Vessels of Clay

From pp. 13-14, Part I:

St. Pete’s, as we abbreviated the name of St. Peter and St. Paul, neglecting the apostle to the gentiles, was about six blocks from our house.  Except for a busy Third Avenue, along which the “El” ran, as well as a good deal of traffic, it was not a dangerous walk, so my mother had us come back for lunch every day. One blustery day in December, as we hustled from lunch past the Police Department’s 42^nd Precinct, a station later to be immortalized in the movie “Fort Apache: the Bronx,” a man ran out of the station and stopped us.  He wanted Joey, Vera and myself to come inside for just a moment.  When we objected that we would be late returning to school, he promised to give us notes.  So in we went.  The fellow marched us over to the corner of the station’s ground floor and its huge Christmas tree, handed us presents to hold, and then took our smiling pictures.  When he was done, he snatched back the presents, to our disappointment, and then sent us back to school sans notes.  Slight was our disappointment, however, compared to my father’s wrath next day when on the front page of the Bronx Home News the million and a half residents of our borough and a similar number in Manhattan could see our smiling picture, with the caption “Orphans Enjoy Police Department’s Charity.”

From pp. 66-67, Part II:

One benefit of the fire that is also insightful is that many people from town came to the seminary, first to watch the fire, then to offer sympathy and help.  One of these was a young mother and her two girls about 9 and 10 years old.  These girls were intelligent, attractive, and gifted.  They began to visit our recreation room while their mother visited our religious superior, and they would play the piano.  I was smitten by them and could sit for long periods, chatting or listening to them play.  I realized in retrospect that these youngsters were the only females in my life, the only ones I had seen in more than a year, the only ones I had conversed with in several years, and I was captivated.  While I was never in danger of being foolish with them, they did make me aware of a need that hadn’t disappeared, but had just been suppressed by the air-tight seminary routine.

Father Andrew Greeley does not believe pedophilia is connected with celibacy.  He believes pedophiles are born that way or develop early a fixation on children as the object of their sexual attention.  He is probably right, but in the same way as forced celibacy can bring on temporary homosexuality in prisons or prep schools, I believe such temporary pedophilia or, perhaps more likely, ephebophilia might result from loneliness in priests who are deprived of adult interaction or too shy to mingle confidently with adults, while being constantly in contact with youth.  I could not imagine myself being so tempted, but the attraction of these girls made me more sympathetic with priests who might stumble into such sexual aberrations because of the circumstances I describe.