ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic
by Michael Clancy – Mar. 17, 2012
The Republic | azcentral.com.
David Michael Pain Jr. was laid to rest in early December, during a small service at St. Francis Cemetery in Phoenix, nearly 18 months after he died. His father, David Sr., said he remembers his son with the help of Scripture — a prodigal son, a lost sheep, a sinner Christ came to save.
The older man, who goes by the name Michael, told those gathered at the service that he finds solace in those Gospel passages when he thinks of his son. He believes David’s chance at a good life — or, for that matter, a life at all — was lost 25 years earlier when he was allegedly sexually abused, at age 13, by a Catholic priest.
Michael Pain reported the abuse to the Phoenix Diocese within weeks of his son’s death. After a 10-month investigation that deemed the report credible, the diocese suspended the Rev. John “Jack” Spaulding last June from his position as pastor of St. Timothy Catholic Church in Mesa and sent the case — along with three more that surfaced since Pain’s report — to the Vatican in Rome to determine the priest’s future.
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