ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
August 23, 2019
By David Clohessy
One of my favorite poems begins “Sometimes things don’t go, after all, from bad to worse.”
I think of this line when my spirits sag and our progress seems slow. I stay motivated by finding and clinging to ‘silver linings’ like the one I just noticed the other day.
Fr. Norman Rogge may be the only priest anywhere to have twice pled guilty to child sex crimes, twice gotten probation, and twice been put back to work in a parish.
Fr. Fred Lenczycki may be the only priest anywhere to have twice pled guilty to child sex crimes and twice sent to prison.
Rogge’s encounters with the justice system began in 1974 and ended in the 2000s.
Lenczycki’s encounters with the justice system began in 2004 and ended just last week in St. Louis (when a prosecutor asked for a ten year sentence and the judge agreed).
Slowly and painfully, things DO change. Let’s remind ourselves, often, of this fact.
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