Nightmares are a hazard of those who investigate child abuse, and one of the most potent sources of the nightmares is the explicit sacrilege that is sometimes, perhaps often, involved in the abuse. Some abusive priests have dressed boys as Jesus and then assaulted them.

Bishop Lahey not only had child porn on his computer (bad enough) but, the Chronicle Herald reports,

Court papers state that the image of the “young, naked male” showed him wearing only “a set of black rosary and a set of white rosary beads around his neck.” The boy appears to be nine to 12 years old, court papers say.

A number of other images of young boys were found on the bishop’s laptop, the documents say, and videos show “young males engaged in sexual acts.”

One image allegedly depicts a young naked male who appears to be “hurt, as there are red welts and marks on his stomach and chest area.”

“He looks sad in this image,” the documents say.

It is bad enough that anyone should find pleasure in such images, but a bishop, a successor of the apostles!

Lahey was widely respected, even by sexual abuse victims. The failure of abusers to give evidence of their evil tendencies in other areas of lives is also deeply disturbing. If we see a person doing many good things, we assume that he is a good person – perhaps not without faults, but not concealing abominable evil either. But that assumption is wrong. That realization is also the stuff of nightmares.