My Awakening to Catholicism V

After My son disclosed his sexual abuse, I maintained my relationship with the church but this was upsetting my son because he believed he did not have our full support and after about 4 weeks I went and saw the Priest and told him " I was withdrawing from the church to strengthen my support for my son." His reply was and I found this extremely callous "OH; I thought he would be over it by now" to me this was Just another display of how little the church has done to educate people within their system, on the dynamics of abuse.

I withdrew from the church and the only contact I had with it was an occasional Men's Breakfast. I had lost my licence and couldn't drive so I walked everywhere, and I was trying to walk 5 kl per day and as I knew most of the people in the church they would often give me bits of information. Then one day the tone of the conversation changed and I heard," poor Paul, his taken too much on his not coping, poor Paul he was crying while he said mass I heard he had post traumatic stress syndrome. Then I heard he had said if you criticise your priest you criticise God.

This made every hair on my body stand on end because these were the same words my sons abuser had said and with the alarm bells' ringing I went to the next Men's breakfast as I had not met this Priest and when I had asked about him and mention what I had heard I was assured that everything was all right. Walking around town for the next few weeks I heard rumours another Men's breakfast I was told No Ian it's nothing like your case don't worry about it.

More walks around town and I got told "oh; just some woman trying to get money out of the church she made a pass at the priest and he had to knock her back because he was a priest" this was repeated to me by three people So I went to another Breakfast and was told Ian "its nothing like your case but if one word of this gets out it will be the end of the Parish."

To this day I wonder if the health and well being of our kids is just not looked on by the church as an expendable item
 

CHEERS IAN LAWTHER