Memories of Serving under Boston’s Cardinal Law

While I was serving as a priest in St. Timothy’s between 1966 and 1969, I got a call from the director of Catholic Services. I was asked to attend graduate school at Boston College so that I could work with the population of priests needing psychological intervention. At the time, my decision was quick and easy, “No!” I did not want to be priest bureaucrat. I still felt that the work of implementing the Vatican Council was a long way from being implemented. At the time, I was hopeful that the institution would change. 

With the later awareness of clergy sex abuse and the role of the cardinal and his associates in its tragic role in keeping such priests in parishes, I was so glad with my decision. Even though my decision was not in anyway related, I am aware that people like myself are not immune from being influenced by those in power. If the role that they wanted me to play in serving priests with problems, would I be strong enough to fight the system of allowing priests who abused children to return to parish life after”treatment”? I know many of the priests who worked in diocesan positions, including one, who I had high regard for, that was in charge of the clergy. How he could facilitate these moves is a mystery to me. What I know is that none of us are  immune from the influence of power. 

I would like to think that I could have made a difference, but I know that I am as human as others, especially since I was TOTALLY UNAWARE of the problem of priest sex abuse at the time. I thought that they wanted me to treat priests with “ordinary” mental health issues. How naive I was!

How Believers Distort the Divine

I am do distressed that believers in God, whether Christians, Buddhists, Islams, etc. cannot see that such a God loves all, whether they share the same understanding, e.g., I can recall when I was an altar boy feeling sorry for Protestants since they were not going to heaven. So many believers do not see the presence of God in all humans, regardless of believes, color, etc.. How a believer in the Divine does not see the divine in all and treat all as God loves them is both bizarre and distressing.

Another Statement regarding International Relations

1. I am chagrined by the state of affairs. I no longer envision a peaceful conclusion to the current disaster in Ukraine while still wishing to be surprised that Putin will see the futility of his efforts. 

2. I am against our nation’s direct involvement while supporting their efforts to provide whatever is possible to support Ukraine. My bottom line is that the United States has not had a productive involvement in any warfare since WWII, e.g.,Vietnam,Afghanistan. 

3. I fear that Putin will, in desperation, use a nuclear bomb which, then, will convince others nations, including ours, to defend themselves by using their nuclear weapons. Then, we will experience a nightmare, assuming that we survive. 

4. I do not know how much I have shared about my understanding of God. It all started when I was in the seminary and started to read Pierre deChardin,the Jesuit paleontologist, who saw the Divine in the rocks that he examined in China. From then on, there are few thinkers dealing with the Cosmos  or evolution that I have not read. Given this, I am now wrestling with what we are doing to Mother Earth. Except for New Zealand and Ireland, nations are in conflict, most often with homogeneous violence, e.g, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, etc. etc. Given now that I am considering the possibility of nuclear warfare, I am trying to wrestle with my basic understanding that Christ, the Divine, is always present in all, persons, plants, trees, etc. I pray that way,i.e., I simply focus on the moment, knowing the Divine is present. Given all this, I have wrestled with the idea of the DIvine’s present and the possibility of nuclear annihilation. My current conclusion, the Cosmos is so wondrous and huge that scientists have not discovered the far extent of its parameters. So, I now consider that the Divine will still be present in all, but the destruction of Mother Earth will only demonstrate that evolution has still further to go to advance from its primitive beginnings. We sort of thought that our satellite was the Best Ever, only to find out that it was just a step in the long story of evolution.