Here’s an intriguing piece out of Long Island, where a man is collecting interviews in an effort to repair the damage done to the reputation of priests:

he sex-abuse scandal that broke in 2002 roiled the Roman Catholic Church and in the eyes of many tarnished the image of priests. But for Farmingdale resident Ed Thompson, as horrible as the scandal was, the larger truth is that the vast majority of priests are heroes.

“Most priests live lives of heroic integrity … and selfless dedication to others” in a society that worships power, wealth and fame, Thompson said in an interview.

For the past 11 years, Thompson, a trained archivist, has been conducting in-depth spoken-word histories of some 250 religious workers – priests nuns, and brothers on Long Island and in New York City.

Subjects range from a nun who founded a literacy program for impoverished immigrant women, to a priest nearly killed in the World Trade Center terrorist attack, to another who served 18 years in a Third World mission.

Thompson has done the work for the dioceses of Rockville Centre and Brooklyn, the Archdiocese of New York, Columbia University and Molloy College.

The fate of the transcribed interviews is not clear. Most are sitting in storage, although Molloy plans to use some this fall as part of a traveling program on the contributions of Irish-Americans to the Rockville Centre college and the Dominican sisters who founded it.

Thompson, 67, a retired Brooklyn Union Gas executive, is an active member of Voice of the Faithful, a group of lay people formed after the sex-abuse scandal and highly critical of many church practices.

Yet he said he sees no contradiction in adopting a critical stance toward the church while at the same time championing the exemplary work of its members. “We should talk about the rot in the church, but we should also talk about the goodness in the church,” he said. “I’m simply trying to balance it and it needs to be balanced.”

Even some people critical of the church’s handling of the scandal don’t dispute Thompson’s findings.

“I’ve met many good priests and nuns. I would never lump them into one,” said Tim Echausse, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Still, he said, “we can never forget the damage the bad bishops and priests have done so that history never repeats.”

There’s more at the link, describing the work he’s done and the priests his met. We could use someone like him in every diocese, couldn’t we?