Happy anniversary, Padre

Without our unique ability to selectively employ amnesia, we – as a species – might stumble, fall, and be crushed by the weight of the many sad and bad things that happen over the course of an average lifetime. We’re naturally resilient creatures, capable of bearing up and carrying on despite ugly divorces, lost friends, heartbreak. From earliest childhood we are programmed to forgive and forget, and we’ve gotten exceptionally good at doing so. Look how quickly we collectively moved past tragedies like Columbine, the DC sniper, even 9/11. Almost as though if it’s not on the front page or the six o’clock news, on some level it stops being real.
But some grudges deserve to be remembered, nurtured and tended until they bear fruit. Certain crimes have no shelf life, no “use by” date. Some things are simply unforgivable. Take Father Ochoa, for one.
In his position of authority as a sanctified mouthpiece for the St. Francis Solano Catholic Church, he managed to fly under the radar for a good long while, though there was evidence of impropriety from the start. He wooed his Spanish-speaking parishioners under cover of priestly benediction, hearing their confessions, blessing their weddings and births while hungrily eyeing their sons. His fluent Spanish and authentic community ties made infiltration into the Latino community easy: he became their trusted confessor, their wise counselor, their very own holy man. Despite the gossip that followed him from parish to parish, for the believers who trusted him, his motives were assumed pure. Even when he brought a Mexican boy home from vacation and installed him in his Santa Rosa house. Even when he stopped by a parishioner’s home and forcibly took her young son. Even when the whispers had turned to shouts, Father Ochoa’s motives were uncontested. That is, after all, the very nature of faith.
One year ago, with the noose he’d placed around his own neck finally beginning to tighten, Father Ochoa stuffed what he could into the trunk of his small car and disappeared into the bright clean light of an early summer morning. Without a backward glance, he abandoned his apartment, his post and the people he’d promised to serve, and vanished.
And then the story really grew legs. First came the feeble mea culpas from the church hierarchy, men in heavy robes conferring behind closed doors, careful to get their stories aligned. Then a cryptic memo, urging parishioners to reserve judgment, to maintain faith, to forgive the bishop’s naiveté. The story rattled its way into headlines; it crowded barbecue chitchat and crashed conversations around the pool. As the summer grew hot and long, so did the indignant howls from local Catholics who rightly wondered: how could we not know? And what do we do now? As Father Ochoa freely enjoyed the sticky summer heat of his Mexican hometown, a sickening fear settled over our city. Facts emerged slowly, trickling from the diocese in dribs and drabs. Ten felony charges. A storage locker stuffed with pornography and illegal drugs. A parade of wounded children, innocents doomed to live firsthand the damage wrought by the depraved actions of a beastly priest.
And then, just as suddenly, nothing.
No more headlines. No memos. No justice, no Father Ochoa. Just silence, deep and still as a country summer night. Except in the homes of the wounded. There, children wrestled with horrible dark dreams, and worried parents rushed to answer their frightened cries in the night. In the homes of his victims, peace remains elusive, sacrificed in the safest of sanctuaries, unwittingly given away to the friendly man in the white collar with the quick smile.
It is for those children we must force ourselves to remember Father Xavier Ochoa, gone missing now one year and counting. We must refuse the salve of amnesia and agree to collectively recall that once upon a time a very bad man hid in plain sight. Happy anniversary, Padre, we remember you all too well.
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