A priest's confession

Portland, Oregon --

James Clarizio remembered the Rev. Thomas Laughlin as a giant, a man with a voice that filled a church, a man who once declared, 'I am God,' a man to obey when he ordered young Jimmy to take off his clothes and climb into the priest's bed.

When Clarizio, 39, walked into a law firm's conference room Tuesday morning, he clutched his childhood fear of that man, even though he had not seen him in a quarter century.

But sitting at a green table was someone who appeared quite different.

'He was a frail old man in an ill-fitting suit with too wide of a tie whose voice did not even sound the same,' Clarizio said."

Read the article at The Oregonian dated March 13, 2005

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