Pennsylvania Family Leaves Catholic Church After Years of Struggle Over Clergy Abuse

Each time a new report or newspaper article about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church appears, Chuck Gesing steels himself. He called the most recent grand jury report in Pennsylvania, which alleged that more than 300 priests sexually abused more than 1,000 minors, “disgusting,” but said such news was “not unexpected at this point.”

In August, NPR asked Catholic listeners from Pennsylvania and across the country to respond to that report. The survey asked whether any of the four investigations into systematic child abuse by priests in the state had led them to reconsider their faith or join a different denomination. More than 200 people responded. Some answers were brief, while others described deeper distress. Katherine Liberona, from outside Philadelphia, said, “I now feel like I question my entire religious upbringing.”

Chuck and Nicole Gesing, who live in Glenside, Montgomery County, both described childhoods in tight-knit Catholic communities. Chuck, who was raised in Northeast Philadelphia, said, “Everyone we knew was Catholic.” The church remained central to their lives into adulthood. Both attended Catholic colleges, and they planned to send their three children to parochial schools. Over time, they grew frustrated when the church did not help with tuition during a period of financial strain. They withdrew one child from Catholic school but still enrolled two of their children in a Parish Religious Education Program, or PREP, so they could receive their sacraments.

In 2005, the first grand jury report on sexual abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese was released. According to that report, St. Cecilia’s, the parish Chuck attended as a teenager, was named in connection with a priest, Father James Brzyski, described in the report as “one of the Archdiocese’s most brutal abusers – emotionally as well as physically.” The couple continued attending Mass because Nicole still wanted their family to have a place of worship. Pennsylvania’s grand jury reports do not name alleged victims. Years later, after Chuck read a local newspaper article about Father Brzyski’s targets, he said he recognized the people described. “I knew every single person,” he said. “They were all my friends!”

Leaving the church raised a difficult question for the Gesings: what could replace an institution that had shaped their lives? Many of the listeners who responded to NPR mentioned moving to Episcopal or Unitarian congregations. Chuck said, “How can I leave the church, when the place that changed my life is a part of the church?” After years of moving away from their faith, the Gesings officially joined St. Peter’s Episcopal Church last year. They first found the congregation while looking for a place to cook Thanksgiving turkeys for people experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia, a practice of caring for those in need (Matthew 25:35). “I’m not abandoning my faith,” Chuck said. “I’m going to a different faith, to keep the human, bad part of that church from having access to my kids.”

The Philadelphia Archdiocese has responded to the scandals in its own way. Spokesman Ken Gavin said, “The church of the past is not the church of today,” and detailed more than $14 million the archdiocese has put toward victim assistance efforts since 2002. Gavin also said that sexual abuse of minors “is not solely a Catholic issue,” but that the Catholic Church “has done more than any other institution in recent years to combat the problem.”

On a recent rainy Sunday, the couple sat in the second-to-last row at St. Peter’s, with cups of coffee tucked under the pew. Nicole remarked on the informality of the service and the time given to “passing the peace,” when congregants move through the aisles greeting one another. The sermon, delivered by Canon Kirk Berlenbach, addressed the theme of welcoming. After Mass, Chuck said, “That’s the way church should be.”

Source: Read the original report