Memories Tainted by Catholic Church’s Silence

By Theodore Decker
Columbus Dispatch
March 4, 2019

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190305/theodore-decker-memories-tainted-by-catholic-churchs-silence

My favorite time was right after Mass, when the church emptied, and I was free to move about the altar and sacristy with a confidence born of routine. I extinguished the candles, readied everything for the next Mass and often engaged in an easy banter with the priest.

That in particular felt like a tremendous secret: that priests could be funny and spoke of regular things, such as baseball.

When I picture my childhood parish, St. Christopher in Parsippany, New Jersey, it is always summer. I see the stained-glass windows angled open to draw in cooler air, a futile gesture on the hottest days. Once every summer, Father Al treated the altar boys to a day down at the shore, on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus released a list on Friday of 34 priests who had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors. The news prompted me to look for similar lists in New Jersey and upstate New York, where I continued as an altar server through high school. I prayed I wouldn’t see the names from my childhood — Father Cassidy, Father McGinley, and Father Al, a priest so familiar to me that I remember only his first name.

Their names didn’t appear, but I found the names of three other priests with connections to St. Christopher.