Craig showed kindness to family

It was with some dismay and a great deal of sadness that I read the allegations against Father Craig, especially some 40 years after his death. Due to Father Craig's kindness to my mom [a single mother] and me, I lived with him in the rectory at St Ambrose in Chaffee, Mo., for some six weeks in the fall of 1946, and again in the summers when I was a seminary student and he was pastor at St Matthew's in St Louis. Let me say that I was probably as familiar with Father Craig as any of the young people he befriended, and I never ever detected any sign of any deviant behavior whatsoever. Never. I would be more than happy to attest to that in any forum or inquiry that may arise, to defend the reputation of a man whom I consider almost a saint, in a down-home, congenial, man-next-door sort of way.

JIM WESTRICH, Middletown, Calif.