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=> Re: Catholic Church at its BEST

Re: Catholic Church at its BEST
Posted by Tony (Guest) - Monday, October 17 2005, 1:59:51 (CEST)
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One day, she joined a protest inside the cathedral. The once-pious Mariana Malo went to the altar, as if to take Communion. Mahony offered her the Eucharist, she said. "I said, 'No, you are the devil,' in front of everybody. In front of everybody. And the face is so white," Mariana Malo said of the cardinal's shocked expression.

She is now heavily medicated because she is frequently suicidal.

Until recently, Jimmy's wife taught Catholic doctrine to schoolchildren. His children were being raised Catholic. He gave the church money.

"And this thing is just simmering underneath the surface waiting to explode," he said, "and then it comes out, and then the way they treat us — or don't treat us. There can't be a God. There can't be a church. None of this exists anymore."

Holidays hurt, he said. Christmas is history. He tries to get his family to say "Happy Festivus!" It's almost funny, except it isn't.

"It's difficult because all those songs that I used to love singing, all those … Christian songs. I catch myself, a Christian tune going through my head, I go, 'Oh, I can't sing that song, got to find another one.' That's how much it stresses me out and bothers me," he said.

When Jimmy told his wife about Hagenbach, she wasn't exactly surprised. The story he told her helped explain why he had been an angry man for so long. But knowing didn't work miracles. She still feels worn down and spent. He still storms. Once, he said, he fumed for days because she spent a few dollars on a new ice cream scoop.

For the men, this is the heartbreak: They now know what's wrong with them, they know why they act the way they do, but they can't suddenly become better for their families.

"I mean, I get angry, I get angry often because I want to know what life would have been like without this," Jimmy said.

*

The men try to fill the vacuum left by the church they say left them behind.

Some have taken upon themselves what they see as the church's duty.

Steve has contacted all seven of Hagenbach's parishes, asking for permission to speak to the congregations. He and other Hagenbach men have told their stories at the three that would have them.

The church's lawyer says such sessions don't really find victims of decades-old abuse. "You're just stirring up the parish," Hennigan said.

When the men hear of a boyhood friend who has had a lot of problems, their antennae go up. They were right about the Holy Trinity altar boy who ended up in prison. They're pretty sure they're right about a man last seen living on the streets of Glendale. They're looking for him.

They never stop doing what they say the church never started doing.

Still, it's lonely. The priest is dead. The lawsuits, now in mediation, move like molasses. The men's stories could well end up being told only in closed chambers. And in Los Angeles, there is none of the public outcry there was in Boston, not even from fellow Catholics.

Last spring, Cisco went to a party given by an old St. Joseph classmate. He took his pregnant wife and his daughter Isabela, a toddler. But people ignored the Malo family.

"I felt like I had AIDS because no one would talk to me," said Cisco, adding, "I was like, I don't need the church. I don't need this town. I don't need any of you."

Cisco's therapist has told him he can't run away. Still, he said, "If I wouldn't have said anything, my family unit still would have been together, my friends still would have been together."



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