For many years, Tom Burch has taken anti-life, anti-family positions as a state legislator here in Kentucky, though he professes to be a Catholic. Now we seem to have an answer about why he’s been so anti-Catholic in his politics. He appears to be anti-Catholic for a deeply personal reason as he claims to have been a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of an unnamed priest. Mind you, it is absolutely anti-Catholic to condemn the priesthood, and this is what Tom Burch is doing in his recent public statements. I make no apology for characterizing his remarks with the term “anti-Catholic.” Hatred of the priesthood is anti-Catholic.

“I think that as political leaders, it’s important that we do talk about these things,” Burch told the Herald-Leader.  “It’s not something that you want to talk about so much, but it also shouldn’t be a secret. Parents need to be more aware of what is going on and how to protect their children.”

Burch is engaged in painting all priests as being “bad” due to a small percentage of priests who have abused children, and he does so in defense of a small percentage of nuns who are rebelling against the Vatican. Let’s post his quotes as if he were speaking of blacks and whites instead of priests and nuns and see if you think it’s bigotry.

“They are doing the job the [whole community] should be doing,” he said. “Yet the [black leadership] is choosing to attack the [whites] in America, and they are not doing anything to clean up the pedophiles in the [black community].”

Yeah, that sounds pretty racist to me.

How about this one?

“I was never sexually abused by a [white], but I was sexually abused by a [black],” Burch wrote.

Oh, yes. That’s race-baiting, alright. A small percentage of blacks commit sexual abuse, Mr. Burch, but that doesn’t mean all blacks are pedophiles. Surely you know that would be a racist statement, yet you say this about all priests to defend a few rebellious nuns, even as most nuns are in good standing with the Vatican?

If a person is raped by a black man, it doesn’t make it okay for him/her to be bigoted against all black people. It doesn’t make it okay, particularly for a public official, to paint the entire black community as if they are rapists, but this is exactly what Tom Burch is doing to the priesthood with his remarks about his abuse.

Please pray for Tom Burch, that he can let go of his hatred of the priesthood, and pray for the Church in America as we now face our greatest challenge to religious freedom.