Reply to How has a Catholic Priest Positively Affected Your Life?

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[quote=Anonymous]We hear so much about the Catholic abuse scandals that have wrought destruction across many communities, and parishes in the US and abroad.
This post is not to take away from the pain inflicted on those affected, but it is to highlight the good there is in our church that is still there.
How about something good that has come from your interaction with the Church? Share a good news story with us.

My story is that I know I would have wound up dead or in jail with out the guidance of the priests in my parish in North Jersey.  I grew up in a blue collar town outside New York City. I could see the smoke from near by factories, and the skyline of the city.  The guys I saw in my Irish/Italian neighborhood were what I wanted to be.  I wanted to be part of a fraternity of criminals. My dad worked construction, my uncles worked construction, my dads friends worked construction, and all the kids I hung out had parents that worked in construction, my mom was a nurse at the VA.  I grew up in an Irish household, my mom went back to work when I went into Middle School.  I was left with little or no supervision.  I didn't want to be like my Vietnam veteran dad all busted up at the end of a day, I wanted to be like the guys I saw during my summer break. I wanted to have nice clothes, and money, they looked clean, and they were always smiling,  they weren't dirty at the end of the day with bleeding hands like my dad.

When my dad had a window fall on his head, the doctor also found he got a hernia.  He was out of work for weeks, and my mom was having trouble making ends meet.  I turned to the gentlemen of leisure to make a little money. They knew me from the neighborhood, and I got jobs like stealing car radios, I was taught how to rob them, steal VHS tapes from the Shop Rite, and how to copy them and make them look like brand new copies, then sell them.  I learned how to steal VHS, and other HIFI equipment from Crazy Eddies, and other places.  I got paid to throw eggs at immigrants from India, and vandalize their house when they commuted to their tech jobs at IBM in NYC.

For some reason I felt compelled to tell my priest this at confession.  He came and talked to me right after.  He made me go to his office.  NO, no crazy sex stuff. He just said that he wanted me to play soccer for the church team.  He called it football, he was from Ireland.  I wanted to make money that Saturday stealing comic books from the Flea Market, but I promised I would be there for soccer.  After that I was hooked, that priest taught me to play soccer.  We didn't have a great team, but I loved going to practice, being part of something that didn't make me afraid,  I felt like a kid.  MY hooligan friends came to watch me, and even heckle me when I messed up.  Later that summer, one of my friends took a knife in the eye while trying to steal a change cup put of a VW.  Most of those kids are dead or in jail, I wound up getting a scholarship to Wake Forrest to play soccer.

Those priests never laid an inappropriate hand on me, they saw me as a kid in danger, and saved me from making the wrong choices.  My mom did make the ends meet with out my hooligan funds.  My dad was never the same, and he eventually disappeared.  He just didn't come home one night,  my mom never told me why. She passed away from cancer a few years back, so I don't know what happened to him.  With out those priests from my parish I don't know how I could have made it through those terrible years.  The were my string father figures, and they taught me to be the man I am today, I have a healthy family,  I thank god for Father Sean taking an interest in a kid he saw going down the wrong path. He saved me.[/quote]

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