Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir by Scott Pomfret Page B

these easy invocations of God’s name, uttering holy words without irony while in the act of worship — that made me feel icky. It was like reading porn aloud or accidentally hearing your sister’s love-sounds through a bedroom wall.
    Needless to say, every eighth word of the Bible contained the name, of the Almighty. It might be Yah weh, it might be Elohim, it might be the Most High, but God under any of these names had the same effect. I took to inoculating myself ahead of time against the giddy urge to put ironic quote marks around such words wherever they appeared. “God-God-God-God,” I intoned in the privacy of my SEC office as sternly as my gay voice allowed. “Lord-Lord-Lord-Lord-Lord. Jesus-Jesus-Jesus.” This exercise only made me feel like one of those saccharine southerners with poofed-up hair and fake boobs who insert “God” into every third sentence and made my teeth itch.
    For courage, I looked to the three Hale Marys. Mary Flanagan winked, like she was in with me on this great big cosmic joke. I could almost see the crucifix at her neck dance and her bony shoulders shake with laughter.
    Instantly, all doubt vanished. My lips formed the first word of the reading, and I vanished. My mouth opened, and light streamed out. Peace reigned. White flowers cascaded over pots. The smell of cedar incense seemed particularly acute. I swore I detected the scent daubed behind Mary Flanagan’s ear, and this suddenly seemed like the personification of faith: that somebody eighty-seven years old would still make the effort to make herself beautiful for Church. I did just fine.
    Thanks be to The Pedophiles
    In January 2002, a decades-long game of Clue came to a horrible, inevitable finale. We Catholics took a peek at the cards in the middle of the board, and the perp was revealed: it was Father So-and-So, in the rectory, with a handful of girlie magazines and a six-pack of beer. Although no friar was implicated in the scandal, the news hit Saint Anthony Shrine like a bomb. What had been a bustling and cheerful sanctuary took on the atmosphere of a morgue.
    It wasn’t the sexual acts themselves that raised everyone’s ire. Show me a Catholic, and I’ll show you someone who can name a priest from childhood that everyone knew you should never be alone with. Typically no one complained, most kids steered clear, and we nonvictims carried on with our lives. In a way, Catholics had collectively determined to accept a certain number of diddling priests as the cost of doing God’s work.
    What really galled us about the scandal was that the Archdiocese of Boston didn’t merely shelter pedophiles from prosecution — it actually provided the abusers with fresh meat by assigning the sick priests to new parishes and new victims without disclosing their past sins. Some monster in the grand residence of then-cardinal Law had clearly weighed the personal damage to young boys against reputational damage to the Church and concluded that the boys were expendable.
School for Scandal
In many dioceses around the world, the term scandal has won a capital S and has become shorthand for diddling priests and the bishops who enabled them. But scandal is also a term of art in the Catholic Church — “To ‘give scandal’ is to intentionally tempt a brother to sin or to give him occasion to commit it.”
    When I first read about the scandal, I experienced the standard Catholic response: guilt. It’s in my genes. I feel personally responsible for everyone’s tears, others’ happiness, spilled milk, underfunded schools, untidy bedrooms, unmade beds, and unfolded laundry. It’s important to me to make sure that carbon emissions are reduced or eliminated, coaches and teachers made proud, and all sexual activity ends in orgasm.
    As for the scandal, I knew my participation in the Mass, my support of Saint Anthony Shrine, and my willful blindness in childhood had somehow contributed to and perpetuated the mess. Doctrinal bombs might explode