ONLY THE NAMES ARE CHANGED

Sexually Abused By a Priest in Grade 2

Memoirs 12

I began grade two while we lived on Wellington Street, while living above the flooring store with my grandparents. During the summer, Mom had delivered another baby, a boy she called, L.

It wasn’t long after school had started that Mom and Dad decided to again have their own place for their growing family, so we moved to a different end of the city in another old townhouse that had suffered neglect. It was the best Dad could do at the time.

This section of the city was called Overbrook and I was again put into a new school, again a Catholic school which was important as it was while in grade two that Catholic children were prepared for the sacrament of Confirmation, the final sacrament that would mean I would be a full-fledged Catholic ready to fight and die for Christ if necessary.

The school was a depressing place with a dark and heavy atmosphere that was accentuated by the nuns who seemed hell bent on making learning something to be endured rather than uplifting. It was rare for a day to pass without one of the students in my classroom getting called to Mother Superior’s office where they would get a strap across the hands or butt. I was the rare exception in the class being the only boy to avoid getting into trouble with the nun who was my teacher.

For Catechism lessons, like most of the other courses, learning was by rote memorisation. No reasons or explanations were given. A student either memorised what was presented as fact or was punished. I sat in the classroom listening to the priest talk about the path we would be following as young soldiers of Christ.

The narrow path that we were to follow was described as though one was always walking up a steep hill. The path was strewn with broken glass and stones. If one stumbled off the edge of the path, it was a long, long fall to the bottom, a bottom that opened up into one of the pits of Hell. We had to follow the priest up the hill on this path, doing what was asked and required of us.

To fail to do so would have the path open up and swallow us into yet another pit of Hell. If we obeyed all of the rules of the church and the wise guidance of the priest who was our personal shepherd then we wouldn’t suffer too much other than cuts on our feet. There was no simple way to get to Heaven.

This description caught my attention as I had no trouble visualising the scenes presented. I knew that I was at extreme risk of falling into one of those pits of Hell. In response, I worked even harder at becoming quieter and more obedient, I worked harder at trying to please the nuns who somehow could never be pleased.

I was afraid of the priest who taught us our Catechism lessons. I saw that the nuns were also afraid of him which made me even more frightened.

One day, late in September, the priest asked for me to meet him in his school office. I approached the door to his office in fear. Was I going to be tossed off the path? Was he going to deny me the sacrament of Confirmation? Was I going to go to Hell in spite of my efforts at being saintly? I stood at the door to his office shaking. I knocked timidly at his door which then opened to let me in.

“Robert,” began the pale, dark-haired priest. “You are the best student in my class.”

The priest’s words caught me totally by surprise. “You aren’t going to deny me the sacrament of Confirmation?” I blurted out in relief.

“No, no,” replied the priest. “I want to give you a few extra lessons so that you will be able lead the class into the church. You will be carrying the banner for the new Soldiers of Christ. Robert, do you want to carry this banner?”

I was awed by the idea of being the leader of this new army of Christ and quickly agreed.

“Good, we’ll begin our extra lessons today, right away. You will come to see me twice a week for these extra lessons while the others are having their reading lessons. Your teacher tells me that you are far above the class when it comes to reading, so that class seems to be the best time. I don’t want to interfere with your learning. How does that sound to you?”

“Good, Father. Thank you, Father, thank you.”

“Robert, to be a soldier of Christ means that one will be put into many difficult and sinful situations. In these places of sin and darkness, it is the heart and mind that keeps the soul pure. It doesn’t matter what happens to the body, as long as the soul stays pure. You remember the story of how Christian saints were thrown to the lions and still refused to deny Christ in spite of being eaten alive?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, it is like that. To be a leader in the Army of Christ, one must learn to separate oneself from one’s body, from the sin that is buried deep within each of us, and with the sins being committed by the unfaithful that are just waiting to tear us apart and feed us to the Devil, Satan.”

This dark-haired priest tested me every time I went to his office. He would take on the role of an unbeliever that sought to tempt me through sexual exploitation. It began with the priest taking off my pants and touching my penis to see if I could refrain from getting stimulated.

Every time my penis would respond, he would have me go down onto my knees and say a prayer of forgiveness. When I learned to dissociate from his touch, he commanded me to touch his penis while he held mine in order to determine if I would be able to not be stimulated. His penis was different, uncircumcised. It was pale white and surrounded by long, stringy pubic hair.

This new test of faith then lead to my kissing his penis and sucking it at his command while saying prayers in my head to keep the demon of sexual stimulation at bay.

I fought the devil who would have me gag when the priest’s semen filled my mouth while he was calling on the Lord Jesus Christ to keep him from the grips of Satan, the Prince of Darkness.

I heard his prayers and his pleas and knew that I had to be strong for him as well as for my own soul. The special lessons to become the standard bearer for the new Soldiers of Christ came to an end the week before our class was to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation.

Instead of treating me better for all my efforts at becoming a saint, the nuns looked at me with revulsion as though I was a disease. They knew what had been going on behind the closed door of the priest’s office. It wasn’t something new.

Every year a different boy, sometimes more than one boy would become his project, his victim. It seemed even my classmates created a bigger space around me leaving me even more isolated. I convinced myself that it was because I was almost a saint and that they were jealous.

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Thanks to the following for following along with the story this far:

Carrie, Benighted, Patrick OConnell, Adrian CDTPPW, JB The Talker, Maddy Mirza, Block Wife, katoshi, Sweet Honeylu, Edward Swafford, TzeLin Sam, Taryn Ariel, and Author, D. Denise Dianaty