Across the street you can hear the rattle of the Frankford Line. Flashing lights blind us through the window for a few seconds as a police car races down Lehigh Street. We are a block away from Bishop Bevilacqua Catholic Social Services Center. Irony at its best.   We gather and listen to victims tell their stories of clergy abuse. In a group of about 20—led by SNAP [Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests] founder and president Barbara Blaine—many of us who were not abused, hearing such stories for the first time, are speechless. Abused in the confessional. Pulled out of class at …

I sat in my pew and my knees went numb. I could not believe what I was hearing. A priest who gave me better advice than any psychologist I ever went to was one of the “Philly 21.” On a clear, crisp March Sunday I walked down the steps of St. Pat’s in Malvern, my 11-year-old on one arm, my 5-year-old on my other. I navigated them through a small crowd gathering around the bottom of the steps. Two parents from the group SNAP stood passing out flyers of information about the Catholic Church sex crimes, and my 11-year-old catching wind of the whole situation. I walked, my head down, my head in a …