Not Enough Rope

Well, being a bear of very little brain, it took me a while to realize that, even if I wasn’t particularly proficient in Polish (though I do know the word pederastia which is…), the computer is! And so all you have to do is hit the little “translate this page” and the computer, after some thought, will give you a charmingly literal translation. Here’s a nice sample:

In the Vatican's diplomatic career structures could envy him many a clergyman.

Got that? What could be clearer? Definitely better than this, the Polish homologue:

Kariery dyplomatycznej w watykańskich strukturach mógłby mu pozazdrościć niejeden duchowny.

OK, so the syntax is a little screwy, but if you can wait until the end of the sentence to figure out what we’re talking about—both grammatically and logically called the subject—all will be well. Think of it as a game, perhaps, or a linguistic who-done-it. Keeps you in suspense!

And so I realized, yesterday, that the Polish press, unlike the Dominican press, is playing up the story. And they are embellishing their articles with photos like this:

Yup, Wesolowski himself….

And so I spent an interesting afternoon in Poland, yesterday, learning that Padre Alberto Gil, a fellow Pole working in the little mountain town of Juncalito, had taken 3 trips to Poland with about ten boys each time. My first reaction, of course was, “yeah?”

I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend who had been sexually abused by a Baptist minister while his parents slept in the room next to the minister, who was “sharing” his bed with my friend. And Carlos, my friend, swears that in most cases, the mothers either know or suspect that abuse is going on. But why don’t they speak out? Is it fear? Is it a lifetime of poverty, which grinds in the lessons of helplessness and despair and futility?

At any rate, Gil made three trips to Poland with assorted kids—where did the money come from? I’ve been through towns in the Dominican Republic that must have been the equivalents of Juncalito—for all I know, I’ve been through Juncalito. Didn’t look like there’s much money there. And if there is, they hide it well.

So were the Poles sponsoring the trip? And where was that money coming from? How wonderful, those Poles welcoming with open arms (in how many senses, one wonders?) those cute Latin kids!

Even so, it’s a little hard to wrap my mind around the how a parent would allow a child to go off with a priest for over a month. But as I think of it, it makes more sense. First, of course, the parents must have been dazzled by the idea—Europe! My child’s going to Europe! The world is opening for him, who knows whom he could meet, what door could open for him! How wonderful that Padre Alberto….

Then, of course, there’s the reverence for the Catholic Church. Over eighty percent of Puerto Ricans are Catholic—what percent of Dominicans? Probably much higher. Watching videos of families affected by the abuse in Juncalito, I got a visceral sense of the betrayal these families suffered.

Lastly, maybe we should ask if the abuse in the church isn’t structural. The organization is set up in a way that fosters abuse. There’s the hierarchical structure. There’s the control of power at the top, and the demand for complete obedience. There’s the demand to defend the church at all costs, and the terrible consequences doled out to anyone who blows the whistle. Even the pomp, the rituals, the fancy clothes—all contribute to the belief that they are special, invincible, infallible.

I look at Wesolowski, in the photo above—this man who was dressed in all his finery, this man surrounded by all the devotion of his parishioners, this man who, hours after the ceremony, would be chasing limpiabotas (shoeshine boys) on the malecón of Santo Domingo.

He thought he could have everything, could get away with anything.

Sadly, for the most part, he has….