Finding Little Solace in Sharing of Long-Guarded Secret

[MountainLaurel]

The Rev. James Moran was asking his usual questions during his chaplain rounds one day last summer at Washington Hospital Center: How are you? Would you like to pray together? Maybe take Communion? But one of the patients on his "Catholic" list bristled at the sight of a clerical collar.

The Catholic Church hierarchy's treatment of clergy sex abuse victims was disgusting, the patient told him.

"Believe me, I'm not trying to force Jesus down your throat," answered Moran, a beefy 60-year-old with an agonizing secret he had only recently started to let out: "I'm a victim of a priest myself."

The patient stared at him from the bed. A question came, point-blank: "Then how can you be a priest?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042602338.html