Why Was I 'Chosen' to be Abused?

Why was I ‘chosen’ to be abused? This is the first question I wanted answered. The fact is that I was not chosen for whom I was, but for the opportunity, I presented. This perpetrator did not go to find me on the street or break into my house, but unfortunately, due to my Catholic upbringing and the trust it fostered in me for all things Catholic, I delivered myself to his literal doorstep. In most priest-abuse cases, there is a proper and trusting relationship that develops before the abuse. In my case, I made contact with my abuser because I was eager to learn about the priesthood, since it was vocation that I was seriously considering. He did not abuse me the first or second time we met. It took a number of interactions where I now realize that he was grooming me for that ‘perfect’ opportunity. He leveraged the fact that I had spent a significant portion of my childhood listening to him every Sunday morning delivering mass on the radio and that I believed he was a priest that represented the values that I believed were universally Catholic and had been instilled in me through my weekly attendance of mass in the various parishes of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe I had belonged to. I thought him to be the ideal person to confide with in reference to my aspirations of following the Sacrament of Holy Orders. In fact, because of the years that I had heard him on the radio, when I first met him in person, it was as if I already knew him. As is with every crime, there needs to be a victim, a perpetrator, and the necessary circumstances so that the crime can occur. In my case, because I was an altar boy since the age of seven and had great trust and faith in the church, I was the perfect victim. I created the opportunity because I had translated that trust and faith of the Catholic Church and Archdiocese of Santa Fe to a priest whom I hardly knew and he seized on the opportunity to exploit it for his own perverse pursuits.

Why was I chosen? Simply put, this long-time perpetrator could not pass up on abusing a child who he knew was indoctrinated to trust the actions of a holy priest without question. Even more significantly was that he knew that there would be no consequences for his actions, after having abused so many others before me. Even when his superiors became aware of his reprehensible behavior, he knew that he would not suffer any retribution because silence and secrecy was how the Catholic Church operated and unfortunately how they still operate today. That is why I was ‘chosen’.