If these two men weren’t priests, would you be supportive of them? Would you want pedophiles living next to your house, next to your kids, active in your community? Does being priests give them special privileges? To simply state that “they (the priests) suffered enough, that they’ve paid the price and that they’ve had to live with what they did” is not enough. What about those children who have to live every day with the memory of the ungodly acts that were perpetrated on them?

If, in your school system, it was discovered that a teacher had been sexually abusing students, would you just simply say, “Well, we’ll just get he or she some counseling and relocate them to another school district?” I think not. But that is what happens most of the time in the Catholic church; shuffle them around, hoping the secret is not discovered. The pedophiles should have been removed as soon as it was known they had a penchant for young children.

I was raised Catholic and would like to be proud to be a Catholic, but issues like this make me sick and ashamed to call myself one. God bless the good priests out there, the ones who care and who are trying to make a difference. Shame on the ones who hide behind the robe.

Marla Landry

Fort Kent