Thread by @JMHendersonSr

After early mass, Father Baird sat in the sacristy. He positioned his chair so he could see us, altar boys, as we exited from the choir robing room across the hall.

He would call a boy out.

#prieststhatabuse
#catholicsexabuse
#truestories
#metoo

"Jamie, come here."

How does fifth or sixth-grade kid say, "sorry, Father, I've got to run."

After all, he was the Senior Pastor.

So the selected boy responded.

When the boy approached, Father Baird would tussle his hair.

Next, he would pull the boy onto his lap. With the boy straddling his leg, he would begin massaging the boy's shoulders and talk to him. Usual topics included the boy's performance during mass and school.

This was a grooming process. Some boys became the object of much more intimate contact.

Ultimately, Baird was removed from his post and sent out of state.

No support services were provided to boys victimized by him.

Boys who craved affection never suspected how Father Baird got inside their psyches, how he ruined them, how he made them susceptible to other, further abuse, how he groomed them to think that such close intimacy of physical character was a good thing, a wholesome thing.

For two decades, one of those altar boys was haunted by a recurring nightmare of being pursued by a monster in that church.

It was only as he struggled to come to grips with his own brokenness that he realized how the nightmare embodied his internal distress with that period of inappropriately intimate contact with the parish priest.

Post script: I recently learned that Fr. Baird's priestly Order has acknowledged his abuses while serving as Pastor at St. Anthony's: arlingtondiocese.org/press-releases…