The Long Dark Winter's Night: Reflections of a Priest in a Time of Pain and Privilege

Rarely has there been such an honest and personal portrayal of the life of a Catholic priest. Bergquist, pastor at St. Raphael Church in Fairbanks, Alaska, offers the perspective of a priest who has been sorely disappointed by his church's problems and sees no easy way to address them. The author writes that when the sexual abuse scandal exploded in public in 2002, the Catholic Church went into defense mode rather than talking about God or asking for forgiveness. He uses the long, bitter Alaskan winter as a symbol for the pain the church is going through. The cold of winter and the numbing ache that accompanies it cannot be cast off just by hoping for spring-it has to be lived through. Bergquist rejects a vision of Catholic priesthood as set apart and paternalistic, and embraces one where the priest is with people in their suffering in order to offer a shoulder for their burdens and an ear for their sorrows.