I don’t remember when it happened, not really, at least I didn’t understand what was happening at the time. I remember chatter on the radio, whispers between adults, hearing the word “archdiocese” over and over. It was a while of hearing about Cardinal Law before I realized that he was a person, and not some special law that cardinals had to follow.
I do remember years later, when our beloved pastor was forced to leave the parish. They said it was for “financial improprieties,” but we all knew the real reason–he had criticized the church’s handling of sexual abuse one too many times. And to add insult to injury, they replaced him with a priest who had been Cardinal Law’s right-hand man. I remember being an altar server on the morning the story broke in the Globe. The girl who was supposed to serve with me saw me in my robes and asked what I was doing. “Haven’t you heard what happened?” she asked.
All the other altar servers left after that. There was little motivation to serve a church that so clearly didn’t care about us. But I kept coming, week after week, because someone still had to carry the cross and lay the cloths on the altar. Eventually those who were really angry left the parish, or the church, and those who were left moved on, forgave. Then I was able to train a new generation of altar servers, from kids whose families were new to the area or kids too young to remember our old pastor.
Our new pastor left after less than a year. Everyone was happy to see him go. I knew his leaving was inevitable, but I was a bit sad. I didn’t understand the scope of the unspeakable horrors he was a party to. I just knew he was a nice man, if a little quiet and sad. At his goodbye party he thanked me for my service, and said he had always thought that I laid out the cloths very well.
He’s a bishop now.