Foley’s past and Foley’s present

Former Congressman
Mark Foley’s claim to have been molested as a teenager by a Roman Catholic

clergyman in his hometown of Sarasota sparked in me a particularly
emotive response.

Former Congressman
Mark Foley’s claim to have been molested as a teenager by a Roman Catholic
clergyman in his hometown of Sarasota,
Florida, sparked in me a particularly
emotive response.

Let me first say,
however, that I have every sympathy with anyone, and especially any young
person, who has suffered at the hands of the clergy.  The Roman Catholic and other Christian
leaders who perpetrated, and later covered up, appalling abuse both of bodies
and of trust violated their calling before God as well as their
responsibilities to their fellow human beings. 
I hope that nothing which follows casts any doubt on that.

But isn’t it a bit
convenient that Foley, who himself is accused of breaching the trust of
congressional pages, has decided to lay responsibility for his behavior at the
door of the Catholic Church?  Admitting
to alcoholism seems not to have won him any supporters, so perhaps clerical
abuse might be a more satisfactory excuse. 
And the former congressman and his attorney seem to have chosen an
already wounded target: the moral standing of Catholic clergymen is at its
lowest in decades.  What other
organization would so quickly be accused of covering up the facts and of
dodging the blame if it attempted to point out that whatever may have happened
to Foley in his adolescence, it does little to justify his conduct as an adult?

The former
congressman’s supporters may take some pleasure from the fact that his would-be
abuser, the Rev. Anthony Mercieca, has now admitted to inappropriate behavior
around the teenage Foley.  And indeed,
Father Mercieca’s conduct, like Mr. Foley’s, is to be deplored.  But Foley’s story nevertheless prompts
several questions, not least why he chose to remain quiet about Father Mercieca
when organizations like SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)
have spent so much time over the last few years urging the victims of abuse to
come forward.

Foley’s actions
bespeak a stunning willingness to clutch at whatever straws might help him to
turn the spotlight of publicity away from him and onto an organization that
many in our society judge to be even more corrupt than Congress.  In the end, it should go without saying that
whatever happened between Foley and his parish priest, one sin can never
justify another.  And it should also go
without saying that Foley, who spent much of his youth as an altar boy, must
never have paid too much attention to the readings of the Gospel.