Letter to Father Tom

Father Tom Saloy served at Our Lady of Grace, the Catholic parish in my hometown, for 11 years. During those 11 years he became one of the most beloved priests ever to serve in our church. Accepting a new assignment from the diocese, he left our parish in June with great fanfare.

Late in November he pled guilty to possessing child pornography.

Here is some background on the case:

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-liporn1201,0,1120050.story?track=mostemailedlink

And here are some columns in the parish bulletin by Father Vincent Rush, the current pastor at Our Lady of Grace:

http://www.ourladyofgrace.net/Pastor%20Page/Fr%20Vin/AsISeeIt/BC061126.htm
http://www.ourladyofgrace.net/Pastor%20Page/Fr%20Vin/AsISeeIt/BC061203.htm
http://www.ourladyofgrace.net/Pastor%20Page/Fr%20Vin/AsISeeIt/BC061210.htm

I have known Father Tom since 1999. Like many people of the parish, I thought well of him, and our interactions were always cordial. Lots of parishioners thought the world of him. Many of us were hoping he would become the senior pastor of Our Lady of Grace one day. Never did I imagine he was struggling with sexual compulsions like these. Never did I imagine that the national clerical sex abuse scandal could touch home or persist even today, with all the new safeguards in place in Catholic parishes everywhere. Never did I think any children, near or far, could be harmed by the priests I knew, least of all Father Tom.

Now Father Tom's life is in ruins. His shadow self has been bared for all to see. Surely his family is devastated. The people of the parish are devastated. And by perpetuating the infernal commerce of child pornography, who knows how many youths have been seriously hurt.

As far as I know, Father Tom cannot initiate any contact with the outside world, but he can receive correspondence through the Diocese of Rockville Centre. For a month I have thought and prayed about what I would say to him. Here is the letter he is receiving from me. I don't know if it is pastoral or tactful, but I hope it is true, and if so true, I pray Father Tom is strong enough to accept it.

***

Dear Father Tom,

From the moment I learned of your arrest I have sought to write you, but I knew I had to wait for the Spirit to bid me to speak. Today is the feast of the Holy Innocents, and now I know the time is right to share my share of God’s Word with you.

Perhaps you know these words of the prophet Jeremiah: “In Ramah is heard the sound of moaning, of bitter weeping! Rachel mourns her children, she refuses to be consoled because her children are no more.” Tell me, Father Tom, do you pray as Rachel prayed, with moaning and weeping for the children who “are no more,” the ones spiritually deformed, whose souls have been murdered through such awful sexual exploitation as you had patronized? I have cried for them and for you. I cannot speak to them, but I can speak to you, and I say to you, pray for these holy innocents! Seek their forgiveness! The people of faith cry out for them and for you.

You are now literally estranged from the world, but even before your confinement you were radically estranged from yourself and the world by your sin, as are we all. You were always very good at pointing out the wonderful goodness of God’s creation, but in my opinion you were very poor at pointing out the fundamental “wrongness” attending the human condition. I am still trying to figure out why you lacked the capacity or the willingness to articulate the tragedy of this separation of men and women from their true being or the personal dimension this separation takes when we turn away freely from God.

Because you are culpable for your offenses, you are cut off from the world in a way that surpasses in its ignominy the isolation the lepers endured in the age of Francis or the persecution the first victims of AIDS suffered a generation ago. Unlike those “outcasts” you bear a deserved personal guilt. But I am a Christian, and I abhor such damned separation, whether or not the one cast out is guilty. If I could meet you now, I would greet you with a holy kiss of peace, as Francis greeted the leper, or with a healing embrace, as our parish embraced AIDS patients years ago when it allowed Christa House to be built on the church grounds. I would greet you in the name of Jesus and all the nameless, unknown children caught within a web of all-too-human addiction, exploitation, and destruction. Your addiction may well be incurable, but you can still be healed in the soul, renewed in the Spirit, and reunited with the body of Christ, ever fractured, forever one. I pray the same is possible for the children whose harm you caused.

Out of the depths comes our cry for mercy, and from the depths comes God’s forgiveness. May God’s grace, which knows the depths, raise you up from your sin, and may the Spirit lead you to the new life for which you wait with longing and anticipation. You will be made well in Christ’s living peace. For these hopes, I pray—and you can depend on my prayers, Father Tom. Now and always, the Lord be with you.