ON THE ABUSE OF CHILDREN BY THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

On February 5th, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a scathing report regarding the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal. The report demanded that Vatican authorities immediately remove all priests and bishops who participated in sexual abuse and turn them over to civil authorities for prosecution. Additionally, all records of this abuse and its cover up should be released immediately.

I have written earlier about my Catholic school attendance during the first twelve years of my formal education.  The school names were St. Mark's in Catonsville, Maryland, a Baltimore City suburb; St. Joseph's Monastery in Irvington, a southwest Baltimore neighborhood; and Mt. St. Joseph College, a Catholic preparatory high school also located in southwest Baltimore.

Though I did not witness what I would call blatant sexual abuse beyond what would probably now be deemed inappropriate touching, the physical and psychological abuse that occurred during all twelve years of my schooling stands out in neon.  I cannot remember a day when my classmates and I spent an entire school day without someone being held to public ridicule or being thrashed by one of God's chosen black-clad rosary carriers.

Stories were told to us that were horrific in content. I remember in 4th grade Sister Mary Renilda, a nun at St. Joseph's Monastery, told us about a boy who struck his mother. She told us God struck him dead as his hand rose to pummel her. His arm had to be chopped off to fit him in the coffin, she added. This was during the study of the commandment, "Honor thy Father and thy Mother."  I think a less scary parable would have sufficed. I had nightmares for weeks on that one.

When I was five years old my younger brother set himself on fire accidentally at home.  To this day I can remember his charred body and face as he screamed in pain while we waited for my father to arrive from work to take him to the hospital. He died at age 4.  Just a couple of years later, in second grade at St. Mark's, a nun who knew my family told the story of my brother Eddie to make her point about limbo (which, evidently, does not exist anymore).  Because my brother was baptized, she said, Eddie was a fortunate baby who was in heaven now. She made me participate in this in front of about 50 classmates without even a scintilla of thought about the horrendous pain my burned brother evoked in me.  It was thoughtless and cruel, and I have never, and will never, forgiven that woman.

In high school, the Xaverian Brothers, who were mostly Irish Catholic men from either the old sod or New York, were criminal in their brutality.  In the late Spring, when windows were open because there were no fans or air conditioning, Brother Declan hit a kid in my class.  He struck Mel Frazetti with his fist with such force it knocked him back against the wide open window. Our class was on the third floor of the Tower Building. The window sill caught the back of Mel's legs and saved him from a long fall. The entire class of freshman gasped.  The good brother did this during Religion class.  Mel's sin was talking to a classmate during lecture, a sin for which he came close to death.

Mt. St. Joseph College required coats and ties be worn at all time.  After school, at detention, however, this rule was typically relaxed as the weather warmed.  I did not know that Brother Benedict was to be the "jug" (a name commonly used in Catholic schools from the Latin "jugum" meaning yoke or burden) monitor one day.  I learned this particular day that the good Brother's reputation as a bare knuckles boxer in England was more than likely true. I arrived without my jacket, which I left in my locker.  Brother Benedict called me to the front of the room as soon as he arrived and asked me to remove my glasses.  He immediately punched me with a closed fist, first in the nose and then with an upper cut to the jaw.  He then told the lot of us to quickly get our jackets and return dressed properly.

He was not the only physical abuser.  Brother Francis in my Sophomore year hit me the hardest I have ever been hit in the jaw in my entire life.  By senior year, again in Religion class, Brother Salvatore introduced me to the "noogie."  This was a closed fist, middle knuckle protruding, planted firmly in the middle of the top of the skull.  Usually from behind when you did not expect it.  It was incredibly painful and left no marks.  He also had another specialty, the "tulip" (yes, he actually named his assaults).  The tulip required you to hold your hand, fingers and thumb touching, fingertips to the sky to produce a round, flat plain.  He then used a wooden yard stick to deliver a blow to your fingers with the flat side of his measuring tool.  The pain bolted down your arm and directly into your feet, trust me.  It was like an electric bolt.

And, I am not suggesting physical abuse did not occur in grammar school.  It is where it started.  The difference was that nuns and priests handed it out. It usually came in the form of slaps or yard sticks across the bottom.  But, physical abuse seemed to be second nature to the School Sisters of Notre Dame...a sort of "spare the rod, spoil the child" sadism. Father Julius, a Passionist priest at St. Joseph's Monastery, used to make us boys kneel on our knuckles on the concrete or marble floor for punishment. He was a believer that all suffered if one sinned. So, if one boy talked during a lecture, we were all punished for his action.

To me, this abuse was horrific.  It hurt both psychologically and physically and it was uncalled for.  It was sanctioned and encouraged by my church. And, it has withstood time without punishment for any of these attacks.  The election of Pope Francis may be a start toward change, but what I am talking about is centuries old ingrained behavior.  It is not just sexual abuse that needs to be rooted out and destroyed, it is the whole righteous use of corporal punishment, which is thought to cleanse sin, that must be driven from the bosom of this institution.

[CLICK HERE FOR HOW THIS AFFECTED MY RELIGIOUS BELIEF]