Good Girl: You're going to make it after all: Chapter 9

He held me tight: I felt his erection against me

I loved being at Louvain. I had wonderful friends, the courses were great, and I had plenty of time to do what I enjoyed. Attending classes was options, and exams for courses in both semesters were in July. I also experienced another sexual harassment by a priest. This man was gorgeous and brilliant. I left the Catholic Church with no regrets.

One day early in my first year, I was walking down the Avenue des Allies with Sister Betsy. We were on our way to an ice cream shop. A group of young US priests walked toward us. They were Betsy’s classmates in the PhD program in theology. They stopped to chat. Betsy introduced me. One dark haired priest towered over me, bending slightly, and smiling.

I thought he was gorgeous. He reminded me of a young Gregory Peck. He was Father Len (not his real name), a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, under the protection of the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary. Members of this religious order work with the poor in Africa and South America. Len was to become a professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh that the order ran.

The next time I saw Len was at the International Student Center dance that I had helped organize. I was on a committee to hold the dance on a Saturday night in November. We had food, wine, beer, a disc jockey, and moving colored lights. I danced my legs off. Later in the evening, a group of young priests dressed in casual clothes walked in.

Father Len asked me to dance to a waltz. He held me tight, and I felt his erection against me. I twisted away. He towed me outside where he started kissing and hugging me. I tried to push him off, but he held me close. Two or three other priests grabbed him and dragged him out the door.

The following day was Sunday, and, as usual, I went to mass at a chapel where English-speaking priests presided and English-speaking people attended. Just about everyone was from the US. I sometimes went to weekday mass, too. That was where I met up with Sister Betsy, and I must have seen Fathers Keogh and Inman there. Apparently, this felt natural because I have few memories of who was there.

This mass after the student center dance was special. A dozen priests were on the altar, including Father Len, all dressed in white. Priests’ vestments in November are green. White symbolizes birth and resurrection and is worn at Christmas, Easter, and at funerals to celebrate new life.

Until that Sunday, the presider had been one priest with a lay adult male altar server. This was a concelebrated mass. Such masses are reserved for high holy days, ordination of priests and deacons, and for other special events, such as a visit of a pope, bishop, or cardinal.

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Vivid in my mind is the image of priests dressed in white robes standing around the altar, which was in the middle of the chapel. Their backs were to me and the rest of the congregation. I had a powerful sense of brotherhood among them. As I reflect now, their behaviors reminded me of a sign two teen brothers who lived next door to me put up on their basement door. It was black with a white skull and crossbones on it and read “Girls keep out.”

I believed the concelebrating priests were telling me that Len is ours and not yours. Stay away from him. Whether that was their intention I didn’t know then and don’t know now. It is more likely they were reminding him of who he was and were reclaiming him. They might not have been thinking of me at all.

Some, if they were misogynistic, meaning they didn’t like women, may have intended to send me a message. I can only guess because they didn’t say. They knew I attended mass there every Sunday and sometimes during the week. I experienced a profound shutting out.

That was the last time I went to mass at Louvain. I was hurt by the concelebrated mass on top of the shame and embarrassment of Len’s behavior and the other priests pulling him off me and dragging him out the door.

Callous Disregard of Me

Their pulling him away from me was not to protect me, but to keep Len from further sin. It had to be. Otherwise, they would have offered me sympathy. I experienced callous disregard. I also didn’t expect anything else. No one talked to me or comforted me at the time or later.

I would think Fathers Inman and Keogh heard about Len’s behavior and possibly Sister Betsy. None of them attended the dance, and so were not witnesses. We didn’t talk about the Len incident. I never thought about whether their friendship helped me through this, but as I look back, they may have been making sure I was okay. They may have helped me maintain self-respect.

Besides these events, I had other reasons for dropping away from the Roman Catholic Church. I was appalled to learn in my courses at the Institute of Family Studies and Human Sexuality that the Church forbade the use of contraception in Africa. I was aware of the hardships there, and what a difference being able to choose how many children to have would have made for women and families.

Saying Good-Bye to the Catholic Church

I could not be part of a church whose policies were heartless and contributed to widespread misery and death. What church authorities did was not love but callous disregard, and love is supposed to be the heart of Christianity and the Jewish traditions on which it is based.

The Catholic Church’s stance on abortion had nothing to do with my leaving the Catholic Church. At Louvain, there was no mention of abortion being wrong and no mention of legislators making it a criminal offense. We learned about late-term abortions when the fetus was dead, couldn’t survive, had no brain, or the life of the mother was at stake.

I remember that the assumption appeared to be that elective abortions take place before the fetus “quickens,” meaning moved. Quickening took place at about three months.

At that time in Louvain, abortion was a non-issue, not even on the radar screen. I learned the same views when I was a student at the Catholic University of America. While this was the view in my courses at two different Catholic universities, the official stance of the Catholic Church was that abortion is a mortal sin that could lead to the church fathers excommunicating women. I don’t know if doctrine includes the ex-communication of fathers.

Somehow, the nuns of my childhood, and the courses I took at the Catholic University of America and the Catholic University of Louvain, did not teach official doctrine. Maybe they did, and I didn’t take it in. I knew the Church was against the use of contraceptives, however. When I became sexually active later that first year at Louvain, I took the pill and felt no guilt. I was caring for myself.

My hurt over Ed did not affect my decision to leave the church. I continued as a member after he cut me off. The concelebrated Mass with a dozen priests on the altar was the end for me.

I continued to have a spiritual life in my relationships with others, with the books I read, in my coursework, and in my enjoyment of the architecture, the trees, and the gardens of Louvain.

Survivors of trauma often avoid situations that remind them of the trauma. That might have been the case for me when I stopped going to church. Like dropping out of J-School and deciding to study at Louvain, I gave little or no thought to not going to church anymore. I didn’t miss it. I carried on.