My Uncle and His Book
This is a story of my Uncle Peter, my Mom’s brother. We haven’t been close for a long time, but he was an important part of our family to me and my brothers. He just released a book that represents his views regarding the child abuse scandals within the Catholic Church called Crimes Against Children. He sent me an advanced copy. It’s pretty damn good. I wrote a review of it on Amazon. If you are interested in the topic, you should check in out.
But the book and my emails with him reminded me of my long-ago relationship with him, so I took to my irregular blog to put my thoughts down clearly.
My mother is a pre-war baby born before my grandfather went overseas to fight in WWII. My uncle was born after the war, so he was quite a bit younger than my Mom and he was maybe only 15 years older than my brothers and I. He was the ‘cool” uncle and he knew have to assemble and fix stuff. If we had a complex toy (like mechanos or a remote control car), my uncle would always be the man to call. He would come over on Christmas Eve and stay over and help my Dad build all the stuff. Later he got married, had kids and I remember my brothers and I were pissed off that he wasn’t coming over anymore. He was the first of the Lock/Rosser clan to go to university, so he was the educated and well-read family member at the family gatherings. He was also a good athlete and coach. He coached the Pirates, my Little league team for one season. He was younger and way better than the other Dad coaches who mostly knew about hockey. He took it very seriously. Our team took pregame batting practice and a full infield and outfield with cutoff drills when other teams warmed up by lobbing a ball around. Once we lost a game on a botched appeal play at third base. He protested the game and wrote a five-page report on why the call was wrong. He could also hit incredibly high fly balls with the fungo. After the official practice was over, we would hit super high fungos to us and would give anyone who caught one a quarter. We were only 10 and 11 and we sucked, so he kept most of his money. But I can still remember the hoots and hollers of the guys if we actually managed to snag one.
My uncle is a good man. Better than many, probably better than most. If you have a moral question or struggle on your hands, you could do a lot worse than calling my Uncle Peter. As Robert Frost preached, my uncle took the road less traveled. He avoided the post-university corporate route. He spent his life working for and with others. For 50 years, he ran the Catholic Youth Organization in Hamilton, Ontario. He ran all the sports activities for kids in the area and a big summer camp — Camp Marydale, I think- to give kids the opportunity to do day and overnight camping. Peter has also a devout member of the Catholic church. He didn’t just go on Sundays, he was an integral part of the congregation and advised priests and bishops. In my twenties, when I thought I knew everything, I would skeptically debate him at family gatherings about the church or spirituality. I wish I hadn’t done that.
But since the child sex abuse scandal has hit the Catholic church, my uncle has taken an outspoken stand against church elders. His outrage is real and in my opinion, justified. He has written op-eds and called a much more comprehensive and urgent response by the church. I applaud his stance and frankly, he has earned the right to that stance through years of service and ministry. It’s not every devout Catholic that decides to stand up and confront the leaders of the church. And there are even fewer who commit these thoughts to paper. And then there is one guy in the whole world who decided to write and publish a book to make a convincing argument that more needs to be done.
It’s been a long time since he and I have spent quality time together, but in retrospect, his strength and sense of morality is not only needed in the church but likely in broader society as a whole.
