The ‘root causes’ of sexual abuse in the Church

[Michie]

The subject always deserves consideration, but two recent articles on sex abuse within the Church are worth discussion. The first, published by Crux, declares — sadly, to the surprise of no one — “Abuse crisis in the Catholic Church shows no signs of abating.” The second came via OSV News: Catholics in the Sicilian city of Enna are protesting a diocesan cover-up of abuses against minors, committed by a local priest while he was still a seminarian, between 2009 and 2013.

The Italian court found Father Guiseppe Rugolo guilty of “the sexual abuse of two young teenagers … fully aware that he could count on the support of the religious leadership,” adding that Bishop Rosario Gisana of the Diocese of Piazza Armerina was “well aware for many years of the reports made concerning the abuse suffered by [these victims].” Damningly, audio recordings entered into evidence at Rugolo’s trial revealed the bishop admitting to covering up the abuse.

Disillusionment with Church leadership​

One victim, Antonio Messina, claims to have sent a letter and two CDs containing the bishop’s admissions, to Pope Francis, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for the Clergy and the Dicastery of Bishops. OSV News is currently awaiting responses to their requests for confirmation.

Continued below.

The 'root causes' of sexual abuse in the Church

Two recent articles on sex abuse within the church are worth discussion. The first, published by Crux, declares -- sadly, to the surprise of no one -- "Abuse crisis in the Catholic Church shows no signs of abating." The second came via OSV News: Catholics in the Sicilian city of Enna are...

www.oursundayvisitor.com

 

[Bob Crowley]

I've mentioned this before but way back when I was still in the Presbyterian Church, my pastor thought I'd join the Catholic Church down the track, which I obviously did.

But he also added "After you join there will be reports of child abuse in the Catholic Church. And I think there's going to be a LOT of them!"

He died in January 1992, and he probably said this sometime in 1990 or 1991.

I became Catholic in 1996 or 1997. At the time I joined I wasn't even thinking about his prediction.

But when the stuff started to hit the media fan some years later I wasn't surprised. I knew how accurate he was with his predictions / prophecies.

I personally think the worst of it is over, but there will still be cases coming out of the woodwork like this one.

However there is more likelihood of a child being abused by a family member than in an instutional setting, although the hardcore pedophiles make full use of the authority that institutions give them. The following figures are Australian but they're probably applicable to the West in general.

1 in 7 Australians have experienced childhood abuse

www.abs.gov.au

Most people who experienced childhood abuse knew the perpetrator. The survey found that 1.9 million people (10 per cent) experienced childhood abuse by an adult family member, while nearly 380,000 (2 per cent) experienced abuse by an adult within an institutional setting.

 

[RileyG]

I've mentioned this before but way back when I was still in the Presbyterian Church, my pastor thought I'd join the Catholic Church down the track, which I obviously did.

But he also added "After you join there will be reports of child abuse in the Catholic Church. And I think there's going to be a LOT of them!"

He died in January 1992, and he probably said this sometime in 1990 or 1991.

I became Catholic in 1996 or 1997. At the time I joined I wasn't even thinking about his prediction.

But when the stuff started to hit the media fan some years later I wasn't surprised. I knew how accurate he was with his predictions / prophecies.

I personally think the worst of it is over, but there will still be cases coming out of the woodwork like this one.

However there is more likelihood of a child being abused by a family member than in an instutional setting, although the hardcore pedophiles make full use of the authority that institutions give them. The following figures are Australian but they're probably applicable to the West in general.

1 in 7 Australians have experienced childhood abuse

www.abs.gov.au

Do you think he had a special spiritual gift? If that makes sense?

 

[RileyG]

Lord Jesus, come heal your Church.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Do y ou think he had a special spiritual gift? If that makes sense?

I think God was telling him some things about the future. God was honoring the pastor's holiness.

Early on when I was still a new Christian he said to me "... I find that what I say tends to happen."

I didn't know him well enough at that stage to have an opinion either way, but he told me a story about a young bloke in the congregation. I don't think I ever met this fellow, but I do remember standing outside the church one day and seeing a chap driving off on a motor bike at a very high rate of knots and flying around the first corner.

The pastor was there too and as he watched him he shook his head.

Anyway he'd warned this young bloke about his dangerous motor bike riding saying "If you don't smarten up and ride more carefully, you won't last two weeks!"

He said the dangerous riding was obvious to everybody. But he added "I feel a bit guilty about the way I warned him ... I wish I'd used other words... I buried him two weeks later to the day."

To my way of thinking God warned the young chap through the pastor. He took no notice so the "prophecy" was fulfilled precisely two weeks later.

 

[Markie Boy]

I think God was telling him some things about the future. God was honoring the pastor's holiness.

Early on when I was still a new Christian he said to me "... I find that what I say tends to happen."

I didn't know him well enough at that stage to have an opinion either way, but he told me a story about a young bloke in the congregation. I don't think I ever met this fellow, but I do remember standing outside the church one day and seeing a chap driving off on a motor bike at a very high rate of knots and flying around the first corner.

The pastor was there too and as he watched him he shook his head.

Anyway he'd warned this young bloke about his dangerous motor bike riding saying "If you don't smarten up and ride more carefully, you won't last two weeks!"

He said the dangerous riding was obvious to everybody. But he added "I feel a bit guilty about the way I warned him ... I wish I'd used other words... I buried him two weeks later to the day."

To my way of thinking God warned the young chap through the pastor. He took no notice so the "prophecy" was fulfilled precisely two weeks later.

I was thinking the same thing - would seem he was an amazing pastor and man of God. Definitely gifted.

 

[Michie]

I think God was telling him some things about the future. God was honoring the pastor's holiness.

Early on when I was still a new Christian he said to me "... I find that what I say tends to happen."

I didn't know him well enough at that stage to have an opinion either way, but he told me a story about a young bloke in the congregation. I don't think I ever met this fellow, but I do remember standing outside the church one day and seeing a chap driving off on a motor bike at a very high rate of knots and flying around the first corner.

The pastor was there too and as he watched him he shook his head.

Anyway he'd warned this young bloke about his dangerous motor bike riding saying "If you don't smarten up and ride more carefully, you won't last two weeks!"

He said the dangerous riding was obvious to everybody. But he added "I feel a bit guilty about the way I warned him ... I wish I'd used other words... I buried him two weeks later to the day."

To my way of thinking God warned the young chap through the pastor. He took no notice so the "prophecy" was fulfilled precisely two weeks later.

Wow! You never told us of that incident.

 

[fide]

The subject always deserves consideration, but two recent articles on sex abuse within the Church are worth discussion. The first, published by Crux, declares — sadly, to the surprise of no one — “Abuse crisis in the Catholic Church shows no signs of abating.” The second came via OSV News: Catholics in the Sicilian city of Enna are protesting a diocesan cover-up of abuses against minors, committed by a local priest while he was still a seminarian, between 2009 and 2013.

The Italian court found Father Guiseppe Rugolo guilty of “the sexual abuse of two young teenagers … fully aware that he could count on the support of the religious leadership,” adding that Bishop Rosario Gisana of the Diocese of Piazza Armerina was “well aware for many years of the reports made concerning the abuse suffered by [these victims].” Damningly, audio recordings entered into evidence at Rugolo’s trial revealed the bishop admitting to covering up the abuse.

Disillusionment with Church leadership​

One victim, Antonio Messina, claims to have sent a letter and two CDs containing the bishop’s admissions, to Pope Francis, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for the Clergy and the Dicastery of Bishops. OSV News is currently awaiting responses to their requests for confirmation.

Continued below.

The 'root causes' of sexual abuse in the Church

Two recent articles on sex abuse within the church are worth discussion. The first, published by Crux, declares -- sadly, to the surprise of no one -- "Abuse crisis in the Catholic Church shows no signs of abating." The second came via OSV News: Catholics in the Sicilian city of Enna are...

www.oursundayvisitor.com

Isn't the root of any and every sin the same? Namely, the disordered love of self over God and over neighbor and over any and every one to be sinned against.

 

[RileyG]

Isn't the root of any and every sin the same? Namely, the disordered love of self over God and over neighbor and over any and every one to be sinned against.

That’s how I understand it. Yeah.

 

[Markie Boy]

Isn't the root of any and every sin the same? Namely, the disordered love of self over God and over neighbor and over any and every one to be sinned against.

That is really well put. Short, simple, and probably one of the best ways of putting it I have ever seen.

 

[fide]

That is really well put. Short, simple, and probably one of the best ways of putting it I have ever seen.

Once having recognized the root of our sins by the grace of God, it is much harder to act faithfully on the truth revealed. And to whom much is given, much is expected. Oh God, come to our assistance; Oh Lord, make haste to help us.

 

[RileyG]

I think God was telling him some things about the future. God was honoring the pastor's holiness.

Early on when I was still a new Christian he said to me "... I find that what I say tends to happen."

I didn't know him well enough at that stage to have an opinion either way, but he told me a story about a young bloke in the congregation. I don't think I ever met this fellow, but I do remember standing outside the church one day and seeing a chap driving off on a motor bike at a very high rate of knots and flying around the first corner.

The pastor was there too and as he watched him he shook his head.

Anyway he'd warned this young bloke about his dangerous motor bike riding saying "If you don't smarten up and ride more carefully, you won't last two weeks!"

He said the dangerous riding was obvious to everybody. But he added "I feel a bit guilty about the way I warned him ... I wish I'd used other words... I buried him two weeks later to the day."

To my way of thinking God warned the young chap through the pastor. He took no notice so the "prophecy" was fulfilled precisely two weeks later.

Wow! That's incredible!

May that young man rest in the peace of Christ.

 

[Bob Crowley]

The most unusual "prophecy" (which I've related before) was "I think you'll be doing a cleaning job. You won't do it for long, and you won't like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost." He added "I think you've seen this ghost before".

Now I knew by that time how accurate he was, but I thought that one was way over the top. So I pretty much ignored it.

He would have said that circa 1990/91 as he died in January 1992 himself.

Anyway fast forward to 2006 and I did a cleaning job for a short time (about four months) and "heard about a ghost" (a former manager of the store I was cleaning had committed suicide in the 1960's sometime).

I didn't know what to make of it, but in 200 I rang the local priest in the city of Ipswich where the store was located. He said "leave it to me" so I did. But I didn't think he took it seriously as I was just a strange voice on the phone with a strange story.

In 2010 I was on Catholic Answers Forums (which no longer exists, although Catholic Answers does) and happened to see a Fr. Michael X on the forum who was Australian, the only Australian priest I'd seen on that forum. I looked up his bio on the forum and he was located at the same church as when I phoned the first priest.

I sent him an email via the forum and he replied saying "I believe such things can happen. I'll make sure a mass gets said (for the "ghost" - suicide).

This time I felt more assured. Incidentally at that time there were about 1300 Catholic parishes in Australia. What were the odds?

Fast forward to 2015 and I got this sense I ought to buy a "Catholic Leader" (local newspaper) which I normally don't do. I was attending a church called St. Catherine's in a place called Jimboomba.

This time there was a photo of Fr. Michael X at a place called St. Columba's which happened to be about 600 metres from the Presbyterian church where the pastor made the original prediction.

So I sent another email, this time via his parish. A day or so later I got an email back saying "Just to raise the spookiness level another notch, my home church before I went into seminary was St. Catherine's at Jimboomba!"

Fast forward to 20d17 and I found myself on the Bible reading roster with Fr. Michael's family (in practice it was his sister who did the readings).

But I still hadn't met Father X. We'd merely had a limited exchange of emails.

Last year I attended a Catholic seminar. As I got up to exit after one of the sessions, I passed a bloke at the end of the row. I looked down at his name tag and it was "Father Michael X."

I briefly mentioned we'd had an email exchange about a ghost in Ipswich, and that was about it.

So far nothing has come out of it, but I think something will..

As for "(seeing) the ghost before", way back circa 1970 when my father and I were returning from a camping trip and driving through Ipswich I think I saw the "ghost". A bloke was standing on the footpath. We looked at each other, he sort of seemed very frustrated. He turned and walked through a closed door.

I did my best to forget about it, but 20 years later the pastor just "knew" about it.

God was telling him things.

In the meantime I'm waiting to see where it leads.

 

[Ave Maria]

I wonder if this new wave of accusations will be about decades old abuse, or will it be recent abuse? From what I understand, most reports nowadays are about things that happened decades ago. I've always heard that the number of abuse incidents in recent years has dramatically decreased due to the reforms. I hope that is truly the case.

 

[Bob Crowley]

Human nature being what it is, there will always be cases of abuse. But I think the majority of the cases which have so frustrated the church took place in the 50's to 90's.

A majority of the priests who were responsible were ordained pre-Vatican II so it wasn't the "liberalisation" which caused the issue. If anything the elevated status of priests before Vatican II might have been part of the problem. Nobody was prepared to accuse a priest of that sort of behaviour if my understanding of the autocratic church culture of that time is correct.

It wasn't just the church. In Australia we had a royal commission into institutional child abuse.

https://www.childsafety.gov.au/royal-commission#:~:text=The%20Royal%20Commission%20into%20Institutional,instances%20of%20child%20sexual%20abuse.

It was happening and still happens in a lot of places.

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On 22 October 2018, the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, delivered in Parliament House a National Apology Address on behalf of the Australian people:[200]

... The crimes of ritual sexual abuse happened in schools, churches, youth groups, scout troops, orphanages, foster homes, sporting clubs, group homes, charities, and in family homes as well. It happened anywhere a predator thought they could get away with it, and the systems within these organisations allowed it to happen and turned a blind eye...

 

[Markie Boy]

The most unusual "prophecy" (which I've related before) was "I think you'll be doing a cleaning job. You won't do it for long, and you won't like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost." He added "I think you've seen this ghost before".

Now I knew by that time how accurate he was, but I thought that one was way over the top. So I pretty much ignored it.

He would have said that circa 1990/91 as he died in January 1992 himself.

Anyway fast forward to 2006 and I did a cleaning job for a short time (about four months) and "heard about a ghost" (a former manager of the store I was cleaning had committed suicide in the 1960's sometime).

I didn't know what to make of it, but in 200 I rang the local priest in the city of Ipswich where the store was located. He said "leave it to me" so I did. But I didn't think he took it seriously as I was just a strange voice on the phone with a strange story.

In 2010 I was on Catholic Answers Forums (which no longer exists, although Catholic Answers does) and happened to see a Fr. Michael X on the forum who was Australian, the only Australian priest I'd seen on that forum. I looked up his bio on the forum and he was located at the same church as when I phoned the first priest.

I sent him an email via the forum and he replied saying "I believe such things can happen. I'll make sure a mass gets said (for the "ghost" - suicide).

This time I felt more assured. Incidentally at that time there were about 1300 Catholic parishes in Australia. What were the odds?

Fast forward to 2015 and I got this sense I ought to buy a "Catholic Leader" (local newspaper) which I normally don't do. I was attending a church called St. Catherine's in a place called Jimboomba.

This time there was a photo of Fr. Michael X at a place called St. Columba's which happened to be about 600 metres from the Presbyterian church where the pastor made the original prediction.

So I sent another email, this time via his parish. A day or so later I got an email back saying "Just to raise the spookiness level another notch, my home church before I went into seminary was St. Catherine's at Jimboomba!"

Fast forward to 20d17 and I found myself on the Bible reading roster with Fr. Michael's family (in practice it was his sister who did the readings).

But I still hadn't met Father X. We'd merely had a limited exchange of emails.

Last year I attended a Catholic seminar. As I got up to exit after one of the sessions, I passed a bloke at the end of the row. I looked down at his name tag and it was "Father Michael X."

I briefly mentioned we'd had an email exchange about a ghost in Ipswich, and that was about it.

So far nothing has come out of it, but I think something will..

As for "(seeing) the ghost before", way back circa 1970 when my father and I were returning from a camping trip and driving through Ipswich I think I saw the "ghost". A bloke was standing on the footpath. We looked at each other, he sort of seemed very frustrated. He turned and walked through a closed door.

I did my best to forget about it, but 20 years later the pastor just "knew" about it.

God was telling him things.

In the meantime I'm waiting to see where it leads.

 

[Markie Boy]

The most unusual "prophecy" (which I've related before) was "I think you'll be doing a cleaning job. You won't do it for long, and you won't like it much, but I think the Lord will just want you to hear about a ghost." He added "I think you've seen this ghost before".

Now I knew by that time how accurate he was, but I thought that one was way over the top. So I pretty much ignored it.

He would have said that circa 1990/91 as he died in January 1992 himself.

Anyway fast forward to 2006 and I did a cleaning job for a short time (about four months) and "heard about a ghost" (a former manager of the store I was cleaning had committed suicide in the 1960's sometime).

I didn't know what to make of it, but in 200 I rang the local priest in the city of Ipswich where the store was located. He said "leave it to me" so I did. But I didn't think he took it seriously as I was just a strange voice on the phone with a strange story.

In 2010 I was on Catholic Answers Forums (which no longer exists, although Catholic Answers does) and happened to see a Fr. Michael X on the forum who was Australian, the only Australian priest I'd seen on that forum. I looked up his bio on the forum and he was located at the same church as when I phoned the first priest.

I sent him an email via the forum and he replied saying "I believe such things can happen. I'll make sure a mass gets said (for the "ghost" - suicide).

This time I felt more assured. Incidentally at that time there were about 1300 Catholic parishes in Australia. What were the odds?

Fast forward to 2015 and I got this sense I ought to buy a "Catholic Leader" (local newspaper) which I normally don't do. I was attending a church called St. Catherine's in a place called Jimboomba.

This time there was a photo of Fr. Michael X at a place called St. Columba's which happened to be about 600 metres from the Presbyterian church where the pastor made the original prediction.

So I sent another email, this time via his parish. A day or so later I got an email back saying "Just to raise the spookiness level another notch, my home church before I went into seminary was St. Catherine's at Jimboomba!"

Fast forward to 20d17 and I found myself on the Bible reading roster with Fr. Michael's family (in practice it was his sister who did the readings).

But I still hadn't met Father X. We'd merely had a limited exchange of emails.

Last year I attended a Catholic seminar. As I got up to exit after one of the sessions, I passed a bloke at the end of the row. I looked down at his name tag and it was "Father Michael X."

I briefly mentioned we'd had an email exchange about a ghost in Ipswich, and that was about it.

So far nothing has come out of it, but I think something will..

As for "(seeing) the ghost before", way back circa 1970 when my father and I were returning from a camping trip and driving through Ipswich I think I saw the "ghost". A bloke was standing on the footpath. We looked at each other, he sort of seemed very frustrated. He turned and walked through a closed door.

I did my best to forget about it, but 20 years later the pastor just "knew" about it.

God was telling him things.

In the meantime I'm waiting to see where it leads.

So I have to admit - I'm a bit fascinated about your old pastor. Two things:

1. If this is all true - a pastor outside the Catholic Church was obviously a serious man of God, and God acknowledged it

2. If this is true - he said the Catholic Church is the "closest" to the truth - which would imply it's not the 100% infallible it says? Yet at the same time closer than most protestant churches.

Please don't clobber me - I'm not attacking - I'm looking for reason. I see a LOT of truth - or simply right focus - in the Catholic Church that has been lost in a lot of others. But trying to make sense of things to get some forward progress.

If I did cross the line, I apologize - please delete this, and I can message Bob direct with some of this stuff.

 

[Bob Crowley]

He was a serious man of God. He had a wife and (originally) six sons to support, and she didn't work. He said he lived below the poverty line for years, commenting "I nearly starved!" He took God seriously and God took him seriously.

By the time I met him things weren't quite so desperate as five of his sons were working and only one was still at school. Unfortunately one of his sons died about six months after I joined his church.

We had discussions in his office. Towards the end of his life he was getting disillusioned with the protestant postition saying "When it comes to theology, Protestants couldn't agree how far to spit!" (his actual words). I also have a vague memory of him saying "I've started doing RCIA (Catholic induction procedure) ... that's if I live long enough." I'm not completely sure about that because at the time I didn't know what RCIA was and had no intention of becoming Catholic. That was a few years away.

RCIA = Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. It's a series of meetings where people considering joining the church are taught some things about Catholicism but they also can ask questions. If they want to they can back out.

I did mine by going to another couple's house. They told me a year or two ago that "We didn't think you'd go through with it - you asked so many questions!" They added "But you did and you're the one who stuck around and did things."

I have at least one disagreement with the Catholic Church and that's on contraception. I'm not going to get into that now but I agree with the pastor's comment "I think the (contraceptive) pill was God's gift given at the very time population growth was becoming a real problem in some parts of the world."

I also don't like the doctrine of "Papal Infallibility". I don't fully trust it. When it was brought in Pius IX was feeling threatened by "rationalism, nationalism and liberalism". It was also an age of revolution and before it could be closed Piedmontese troops occupied the Vatican. A priest told me that the first order of business of Vatican II was to close off the minutes of Vatican I. He also said that wind and breezes kept blowing the candles out - a sign from God that this was an inopportune time? I don't know but I don't fully trust it.

https://www.britannica.com/event/First-Vatican-Coun

The statement on the pope’s authority was approved only after long and heated debate both preceding and during the council. The decree states that the true successor of St. Peter has full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole church; that he has the right of free communication with the pastors of the whole church and with their flocks; and that his primacy includes the supreme teaching power to which Jesus Christ added the prerogative of papal infallibility, whereby the pope is preserved free from error when he teaches definitively that a doctrine concerning faith or morals is to be believed by the whole church. The original schema had not included a statement of papal infallibility, but the majority of the council fathers, urged on by Pius IX, overrode vociferous opposition from those who argued that a formal definition was inopportune and gave their approval to the dogmatic definition.


After the discussion on infallibility, the council fathers were permitted to leave Rome for a few months. Before they could return, Piedmontese troops occupied Rome. On October 20, 1870, Pius IX suspended the council indefinitely. It had completed only a small fraction of the work planned.

Papal Infallibility has long been implied. I I query the need to formalise it.

But generally speaking I believe the Catholic Church is "closest" to the truth, not because I've joined the church as an ex-Protestant, but because of our discussions in his office, and the subsquent vision when he turned up and simply said (sometime after I'd become Catholic) "The Catholic Church is CLOSEST to the truth" with a distinct emphasis on the word "closest".

He had warned me about the pending pedophile crisis way back circa 1990 when he predicted I'd become Catholic. He said that after I did there'd be complaints about pedophile adding "... and I think there's going to be a lot of them!" He was correct of course.

I therefore wasn't surprised when the pedophile cases became public as he'd warned me about the. But I also was rather disillusioned with the Catholic Church at one stage.

Maybe God sent him with a message to affirm I hadn't backed the wrong horse. I don't know but that is what happened.

 

[Michie]

He was a serious man of God. He had a wife and (originally) six sons to support, and she didn't work. He said he lived below the poverty line for years, commenting "I nearly starved!" He took God seriously and God took him seriously.

By the time I met him things weren't quite so desperate as five of his sons were working and only one was still at school. Unfortunately one of his sons died about six months after I joined his church.

We had discussions in his office. Towards the end of his life he was getting disillusioned with the protestant postition saying "When it comes to theology, Protestants couldn't agree how far to spit!" (his actual words). I also have a vague memory of him saying "I've started doing RCIA (Catholic induction procedure) ... that's if I live long enough." I'm not completely sure about that because at the time I didn't know what RCIA was and had no intention of becoming Catholic. That was a few years away.

RCIA = Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. It's a series of meetings where people considering joining the church are taught some things about Catholicism but they also can ask questions. If they want to they can back out.

I did mine by going to another couple's house. They told me a year or two ago that "We didn't think you'd go through with it - you asked so many questions!" They added "But you did and you're the one who stuck around and did things."

I have at least one disagreement with the Catholic Church and that's on contraception. I'm not going to get into that now but I agree with the pastor's comment "I think the (contraceptive) pill was God's gift given at the very time population growth was becoming a real problem in some parts of the world."

I also don't like the doctrine of "Papal Infallibility". I don't fully trust it. When it was brought in Pius IX was feeling threatened by "rationalism, nationalism and liberalism". It was also an age of revolution and before it could be closed Piedmontese troops occupied the Vatican. A priest told me that the first order of business of Vatican II was to close off the minutes of Vatican I. He also said that wind and breezes kept blowing the candles out - a sign from God that this was an inopportune time? I don't know but I don't fully trust it.

https://www.britannica.com/event/First-Vatican-Coun

Papal Infallibility has long been implied. I I query the need to formalise it.

But generally speaking I believe the Catholic Church is "closest" to the truth, not because I've joined the church as an ex-Protestant, but because of our discussions in his office, and the subsquent vision when he turned up and simply said (sometime after I'd become Catholic) "The Catholic Church is CLOSEST to the truth" with a distinct emphasis on the word "closest".

He had warned me about the pending pedophile crisis way back circa 1990 when he predicted I'd become Catholic. He said that after I did there'd be complaints about pedophile adding "... and I think there's going to be a lot of them!" He was correct of course.

I therefore wasn't surprised when the pedophile cases became public as he'd warned me about the. But I also was rather disillusioned with the Catholic Church at one stage.

Maybe God sent him with a message to affirm I hadn't backed the wrong horse. I don't know but that is what happened.

What happened to the son that passed away? Is this pastor’s wife still around?

 

[Bob Crowley]

The eldest son committed suicide. He had "manic-depression" (I think they call it borderline personality disorder these days). One of his brother told me that when he was down "He was really down!" I think that was most of the time.

There were two brothers I didn't get to know very well. He was one of them and the other moved away to a country town where he still lives as far as I know. He married a local lady, they have their own family etc.

I had a fair bit to do with the remaining four brothers.

His wife died some years ago, although she outlived her husband by over 20 years.

If the pastor had still been alive he'd have turned 100 this year so I think the chances are that he would have been gone by now anyway.

We both left his church at around the same time. I got married in September 1991 and moved to the southside (in Brisbane you're either a north sider or south sider!). He died of cancer in January 1992, about four months later. But he was too sick to do much in the last few months.

I was a bit undiplomatic in one of our exchanges. We were in his office and he said to me "You sometimes seem to get a sense of things. Do you think I'll get over this?" (Cancer).

I hesitated for a minute or two, and then replied "Well, er, uh ... I've ... uh ... had a sense for a while we'll both leave this church at around the same time".

He gave me this sardonic look and said "Boy! You sure know how to cheer somebody up!"