Category: Commentary

Part II of II

When I shared the news with a close friend that our pastor is being investigated for alleged abuse of children years ago, he said: “Your religion is shaken and your faith is shattered.”

I’m 58 and a cradle Catholic. I went to Catholic grade school and high school, kept attending mass during college, married in the church, raised our three children in this parish, served on the Stewardship Committee and Pastoral Council, and conducted retreats with the leadership team.

For years, I believed the church had resolved this issue, holding accountable both those who committed heinous acts and the bishops who moved them around to other parishes. I never expected abuse accusations to hit so close to home. Since February 1, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my faith, my beliefs and whether I will fulfill my spiritual needs elsewhere.

Following the Vatican summit, Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, head of our Galveston-Houston Archdiocese and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote:

“A range of presenters from cardinals to other bishops to religious sisters to lay women spoke about a code of conduct for bishops, the need to establish specific protocols for handling accusations against bishops, user-friendly reporting mechanisms, and the essential role transparency must play in the healing process… Enhanced by what I experience here, we will prepare to advance proposals” to consider at the next USCCB meeting in June.”

Perhaps U.S. Bishops will be the impetus that forces the Vatican to scourge the church of all who participated and put in place measures to ensure this never happens again. Yet the faithful – including myself – are right to wonder if anything will change.

Shaken and shattered.

Part I of II

Last week the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops and others gathered in the Vatican to address the horrible abuse inflicted over decades on innocent victims by thousands of priests.

I first became aware of this situation in the ‘90’s when we were living in DFW. A priest in the Dallas diocese – and I’ll never forget his name, Rudy Kos – was convicted on three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor, sentenced to life in prison and still is incarcerated. That diocese paid out $24.3 million to eight former altar boys and the relatives of a ninth who claimed they were sexually abused. And he was only the first.

Over the years, the abuse played in the background of my mind, until a few months ago when the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report listed hundreds of clergy accused of sexual misconduct over 70 years. In October, every diocese in Texas announced that on Thursday, January 31, they would disclose the names of all credibly accused priests.

At 2 p.m. that day, I went to the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston website and read the names of 42 priests, none of whom I knew. Then, one from the bottom – under “Recent Allegations currently under investigation” – was the name of our pastor, someone I have worked closely with on many occasions the past two decades.

A little over a week ago, HPD’s Special Victims Division announced it opened a criminal investigation of a Catholic priest after two alleged victims accused him of sexually abusing them years ago.

Next: Conscience Examination

A couple months after we moved to Houston 20 years ago, people at the franchising company where I worked kept talking about ‘Go Texan Day’ and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Having attended a couple of those in Ft. Worth, I was like, ‘Meh.’

The next year, my boss gave us tickets and we experienced this extravaganza for the first time. Not only is there the expected calf roping, barrel racing and bronc riding, there is a large Midway with all kinds of ways to spend your money.

However, the biggest draw – we’re talking 70,000 people attending each performance for 21 days – is a post-Rodeo concert by a big-time entertainer. This year’s headliners include Brooks & Dunn, Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw, the Zac Brown Band and Brad Paisley. Country not for you? How about Cardi B, Panic! At the Disco, Kings of Leon, Camila Cabello, or Santana? We know people who go EVERY day.

The annual tradition starts tomorrow with ‘Swept the Grammys’ star Kacey Musgraves and concludes in three weeks with ‘Coming out of Retirement’ legend George Strait.

First up though was the World’s Championship Bar-B-Que Contest, which we, along with 100,000+ of our closest friends, attended two evenings ago. Hundreds of teams compete in categories from ‘Best Brisket’ to ‘Best Dutch-Oven Dessert’. In fact, last year a team from, wait for it, the Netherlands won that category.

Over the past two decades we’ve been a dozen or so times, seeing Reba, Miranda Lambert, LeAnn Rimes, Blake Shelton, Taylor Swift… and, yes, Garth. However, my biggest regret was the second year we had tickets, when one of our kids got sick a few hours beforehand.

After a few calls we gave them to a friend… having first offered our next-door neighbors the chance to see a rising star. When I asked if they wanted the tickets, the wife said, “Yes,” paused and asked, “Who’s performing?” I told them. They replied, in unison, “Who’s Faith Hill?”