talking back to our mothers and thinking “impure” thoughts (whatever they were).

My memories of Fr. Noel and his aura of otherworldliness have stayed with me all these years and he was often in my mind when I was creating Father Peter Black in my novel-in-progress, Triad.

It is another of those great cosmic mysteries that this photo should turn up at this time in my life. The Lord moves in mysterious ways...

Thanks for reading.