No Excuse for Priestly Abuse, but Believer Sees Chance for Grace

He presumes to speak for no one but himself, a priest in a parish trying to make people’s lives better. He’s willing to give an interview but fears that anything he says might make him sound like an apologist for brethren whose sexual misconduct in parishes across America has jolted the Catholic Church.

This is no time for apologists, Father John McAndrew says.

To my ears, he doesn’t sound like one. What I hear during the hour we talk in a church office on the grounds of St. Angela Merici in Brea is a soft-spoken priest who’s saddened by the scandals that indirectly touch all priests, but resolute in supporting new policies in the Diocese of Orange that would root out the offenders.

“I want to make it eminently clear my primary concern is for those who have been wounded,” McAndrew says. “That’s what this whole policy is about. It’s long overdue.”

I sought out McAndrew, a ponytailed 47-year-old who’s been a priest for about 15 years, to get a feel for how the budding scandal affects other priests. My job and McAndrew’s life intersected three years ago on an unrelated story, but I remembered him as an introspective and committed man of God.

I figured the scandals within the priesthood, which have reached from Boston to Southern California, must be killing him.

“We’re a lot more aware today of the damage that’s inflicted on people by those in positions of leadership, whether it’s a teacher, parents, priests,” he says. “When somebody is given spiritual leadership and ... that trust is abused, that wound cuts so deeply for many people, they may never find their way to any healing.”

The Orange diocese’s zero-tolerance philosophy might sound harsh to a flock of priests who believe in redemption, but McAndrew says it’s sound policy.

But even as he endorses without question the high standards priests must maintain, he adds a wry twist.

“We know ourselves to be sinners,” he says, referring to biblical doctrine. “Priests are not the holiest people in the parish.”

While the percentage of offending priests in America may be small, it is the church’s historic secrecy and denials that, ironically, now unfairly may make more of its members suspect.

I ask McAndrew about that trust. “The title of father is not one we come by easily. Implicit in that is great trust. The people of God give us a tremendous amount of responsibility and dignity, and they know us very well.”

Does he fear that he and other priests, untouched by scandal themselves, will lose that trust? “I don’t fear it, I don’t expect it,” he says, but adds that he’d welcome a meeting where parishioners could come to church and speak their minds, “to ask questions, to vent, whatever they need to do.”

I ask if he’s angry at the church. He pauses for several seconds before answering: “Deep sadness. I know my own self, my own foibles, my sinfulness. I know that my church is far from perfect, but somewhere in the midst of all this is still the opportunity for

grace.”

True believers must hope the twisted path of scandal ultimately will bring redemption and grace, pillars of Roman Catholics’ faith. They also must know the church has much work to do in repairing its credibility.

“The good [that will come] is that we’re being very clear that we’re listening to those who have been victimized,” McAndrew says. “That this won’t happen again. That our primary concern as a church is not to save face but to serve.”

And even as that happens, someone will tend to the less popular task of helping the fallen priests. Their plight also saddens the family of priests left behind, McAndrew says. But for now, such grieving for them likely will be done in private.

“It’s so hard not to make it sound like anything I’m saying is defensive,” McAndrew says. “Of course it’s defensive. It hurts when a brother gets punished. If my own brother were sent to prison, he wouldn’t stop being my

brother.”

With all that has happened, I ask if in some way, McAndrew has lost faith in what he does.

“No,” he says, “because we understand ourselves. We are called to holiness. Priests are called to a specific way of serving people, a specific ministry. And we know our failures well.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.