Mark Foley Speaks Out About Vatican Sex Abuse

Remember Mark Foley? The six term Congressman who was forced to resign in 2006 for hitting on teen aged Senate pages?  Until now I thought he was just another sleazebag ( check out a transcript of one of his IM conversations with an ex Senate page here), but after what Mark Foley revealed about himself last week, I feel real compassion for the guy.

It's a well known fact that sexually molested children often grow up to be abusers themselves. Seems that Mark Foley is a perfect example of this.

In an interview last week  Foley commented on the ongoing Vatican pedophile priest scandal by describing  his own molestation at the hands of a priest at the age of eleven.

It takes a brave man to be so honest about what must have been a shameful secret carried for years. Few survivors are able to come forward and make themselves so vulnerable. I salute Mark Foley for having the guts to do so.  Here's a direct quote .  It is quite chilling to read.

 "The priest befriended me, started slowly, making me feel like a special child and as time went on things advanced and then we were going to steam rooms and places where I had no idea what we were doing but nonetheless, it was happening," Foley told WPTV's Jim Sackett.

  It was 40 years ago that as an 11-year old Catholic altar boy, Foley, met Father Anthony Merceica at his Lake Worth Church. "Virtually every commandment you've been taught is now violated, don't tell your parents, I'll kill myself if you do, nobody can know about our secret," Foley said the priest told him. Foley said the abuse lasted two years...stopping when Merceica left the parish and Foley was left with guilt."    source: TCPalm.com

How do I know that Foleys' abuser was transferred out of the parish to avoid scandal and sent on to do the same thing somewhere else by a bishop who was " just obeying orders" from the Vatican?We are not just talking about sin here, we are talking about a soul-killing crime against a child  as well as an illegal cover-up of unconscionable proportions.

Mark Foley may have left Congress in disgrace, but clearly some long delayed healing has begun. May he find in his self-honesty the spiritual sustenance denied him so many years ago by his church.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I hope the Vatican will figure that out soon.