Sometimes the only way to sort things out is to seek a broader context. What may seem strange, or even bizarre, when framed within a more sweeping perspective, suddenly becomes comprehensible.

And sometimes not.

Anthony Jablonowski, 67, served as a priest at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Guernsey from 1980-88. He had his own ideas about penance.

Several people told investigators that during his tenure, Father Tony conducted strange rituals in the church basement. Young men in their teens and 20s would strip naked and be gagged, bound and blindfolded. Then their genitals would be tied in a particular fashion, they would be hoisted by a winch and hung upside down, the better to be flogged. All the while, prayers would be said.

Father Tony, according to his attorney, claims he did nothing sexual, but he pleaded no contest to a charge of molesting a 17-year-old boy and was sentenced earlier this month to between 15 months and seven years in prison.

The 17-year-old, according to the prosecution, stopped by the church rectory, whereupon Father Tony fondled and performed a sexual act on him.

Father Tony did not deny performing "religious" rituals, but called them "prayers of penance."

Frankly, such rituals seem like practices straight out of medieval Europe. But as it turns out, they would have been alien even at the time of Richard the Lion Heart.

So explains Christine Caldwell, an assistant professor of history at St. Louis University, a highly respected Jesuit school in St. Louis, Mo. Her area of expertise is the Middle Ages.

In an e-mail, the activities of Father Tony were recounted briefly, to which Ms. Caldwell replied:

"There is certainly a precedent in the history of Christianity generally and Catholicism specifically of the use of the body (that is inflicting pain/discomfort upon it) for the purposes of penance. For example, the Rule of Benedict (the most important rule for monasteries in the early and high Middle Ages) prescribed that monks committing various infractions should be disciplined by beating, and that beating was a supremely effective means to tame errant or disobedient wills.

"However," she goes on to say, "this was by no means common among laypeople -- that is, 'normal' Christians who were not clergy, monks, or nuns. It is true that extremely serious sinners (for example, penitent former heretics) could be given the penance flogging, and this flogging could indeed take place in a ritualized setting (during a procession, during a mass, done by a priest). Otherwise, the medieval church was not happy with lay movements that incorporated penitential flogging (for example, banning the 'flagellant' movement that arose in the wake of the Black Death in 1348, in which crowds of laypeople moved from town to town, whipping themselves and preaching penance).

"As far as I know, then, there is emphatically no explicit precedent up until the end of (the Middle Ages) for the ritual this priest claims, or for binding, gagging, tying the testicles and hanging upside down as forms of penance. I'll point out too that even the very limited application of penitential flogging to laypeople in the Middle Ages was not only public and ordered, but also would not have been limited to one demographic (i.e., teen boys)."

Ms. Caldwell concludes, "It would not be extremely unusual for a teen boy who had been found guilty of heresy to be beaten by his parish priest during mass in full view of his congregation. But if a bishop in the Middle Ages heard that a group of teen boys who were not in a religious order (especially if the beating was not a precise penance for a specially confessed sin, but a vague 'ritual') had such things as you recount done to them by a local priest, the matter would be very unusual and very serious indeed for the priest."

There is no amount of rationalization, no amount of grasping for illusory "good" ends, that excuses behavior like that of Father Tony, not by a priest or a teacher, a physician or a counselor, indeed, not by anyone in a position of authority. It's a betrayal, it's abuse, and it's wrong.

We only hope that as Father Tony serves his state-ordered penance behind prison walls, he takes ample time to reflect upon that fact.

One footnote: Platte County Attorney Eric Alden points out that the activities of Anthony Jablonowski came to light because his office was notified by the Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne, whose officials acted in a proactive and appropriate manner throughout the investigation.

Tom Mast is the Star-Tribune Sunday and special projects editor.