I went over to my parent's house today. I had printed-up some tickets for a Christmas party for my mom, and she had some errands to run so I drove her around for a while.

Growing up Catholic on the Northwest side of Chicago was actually part of my mundane life. It had nothing unusual. I was an Altar Boy, I was in Scouts. I sang in the Folk Choir. I even temporarily directed the choir until a permanent director could be found. I had a normal childhood.

I remember saying out loud recently that I thought it was interesting that I never had experienced or even heard of any instances of impropriety by the priests in out parish. None of my friends had ever said anything and I never saw anything.

There was one priest that, when I was younger, I really liked. He was a nice guy. He was always supporting the scouts, he ran the Altar Boys. He was just a fun nice guy.

Typical to the Archdiocese, he was moved to another parish over time, just like every other priest that I liked that had come to the parish.

My mom told my today that he has been withdrawn from all pastoral duties by an Archdiocese of Chicago review board investigating charges of sexual misconduct with a pre-teen boy.

It allegedly happened 15 years ago, decades after he left my parish.

I pray this didn't happen. I prefer to remember Father Thomas the way I remember him from my youth - a good guy, a good priest.