BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW
By Charlie Specht
July 14, 2018
Lifelong Catholic describes the personal toll
I had to break the news. But first I needed to make the call.
Seventy years of secrets were about to spill out in March when the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo finally relented, sending our newsroom a list of 42 priests believed to have committed the ultimate betrayal — the sexual abuse of a child.
I needed to go on TV and tell our viewers what it meant.
But first I needed to call my Mom.
She needed to hear it from me that Father Basil Ormsby, the priest who had witnessed my parents’ wedding and who played such a huge role in her family’s life, would forever be known as a pedophile.
My Nana was Father Ormsby’s parish secretary. She was a convert to Catholicism but she loved her faith and instilled it in her children. My parents passed it along to my brothers and it’s been the foundation of our lives.
I attended Catholic grade school, became an altar boy. I grew close with the Franciscan Friars at St. Bonaventure University and was married in the church. My daughter goes to Catholic school and loves attending Mass. I beam with pride when my wife, a lector, stands on the altar and reads the word of God.
Like many Catholics, the scandal in the Diocese of Buffalo has shaken me to the core. But I’ve had the opportunity — some would say the misfortune — of seeing the ugliness up close. Some of it is too graphic to put on TV.
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