WASHINGTON
The Yakima Herald-Republic
Michele J. Charvet
Special to The Yakima Herald-Republic
I used to sled down Franklin Park terraces in winter. Summer was full of swimming, bike riding, and eating Yakima Big Bars. In autumn, I picked up chestnuts that lay lazily on lawns and streets as I walked home from school. Spring held the promise that summer vacation was not far away. But then, one spring, it all changed for me, as it has for too many children across the Earth. Like thieves in the night, Catholic priests touched and poked our bodies in our sexual areas. Agonizing darkness and misplaced self-loathing became our worlds.
Meanwhile, Pope John Paul ll was enamoring the world with his charisma, all the while knowing his clergy was sexually molesting children. He chose to do nothing. He chose his black-clothed clergy. He chose the bishops and cardinals. His choice was not the children.
It’s 2014 — crowds in Saint Peter’s Square are deliriously happy as John Paul II is declared a saint by Pope Francis I.
Visiting my hometown recently, my sister and I drove hastily past our childhood parish, St. Paul Cathedral. “This must be hard for you,” she said. “No,” I replied. “Sometimes, it is just easier not to feel.” We drove on to Calvary Cemetery, where my father was buried in April 1972. He died never knowing why his high school daughter had grown so distant, confused and depressed.
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