I may have met my match

I love documentaries, and I've been known to sit through some pretty rough stuff. The closest I came to walking out of a movie was when I went to see "Crumb." R. Crumb can be so utterly tasteless and horrible. But I stayed and I watched it all, and it is, in fact, a very good movie. In spite of everything, the guy is an artist, he had a really crappy life and this fuels his work, and I'm all for free speech and artistic expression.

However, I may have met my match in Deliver Us From Evil. It's the story of a priest who continually molested children (male and female) and (as I found out yesterday) abused their parents sexually for 30 years, while the Catholic church shuttled him from parish to parish.

I actually stopped watching and I'm not sure I can go back. I was so disgusted, saddened, angered, and absolutely sickened.

This movie hit close to home for many reasons. I'll tell you now, I was never molested by a priest. However, the child victims interviewed were all right around my age, one in particular was just a few months younger than I, and the pictures they'd show of these kids looked exactly like pictures of myself that had been taken around that time. First communions, etc. I remember so well the reverence I had for the church and how the priests ran the show.

Over the years I've lost interest. I haven't lost my faith, but I felt mass was just so much bull shit. That trend started long ago. I went to 3 different grade schools, finally settling at one from 4th grade to 8th. I had some good times, but really, overall, it stunk. The people at my school and parish weren't very nice or good.

Here's an example of something that took place at my grade school that pretty much sums up all the horrible crap, the discrimination, the favoritism that ran rampant until the day I left. When I was in 6th grade we had 2 home rooms. The home room that wasn't mine (thank God) had a series of contests that the kids voted on, best at playing baseball, best in math, etc. It's a bad idea, but it gets worse. The teacher set all this up, and she actually had her students vote for "prettiest girl in class." There is so much wrong there I don't even know where to begin. But that's the atmosphere in which I was educated, by people who were supposedly following in the Lord's image, you know, do unto others, you are all equal in my eyes, etc.

Around that age things started to go downhill for me, and they only got worse as kids started growing up, hitting puberty, dating, etc. Probably one of the happiest days of my life was the last day of grade school because I knew I'd never have to face that environment anymore. Of course I told my parents how much I hated it there, but alas, this was my parish school, and according to the church, I HAD to go there.

As the years passed I went to church because I lived at home and my parents expected it of me. As soon as I moved out in college I stopped going. I've gone back here and there over the years, but not really as an active participant, more just waiting for it to be over. Sad, isn't it...

The things this priest did, this Father Oliver O'Grady, are beyond horrible. His youngest rape victim was 9 months old. And where is he being interviewed? From his home in Ireland. The people he lives near don't know anything about his past in the states. And the footage they show of the church officials saying such things as "If I had found at that time that he molested boys I would have done differently" (as it was he was raping a 5 year old girl) is just so hard to listen to. This is the atmosphere in which I was raised and educated. It is real and it was happening, it was just the way the church dealt with things. How am I supposed to look at my Catholic upbringing knowing that? I know that was years ago, but the cover ups and the lies of the men in power were still being said only 2 or 3 years ago. The man who is now pope was involved at the higher levels of these scandals and chose to do nothing. And this is the leader of today's Catholic church?

Anyway, I'm probably going to turn the movie on again this evening, but whether I finish or not is an entirely different question. And that will be a first for me, to turn a film off not because it's bad, but because I can't take it. This priest was a man of God, he was supposed to heed a higher calling than the rest of us. He was revered and loved. And he used that power and position to shatter the lives of children. It's just so sad.

I'll report back whether I make it through or not. Maybe if there was some payoff at the end, if they somehow had proof that this guy would suffer for an eternity. But then I'd be watching a movie, not a documentary.