Sometimes I think what would have happened if Fr. Pinkman had not turned his back on me that day on that railway platform. What if he had approached me and put his arms around me and told me he was sorry. It would have meant the world to me. I would have forgiven him there and then. It would, to a great extend, have lightened that burden on my back, that devil I’ve been carrying all my life.

I really believed that Fr Pinkman cared for me, maybe I needed to believe that. Even after he had turned away from me that day.I still believed he cared. I realise now that he never cared at all.

But Fr Pinkman has gone,so has Ceresoli and Valmaggia. They can never appologise now. I always had a silly dream that they would, especially Fr. Pinkman. But of course they never did and were never likely to do that. I cried when I found out that Fr Pinkman had died, I desperately needed something from him, an admission, a sorry, an acknowledgement of wrong things done. If he had cared about me he would have done that,

They are dead and gone but the injustice continues relentlessly.

Nardo is still alive and so are the Verona Fathers and the church. They owe Mark something and the church owes us all something. When an individual does something wrong it’s on them. But the church is complicit in all that has happened and is happeneing. They are protecting the evil and that makes the church evil.

I must admit I don’t quite understand it all yet. I wonder if Fr Pinkman and Nardo and Ceresoli and Valmaggia and all others like them,including those who are protecting them, ever went to confession I don’t understand how, on the one hand confession can bring forgivness, and on the other hand, confession doesn’t seem to include a genuine expression of sorrow to the victims. An acknowledgment of guilt to those affected so cruelly. Maybe they are in denial and if so they are denying the very God they are suppose to represent. Maybe Ceresoli is not the only whited sepulchur,maybe the whole damn church is, but I hope that is not the case.

The church has something that’s priceless, something far greater than money. Something that would alleviate some of the pain and horror inflicted by them. All it would take is some genuine humility. I hope that will happen one day. But for now,it seems beyond them to do that.