My debut column for Chicago Catholic News is up. 

(POSTED: 6/14/10) Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Glenview (OLPH) hosted a discussion of clergy sex abuse on June 7. Featured speakers were Michael Bland, a therapist and himself an abuse survivor and former priest, and Rev. Larry McBrady, a former vicar for priests in the archdiocese.

Bland had delivered a stemwinder of a speech about his own experience, an “impact statement,” in 2002 at the bishops’ meeting in Dallas, where he said movingly of his abuse experience:

My life was changed in ways I could never have imagined. I continue to be victimized because the perpetrating priest has something that was stolen from me — my youthful innocence and my priesthood. At times I am still plagued with questions starting with “what if . . .” — questions that can never be answered . . . .

Read the rest at Chicago Catholic News.