Word: priestly
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Figueroa's sordid account runs as follows. Beginning in kindergarten at St. Anthony's church in Kailua, Hawaii, he was continually molested by the parish priest. When the boy was in his teens, the priest died, but Ferrario, his successor, continued the sex abuse for years, paying Figueroa for odd jobs in return. Ferrario also aided Figueroa in quitting high school just before graduation and joining the gay community in San Francisco. Figueroa alleges that the sexual entanglement continued even after Ferrario became a bishop, with trysts at church residences in Honolulu and Menlo Park, Calif. Figueroa's lawyers claim...
Such developments have thrown a harsh spotlight on the performance of Catholic leadership. Says Jason Berry, the freelance journalist who broke the Louisiana story and is completing a book on the outbreak of clerical scandals: "The real shock was not that a priest could be capable of molesting children but the mendacity and the duplicity among church officials who had harbored and recycled him so many times...
David Clohessy, a St. Louis political consultant who has a lawsuit pending against a priest, asserts, "The sexual abuse was terrible, but I think the response of the hierarchy is almost as bad." He says that when Bishop Michael McAuliffe of Jefferson City, Mo., learned of the case last year, the bishop turned the matter over to his lawyers without confronting the priest. Since then, the priest has been put on administrative leave, pending review...
Playing the devil's advocate is Father Andrew M. Greeley's favorite avocation. His novels continually irritate the church he serves, by revealing Vatican politics and presenting flawed priests. The narrator of An Occasion of Sin (Putnam; 352 pages; $19.95) puts forth the most imperfect of them all. The scurrilous, irritable Father Lar McAuliffe is assigned to test the claims of sainthood for his late detested colleague, John Cardinal McGlynn, martyred in Nicaragua. Father Lar rubs his hands in anticipation -- he knows all about the Cardinal's mistress, his alcoholism and his rumored misuse of church funds...
...collection. Last April Ortega paid a token $2,500 to the former Sandinista government for the deed to the house, which is protected from prying eyes by a high wall decorated with festive murals. Other top Sandinistas also retired in style. Miguel D'Escoto, the rotund priest and ex-Foreign Minister, paid only $13,000 for one of the capital's plushest mansions...