The Perfect Disguise

Lantern Volume 8

Recently, I had a conversation with a religious who was upset with the removal of another priest they knew. They were trying to explain to me how people loved him, how kind he was, and how he reached out to others. They seemed angry with me for exposing this persons “indiscretions and crimes.”

Please do not think for a moment, I do not understand the sadness, scandal, heartbreak, and confusion that this entails.

I also see this from a proper perspective. Myself and others are not to blame because we expose evil. When someone does evil like raping a child I should not be at fault for exposing them.

I have not hurt their reputation, they did this on their own.

My current response to these kind of remarks: “read my book or read my website.” Maybe my response should just be “read”, educate yourself.

The robes of a priest are the perfect disguise for a sexual predator and child molester. This is why they must be rooted out.

People have a misconception that a sexual predator is some ugly ogre, some mean spirited nasty person. While they are truly evil, they do not always appear that way. They are nice, kind, friendly, they will do and say anything to gain your trust. They are “disarming”. They befriend your friends, family, spouse, everyone and anyone to lower your defenses. This is why the robes of a priest or cleric are the perfect disguise and the greatest danger. Grooming from a clergy is disguised as spiritual comfort.

Our normal defenses are laid down, these are people we deliberately let into our lives and our communities. The impact and damage of their treachery is far more wide-spread, the victims are countless.

Bishops who have allowed this to happen and have not corrected this injustice magnify the damage to the souls involved by a hundred, thousand or ten thousand fold . Maybe this is the best analogy. A Bishop ought to magnify the light of Christ, but when corrupted as so many are, they magnify the works of the devil. The old Latin maxim reigns true here: corruptio optimi pessima ("the corruption of the best is the worst"). Princes of the Church become Princes of Darkness. Under a just Bishop the likelihood a child molester masquerading as a priest would be remote.

The proverb, "where there's smoke there's fire," has applied to every case of child molestation or predator priest I have encountered. So many times people overlook other acts of impurity committed by their priests unless they discover he's molested a child. Their response to a priest's acts of sodomy and impurity with a consenting adult is: " what they did is not illegal." They fail to see that in the eyes of God and His church these priests have broken the law. They have violated canon law and God's law, which we should regard as incomparably higher than civil law. They are married to the church and committed adultery. Immoral bishops and priests have taught us corrupt theology as well as how to look the other way.

A righteous bishop sees the smoke of satan long before the parish is burned to the ground. An unjust bishop tries to contain and conceal these men until the church community is laid desolate. Immoral priests are his friends, his confidants, the people who will hide his own indiscretions. I do not want a friendly bishop who lets the wolves in, I want a bishop who defends the faithful and leads them to heaven. Throughout the church today smoke fills the sanctuary and our bishops fail to act. They allow poisonous priests to infect entire congregations over and over again. This discredits the entire church and will not stop until we, the faithful, put out the fire and cast out the evil. We must begin with the bishops who perpetuate and magnify this evil for years after it is discovered. Too many Bishops have failed their flocks. Now it is time for us to protect our church.