A Catholic Reckoning

What does it mean to be party to abuse? As Church scandals keep emerging, Mary Beth Keane—mother of two young boys—faces a painful choice.

The joke about my younger son, Emmett, is that at age seven he’d still crawl back into my womb if he could. He’s more reserved than his gregarious older brother, and sticks to me in social situations that overwhelm him. He worries about things that wouldn’t even occur to another child. Recently I picked him up from a birthday party and also collected the sons of two close friends to spare them a trip. Walking across the parking lot in a foursome of first-grade boys, Emmett kept glancing at another classmate who was leaving with his mother. Later he told me he worried the boy had seen the group heading to our car and thought Emmett was having a “big fun playdate” and hadn’t invited him, and that his feelings might have been hurt.

Tall, with skinny limbs and hair the color of a penny, Emmett often chooses a collection of Bible stories my mother gave him years ago as a bedtime book. One evening he asked me about “the holy cracker” he’s going to get to try soon, when he makes his first Holy Communion in second grade.

“That’s the Eucharist,” I told him. “The priest performs a miracle on the altar, and that cracker becomes the body of Christ.” Like all things to do with Catholic doctrine, it feels insane when said aloud. When it comes to religion, the only concern my kids really have is whether everyone who’s good ends up in Heaven. I’ve decided to simply say yes. Will the dog go to Heaven? Yes. The same Heaven as us? Yes. I deliver these answers with total confidence, as if I know.

TAKING STOCK

REVELATIONS OF SEXUAL ABUSE AND COVER-UP HAVE DOGGED THE CHURCH FOR MORE THAN A DECADE. ABOVE: A CONSISTORY CEREMONY IN ROME.