DELAWARE
The News Journal
Written by
BETH MILLER
The News Journal
CLAYTON — It was a summer Sunday in 2002 and Paul Mast had a message that required special delivery. It wasn’t a song, though this tenor could have done that. It wasn’t a sermon or a liturgy or a prayer or anything that would arrive in formal wrapping.
It was a lament, a heart cry, a burden of the soul – and he would not smother it.
So after celebrating Mass with the congregation in Ocean City, Md., the soft-spoken priest – who grew up in Clayton and had served the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington for three decades – sat down for the closing prayer.
That posture was unusual enough, but more surprising to those in the pews were the words that came next – and the weeping that accompanied them.
“If anyone here has ever been sexually abused by a priest, I sincerely apologize to you,” Mast said. “If you are the parents or grandparents of someone who was abused, I sincerely apologize to you. I need to tell you that so that you know I am hurting, too.”
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