by Fr. Barnabas Powell  |  ελληνικά

I was just barely a teenager and the product of a broken home with a father who had left us a few years before. He simply couldn’t shoulder the responsibilities of being a dad to me and my little brother and so my mom had to pick up the slack.

During my teenage years, we lived with my stepfather in Central Florida, and I would go to a local Pentecostal church with our neighbors. The assistant pastor of this mega-church was very involved with the youth ministry, especially the boys. He was a pedophile.

At 13 or 14 years of age, I found myself being groomed to be molested by this man. He had already attempted some inappropriate touching and had even taken me to his secret apartment in town away from his wife and three sons to get me “use” to the place. What I didn’t know till later was that this pastor would be dismissed from this church because he had been caught molesting other boys in the community. Had it not been for my stepfather and a man who worked at the airport ticket counter and attended the church where this pastor worked, I would have been put on a plane to go visit this man and his family in their new home in Tennessee and most likely would have been molested there.

Now in my late 50’s as I look at the recent revelations of sexual misconduct being reported in the news I’m struck by the amount of surprise. Continue Reading…