Terry Carrick, whose seventeen-year-old son Brian disappeared from Johnsburg, Illinois in December 2002, has died of cancer at age 65. She had both leukemia and lung cancer. She left behind her husband and thirteen other children besides Brian.
As I’ve observed on this blog before, I’ve noticed a lot of cases of parents of missing children dying young, or relatively young. (The most striking example I can think of is Sofia Juarez‘s mother who died of unspecified “natural causes” at age 26.) I don’t know if this is an actual statistical trend or not, but the stress involved in having a missing child certainly isn’t conducive to a long life.
The Charley Project Blog 
Having 14 kids probly shortns life. Yuck.
She must have wanted them. Some women like large families. Being a traditional Irish Catholic probably had something to do with it.
My mother conceived nine times that I know of, gave birth to seven healthy children, and is now 65 years old and in fine health.
If she was catholic it didnt matter if she wanted a bunch of kids. She couoldnt use BC or be kicked out of church. Catholic woman just have to keep on breeding and breeding til theyre too old to breed any more.
There are plenty of Catholic women who use birth control in spite of what the Pope says. My boyfriend comes from a Catholic family and he is an only child. Check out this NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/28/world/low-birth-rate-is-becoming-a-headache-for-italy.html The birth rate in Italy, the birthplace of Catholicism, is only 1.3 children per woman.
Yep. My dad and stepmom are Catholic and they had 1 kid, despite the “rules.” And my dad’s mom had 4 kids and stopped, though she was also a Catholic. It’s one of those rules like “Fish Friday” – once a hard-and-fast tenet of Catholicism, now something that people choose to adhere to based on what works best for that family.
The Catholic Church is against birth control, abortion, and suicide for one reason: The dead and aborted don’t tithe.
The Catholic Church does not require tithe from their members. Whatever is given is strictly voluntary. I have lived in 5 different, predominantly Catholic countries and have never heard of any Catholic required or obligated to give to the church.
lol Justin! Thats what all churches are all about $$$ $$$ and sex.
I’m worshipping this fine Sunday near the cathedral downtown, at Our Lady of the Perpetual Happy Hour, which provides we the fallen with 2-for-1 well drinks and the opportunity to slavishly serve Mammon by watching truck and beer commercials delivered along with the football contest.
No meat on Fridays has only been for the forty days of Lent since Vatican II. And Catholic women are allowed to use the fertility awareness/natural family planning method of birth control, which involves tracking ovulation patterns and abstaining from sex during those periods of time.
How sad, stress take take off lots of years, also fear and all the anger and hurt can, some people are stronger than other and can cope better, others are not as strong and they need help.
Hey Brigita you better by carefull with your tping or Emma will jump on you and tell you to use spell check. Im suprised she hasnt done that already.
Well, if someone has problems with my typing than it has to be so :(, people have had issues with that before 🙂 but oh well I´m not english speaking so that is my excuse. 🙂
I’m sorry his mom died (topic of blog?>…) I agree that a missing child can wear on the parents’ health. I have 3 children: daughter 19, boys 16 and 14. I’d die myself if anything happened to them….
As a Catholic, there’s a few things you may not know or care to know, specifically Brianna and Justin. First, the Catholic church does not require any member or guest in a church to give money. It is 100% optional. The reason a basket is passed near the end of mass is not to give money to the priest or to just get money. Most of it is used in charities to give to those less fortunate in life, such as the homeless or women in distress or a family who may be struggling to make ends meet. And this money is not relegated to only Catholics, either. While the scandal with the sexual abuse in the Catholic church was and is appalling, I can assure you that most priests are not like that. What’s unfortunate is that those incidents put a bad light on all priests. Any field of work, whether teaching or something is going to get their share of bad seeds. Priesthood is no exception. There will always be somebody looking to take advantage of circumstance. Also, regarding Catholics having many children, it depends. I have 1 brother, same as my dad had, and same with his own pops. You must be watching “The View” or Joy Behar too much.
The Catholic Church is a business. All of their actions are based on what is beneficial to the Church, monetarily, power wise or for publicity. Priests used to be able to marry, but hundreds of years ago when they died, they had a habit of leaving their property to their families instead of the Church. So, the rules got changed. The Church opposes suicide and abortion for the simple reason that the dead and the aborted do not tithe. That is the same reason they are opposed to birth control. No birth control equals multiple births, who will all grow up Catholic to tithe the Church and expand their power base.
As far as pedophile priests go, somewhere several decades ago, the Church decided that out of court settlements would cost the Church less in the long run than the bad publicity and loss of trust of Catholics in general. I think when this started out, most of the upper members of the Church believed there were only a very few pedophile priests around. I don’t think they understood that pedophiles seek out jobs that give them access to children in a position of trust, such as coaches, teachers, and religious leaders like priests. I think that by the time they realized how widespread the problem was, they had let it get out of hand. They now had to keep covering up “incidences” because if they changed their policy and turned them over to be prosecuted by law enforcement, the huge number of abuses would be overwhelming coming all at once, and past actions of the Church covering up pedophiles over the years would come to light. And it would cost them in parishioners and in income.
When a Cardinal is appointed to a diocese, he is expected to keep things running smoothly and profitably. He is held responsible for what goes on under his leadership. Like any other big business, they don’t want any bad publicity and they want their expenses kept down. It is all about the bottom line for them. If he fails in that regard, he is replaced. That is why the molestations were covered up and continued to happen. And why now diocese across the country are getting their pants sued off them. All this happened because the Church was more concerned about losing money than the welfare of their people, and high-ranking church leaders like Cardinal Bernard Law didn’t want to lose their positions.
These decisions of the upper levels of the Catholic Church are typical of what I have seen in other people in upper management. The men in charge are usually very clever men. You don’t get to that level without being fast on the ball. But eventually, they start to make the same wrong assumption. They begin believing that if a person isn’t clever, then they’re stupid. That they are sheep to be led, herded, and protected from their own stupidity. That is not the case. Most people are not stupid and it just takes them longer to figure out what the clever people do quickly. Even people who held the Church in the highest esteem knew that there were men who slipped through the cracks that shouldn’t have been priests. In any organization, there are always a couple of bad apples and the average person knows that. But unfortunately, they also believed that the Church wouldn’t betray their parishioners trust in them and actually take steps to stop pedophile priests. Perhaps if they turned these priests over for criminal prosecution from the start, pedophiles wouldn’t think that the Church was someplace they could go to get access to children. Now everyone has lost out, especially the priests who really were trying to help humanity in general and not just get little gold stars by their names for when they meet their maker.
I admit I’ve only met a few priests in my life, but the ones I have met have been ridiculously nice.
Two and a half years ago I made an appointment with an elderly priest to do an interview for research purposes. He took me on a tour of the church. At no time was I allowed to be completely alone with him. When I tried to shut his office door he stopped me. When we went into the church proper, he had a middle-aged lady chaperon us. It made me feel kind of sad — that he had to take those kind of precautions against accusations of impropriety, when I was a complete stranger and he was well over seventy.
Evertime you turn on tv you see some preacher or church in trouble for messing with kids or being gay or being a rappist or something.
And I dont watch crap like the view and Joy Beher. That stuff is for fat stupid soccer moms.
agreed Brianna…..I don’t like Joy Beher or The View at all either
Very kind and sensitive words there, Brianna. Really. *rolls eyes*
I am so sorry to hear that. This is quite disheartening to hear, not only for Mrs. Carrick not to know what happened to her baby, but the rest of the family to have to grieve for both of them. I will never understand the pain of having a missing loved one and I hope I never do. This just goes to show no matter how bad you think you have it, someone else has it worse, so you just have to be thankful for what you do have and try to take each day with gratitude. I feel so bad for the whole family. Rest in peace.
Bravo Kevin! Very impressive, educated post. What a shame that so many bashed on the Catholic church, as opposed to commenting on the subject matter. Some poor mother who lost her precious son and even though she had many other children, I’m sure she missed her child terribly.
Appalling as well to to equate being gay with “messing with kids or being being a rapist or something”, not to mention the honorable mention of the “fat stupid soccer moms”. How does one respond to such well though out sentiments?
Could we all post without the nasty, rude comments about religion, sexual preference, etc? Would that be so difficult to be kind to each other? I’m all for having differing opions, but to continuously post such mean spirited stuff is just not necessary.
I dont care if someone is gay or not I just said that b/c priests and preachers are all the time squeeling about how gays are bad and are going to hell and have to be cured or saved but some of them turn right around and turn out to be gay themselfs. And almost all the ones who get caught fooling with kids have boys for the victims.
65 is really young to die. i would be seriously surprised if it was wasn’t a statistical trend. Plus stress is a known contributor to cancer.
So let me get this straight. A few people posting here go to a missing person’s site/blog (The Charley Project) and read about a boy who has been missing and presumed deceased and who’s mother has recently passed away w/out ever knowing what happened to her son. Then, upon reading that they were a Catholic family, just have the sympathy in them to bash Catholics every chance they can for various reasons. That’s what I call class.
Unfortunately, online discussions tend to degenerate like this. It’s the rule rather than the exception.
Both sides make valid points, enough said. As it goes, Brian Carrick looks like a solvable (sp?) case. I feel sorry for any family that has to go through anything like that. No one deserves that and that is what this site is dedicated to. Though I have to ask, what is up with all the fighting here lately?
I’m not “bashing on” any particular brand of Christianity when I note that one of the original gay bashers in literature was the Apostle Paul. Who, according to some theories, was also perhaps an original self-hating gay man due to, also perhaps, his heavy crush on Timothy, which of course would have been frowned upon by Old Testament strictures. The Church—Catholic and the Protestant descendents in that line—has long been a hotbed of hatred for gays and lesbians, and it continues in that role into the 21st century.
I think the majority of us not only appreciate what Meaghan has done, but appreciate each other and the points we have contributed to assorted posts.
As in life though, there are some people that are not only ignorant, (I don’t say uneducated, as they are completely different things) but have just a mean, nasty take on any situation. Folks that want to stir up the pot and just be plain ugly and even disgusting at times. I am learning to just ignore the outrageous, filthy stuff that is posted by a few (I’m sure we all know who they are by now)
I respect all religions, and try not to bash others for their views and beliefs. Not a real productive thing to do anyway.
There is good and bad in everything-such a basic concept, one that even my 6 year old understands. Can be found in ANY bible no matter the religion. So are things like kindness, respect and understanding. Lots of ugly out there, as this site attests to on a daily basis. Perhaps we could all try to focus on the good that exists, while recognizing there is bad as well. Good Luck All.
I will only add one thing to this discussion as it got way off topic. But it relates to what Meaghan said in her earlier post here. It is true, priest now are so uncomfortable being around anyone anymore in a one on one situation, for fear of a false charge that never happened. I speak to my priest all the time. I asked him how could he do what he does, knowing no fine women were on the horizon for him, and how does he deal with that. What he told me is this: as much as he would love to have a wife and kids, his job as a priest could never be able to keep a family and give solid advice to those who may seek it. He said it sometimes comes in the dozens at a time, most around 2:00 a.m. How could he expect to have a family when most of the time he was attending to other peoples needs almost hourly. This was the life he chose, he said. As an Irish Catholic born in Chicago, the priest mentioned here was Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Atlanta, GA who baptized me. Please see link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilton_Gregory
I live about 15 miles from where Brian Carrick was last seen. I drive by it several times a year. I saw in my local paper about his mother. I always feel sad when I read of family members who die not knowing what ever happened to their loved ones.
I agree it seems a lot of missing children’s parents die young (Beverly Potts mother comes to mind, I think she only lived a few years after her daughter went missing), but I can think of one case (‘m sure there are more) where the opposite happened. I read somewhere Evelyn Hartley’s mother lived well into her 90’s dying in 2002. She lived 49 years not knowing what ever happened to her daughter.
Guilt can eat you up alive. Almost all parents who were raising their minor children when they went missing have probably agonized over what they could have done differently that would have prevented it from happening. I have no doubt that feeling of guilt sent many to an early grave.
When I was in the Coast Guard, I knew another Coast Guardsman, though I didn’t know him well. A couple of years after my discharge, I read that he was in command of a small rescue boat in Washington State that went out in rough weather. He made a mistake and steered the boat into shoals, which flipped it over and over, killing him and most of his crew, leaving only one survivor. I talked to other former shipmates who also left the service and settled in the area and we were all in agreement that it was best that the guy had died. Not because we believed he deserved it (we didn’t), but if he had survived, the guilt over causing the death of his crew would have destroyed him and if he didn’t kill himself outright, the remainder of his life would just be a long road to suicide by drugs or alcohol.
I just saw that his father died just before New Year.
http://www.nwherald.com/2014/12/30/carrick-family-patriarch-dies-in-johnsburg-home/ajutw5z/