(October 23, 2020 at 9:42 pm)Fireball Wrote:With the vast majority of people in the area being Catholic, there was simply no questioning of the actions of clergy - period.(October 23, 2020 at 7:22 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: When I hear of these stories it makes me wonder about the boys I grew up with. Most of them were altar boys at some point. Of the boys my age from the town where I lived there were probably half who went a couple towns over to the public high school and half continued on from the parochial elementary and middle schools to the Catholic high school.All of this abuse is disgusting. I can appreciate guys leaving and not coming back, based on the shame aspect of getting raped/groped by a priest, who is never going to be disbelieved. When I grew up ('50s and '60s, graduated high school in '70), corporal punishment was allowed in public schools. If a teacher laid a hand on us, my dad was at the school with his hand on the throat of the perpetrator. My dad was quite violent, and I'm surprised that he didn't get jail time for what he did to those teachers. He certainly set them right on who gets to punish his children. It only happened a couple of times, and the word got out. One of those Fireball kids did something wrong? Send home a note! There was nothing the school system was going to do that was worse than what we got if a note came home. Which is a different story, though. If I had come home with evidence of abuse by a priest, said priest would have been dead, I'm convinced.
About the only thing I recall hearing regarding the priests in town was my dad saying they would find empty liquor bottles on the yard at the rectory on Sunday mornings.
Our high school principal (a brother) left the clergy to marry an ex-nun. Those are the only scandals I heard about.
Of course, the sexual abuse of boys and young men was probably held much closer to the vest.
Makes me wonder about the guys that left and went far, far away and never return even though they still have family in the area.
In high school (maybe sophomore year) a guy in my class stuck me in the back with a pin near my shoulder blade and must have nicked a vessel and blood poured down my back. I am not sure why I didn't have my blazer on but by the time I made it to the nurse's office the whole back of my blouse was stained. Mrs. Armstrong went and got Brother Michael, the principal (the brother who later married a nun). He asked what happened and he was pissed. I didn't want to have to reveal the name of the guy but had no choice.
Br. Michael called the guy over the intercom to his office. Now Glen was a BIG guy...farm boy. Br. Michael was not all that much bigger than me. Glen walked in and Br. Michael let loose with so much anger I was shocked. He then looked up at Glen and ordered him to take his glasses off. He grabbed the glasses and laid them on his desk and smacked Glen across so hard that it rocked him back.
I was stunned. No stranger to physical violence since mom and dad were quite liberal with their abuse, I was still shocked to see the mild-mannered Brother nearly knock out a guy about twice his size. What happened after all this? Glen had to get on the phone and explain to his parents what he did. He had to apologize to me and to my parents. He had to pay for a new blouse and for the doctor appointment and tetanus shot I had to have.
Not even a priest...it was never questioned that he nearly cold-cocked a student in front of witnesses. I can only imagine what other clergy got away with.
“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.” — Confucius