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"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, 72, is reported to have said when questioned about Rep, Mark Foley's accusations of molestation. "I was taking pills - tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit." According to this report I found on MSNBC this morning, the Catholic priest confessed to "massaging Foley while the boy was naked, skinny-dipping together at a secluded lake in Lake Worth and being nude in the same room on overnight trips." Nice. There was also "one night when he was in a drug-induced stupor and there was an incident but he couldn't clearly remember."
According to this report Mercieca acknowledged teaching Foley "some wrong things" about sex, though he refused to clarify exactly what "wrong things" might mean. He apparently considered the relationship to be innocent at the time, but now sees how his actions could be called inappropriate. The still active priest insisted that his flutter with Foley was nothing more than an "aberration." "I have been in many parishes," he is quoted as saying, "and I have never been accused" of other such "encounters."
Well, we all like to have an explanation for our actions. For Foley, of course, it was the alcohol. For his purported seducer, pills. Not, they both hasten to add, that this excuses their behavior. It just explains it. Which leads me to wonder what that teacher was on, all those years ago, when he "invited" me into his bed as a twelve year-old boy, in the days before a ready menu of excuses was available. Some might argue, Bush, that my mistrust of authority results from this "encounter"! (That's my excuse. What's yours?)
The point, as I see it, is that this particular plague has been with us for centuries and will be with us for centuries more. It's only today, when it has become de rigueur to talk about such things, that we begin to recognize just how commonplace it is. I find it terribly sad that there are people around who seem unable to keep their hands off children, and I wish I could see some way for society to deal with it--short of cutting off their hands. But let's stop blaming it on anything other than what it is: pedophilia. THAT, if anything, is the mind of Mercieca.
The priest seems cheerful enough about the whole thing, though, despite his rude and preremptory unmasking by the Congressman. "I wish him well," Mercieca is reported to have said, breezily. "Let bygones be bygones."
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I believe it's in France, not sure anymore, been so many years, between the Abby and the Nunnery there was a tunnel. In that tunnel they found all the bodies of the nuns that died during childbirth, the dead children, etc.. These, grant you, are consulting adults, however, they were supposed to be celibate... Chalk up one for the Catholic church. I don't doubt in the least that this has been going on since day one. At one time, many moons ago, it was practice to have a young man for just that purpose. It sounds terrible, but true. Problem is, it has stretched into our now 'enlightened' society. To hear of anyone doing this is a tragedy. But what galls me is that he was, and still is, so flippant about it! This person belongs behind bars. And as an adult, the other has no excuse for this, he knows what pedophilia is. He also belongs in jail. Going to a therapist early would have been what he needed to do, he knew that, he's not an ignorant person!
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