Damaged Priests, Preachers, Shaman, Imam, Shrinks and other Gurus.

Lust

Thank Goodness for Aging

"Eighty-year old Gonzalez, was finally forced out of the priesthood in 1985, but only after serving 28 years and being bumped from parish to parish after problems arose."

Ms. Zamora, of Bloggin', comments on Friday last of a damaged human being, a priest, Anthony Gonzalez who hurt many children, young girls, by raping and impregnating them.

What a problem, this, of people in trust and power who abuse that position. In my youth I was willing to join in heaping on the abuse. However, I must say that it has been years now since when I read such a story I feel a flood of sadness for the priest or preacher or politician who has finally been caught and exposed.

Not that he (and usually it is a he) should not have been caught and exposed. If he had been caught and exposed years earlier the bleeding of the victims could have been stopped. But the suffering could have been shortened for the predator as well. Might we even consider healing and redemption?

I knew a priest who was in trouble. His sexual addiction would be easy to ridicule: he was attracted to obese, hairy men. This made me uncomfortable, because I was the fattest, hairiest man around. He assured me I was not nearly fat nor hairy enough for his tastes. There is (or was?) a pornographic magazine that catered to this desire. It had a cutesy name such as "Chubs" or something, that would help distract from the awkwardness and social stigma this particular unusual compulsion would create.

Father (Joe?, Bill?, even his name fades with time) was in criminal trouble because he was caught peaking under the sheets at a comatose, fat, hairy man he was visiting in the hospital.

He was grief stricken and remorseful and ashamed. He wanted to commit suicide, but was afraid of the sin. He was melancholy to the extent that he could hardly get out of bed. But he could not stop the images of fat, hairy nude males from dancing around in his brain.

He was also wise and kind and well-read. Go figure.

Graham Greene tackled the whiskey priest. Nabokov helped us understand Humbert Humbert, rapist and abuser of girl children. Father Anthony Gonzalez needs his novelist, not to justify, but to heal him and us.