Brother Paschal, a Franciscan 

This Brother was in charge of the altar boys at theMary Immaculate Catholic parish in Waverley, Sydney, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The parish, conducted by the Franciscans (the Order of Friars Minor), had a large number of altar boys, some of whom were pupils at the Christian Brothers’Waverley College. In 2002 a former altar boy, “Pierre” (not his real name), notified the Catholic Church’s professional standards office (“Towards Healing”) in New South Wales that Brother Paschal used to touch Pierre’s genitals when he was aged from 8 to 13; and Brother Paschal used to make Pierre touch Brother Paschal’s genitals. Pierre said that he finally revealed the molestation to his parents when he was 22. Pierre said that three other young male relatives of his were also molested by Brother Pascal. Pierre said he was concerned that this child-abuse had occurred and that it had been hidden from parents and the public. The Franciscans’ Australian headquarters agreed to hold a mediation meeting with Pierre (who was then in his forties) to address his concerns. Brother Paschal’s real name was Ernest Joseph Bartlett. Paschal was his religious name (there was a “Saint Paschal” in the Franciscans in Spain in the 16th century). Paschal Bartlett died in Sydney on 27 April 1994. 

Taken from Broken Rights Australia

I was an altar boy at this church

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend the other day, not a close friend but someone that I talk to on the street whenever I see her. As the conversation became more serious after I told her about my Healing Tree, she told my of a man she had loved dearly as a young woman, about his pain and eventual suicide within the last few years.  He had never recovered from being sexually abused as a child.

The conversation led into lots of questions because there were quite a few pieces missing in her puzzle in coming to grips with the tragedy, she had never met another man who had been raped as a child, nor had she met one that had been abused by priests.  She was very interested in my perspective and lack of hate and my tolerance for homosexuals.

She seemed to have misunderstood, as I know quite a few people do, that there is a difference between homosexuals and pedophiles.   This difference is obvious to many people but through lack of awareness and preconceived ideas, where the dividing lines are can be blurred and often obscured. 

In my case, although I was abused by members of the Catholic clergy, I don’t hate Catholics, or Christians or gay men but I definitely have a bit of trouble with pedophiles.  I am a totally heterosexual male and the closest I get to being gay is I like cooking and have long fingernails on one hand so I can play fingerstyle guitar.

Pedophiles come in all shapes and sizes, they are neither homosexual, or heterosexual, they are stricly people that for some twisted reason have sex with children, the fact that they choose children of the same sex or the opposite sex is purely their preference…and the fact that they choose children is their and the whole human communities problem. And I don’t think it’s really fair to categorise gays in the same category as pedophiles, that would be the equivalent as saying all people that are attracted to people of the opposite sex are pedophiles,  a crazy idea. 

So back to the original story; when I explained the difference and my tolerance or really acceptance of gay people, my friend was fascinated because her friend who suicided was so distraught and confused about his abuse by men when he was a boy, she had somehow taken on much of the same attitudes of her dear friend.

So I don’t hate Catholics, no way, never.  BUT I do have difficulty with the system within the church that prevents or even hinders the process of exposing child sex abusers.  In fact I will go as far as saying this protection of pedophiles and failure to hand over all information regarding sex abusers in the church is a crime against humanity and a breach of human rights.  

How any religious organisation can claim to be associated with or be a representative God and not implement drastic changes to expose pedophile Priests, Brothers, Friars and Nuns would in Christian terms be classed as the greatest sin of our time, regardless how old the abusers are, it must be dealt with and the seeds of future problems eradicated.   The churches themselves are not the ones to deal with these issues and there needs to be transparency and full investigations from outside sources.  Until then the Catholic religion itself cannot in any way consider itself to have any credibility at all, let alone association with God’s work or the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The failure of  members of the church to not accept what has been going on for years is a reflection of total ignorance and blind faith.

And as few men speak up about this issue, the pedophiles win again.

Here is an overview of the film by Amy Berg

Moving from one parish to another in Northern California during the 1970s, Father Oliver O’Grady quickly won each congregation’s trust and respect. Unbeknownst to them, O’Grady was a dangerously active pedophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, had harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Juxtaposing an extended, deeply unsettling interview with O’Grady himself with the tragic stories of his victims, filmmaker Amy Berg bravely exposes the deep corruption of the Catholic Church and the troubled mind of the man they sheltered.

And the Youtube Interview

It’s Christmas and I thought I’d send a special Christmas message to all the Catholics.

If you really love your children and have a bit of common sense it’s a good idea to ask for disclosure about all the child sexual abusers who are hiding in the Church that the Catholic religion is aware off.

Jesus loves the little children

And a special Christmas wish to the Franciscans and the deceased Brother Pascal

Love from a former altar boy.  You aint forgotten.

Today I read a newspaper article and it pushed my buttons.  The buttons that makes me question ‘who is sane and who is not’ and my ‘why are some people allowed to open their mouths and have sounds ooze out’ .

I won’t mention names.  Here’s an overview of the story.  A woman, first year teaching at a high school, has sexual relationship with 14 year old girl, oral sex, blah, blah , blah… that sort of stuff.  She gets caught (community cheers and says “great”, glad they got her early on in her career).  Gets jail sentence (community cheers again). 

Ok here’s the bit tht got me, it’s not word for word but I’ll give you the basics.   The defence dribbled out some nonsense (oozed sounds from facial cavity), “she’s from a good family, she’s married, she’s very new in her career”.  Ummm HELLO PLANET EARTH.  What’s wrong with that verbal dribble?  Well for a start, she’s an adult, she’s had oral sex with a schoolgirl.  The part that annoys me most is ’she comes from a good family’.   What, say that again, did I hear what I heard?   Child abusers come in all shapes and sizes, from all sorts of backgrounds, and yes I also feel for her family as well as the victim, because this is going to hit the big OUCH button for them, and that is why I haven’t put a link to the story as I don’t think they need any more publicity.  But there’s a great similarity with what I’m trying to get across.   As you may know if you’ve read my blog/site before I was sexually abused by members of the church, well let’s be specific here, brothers and priests.  Now these are also supposed to be good guys as well. 

And this infuriates me,  people constantly making excuses for child abusers, adults trying to find bizarre reasons to justify adults doing things to and with childrens private parts.  I highly recommend that people who have been sexually abused as children start speaking up in an effort to help protect the young children out there now and those that will be born in the future.   The more people that speak up, the more awareness in the community and the greater the need will become for urgent action in dealing with this epidemic of child abuse.

“Hey Teacher, leave those kids alone” (a Floyd chorus screams in your ears). 

The good news is that the Teacher got caught and it gives EVERYONE involved the opportunity to move towards healing, which is what I consider to be the best possible result for the future.  The past is gone and can never be undone.

So once again I ask the members of their churches to have courage and wake up to the fact that hundreds and hundreds of children have been abused in churches and private schools.  This is confronting because religious people have difficulty with the idea that those they have invested their trust in have betrayd their trust.  Wake up everybody, this problem is not going away.

Sexy undies for the clergy, is that a tasteless title? Well actually no, I don’t think so; I’ve given it a bit of thought to it lately and although there’s a little humour there, I think it’s important that members of the church always need to look their best. With the amount of members of the clergy on sexual abuse charges of late, I think it is very relevant and I reckon they need to lift their game a little for those intimate moments they will definitely want to look their best.

 I wasn’t quite sure if I should run a poll on whether they should do boxers or Y fronts but that would be a little silly because when it comes to undies it’s such a personal thing.  It’s forty years seen I’ve seen friars in their undies, not that I ever wanted to as an eleven year old; so to be honest I don’t know what they wear these days, and quite frankly, the only ones that should see them are their mirror reflections and their buddies.
 

Now I’ll get to the point of this article.  I’m prepared to use humour to bring attention to what I consider is the most serious issue in our society.  Stuff Global Warming, the Energy Crisis, the Financial Meltdown and all the other major issues in the news, if we can’t create a world where adults can’t keep their hands off children’s private parts, we don’t deserve to survive.   While we’re out there trying to save the planet there’s a sexual abuse epidemic going on.  The issue is that people are so friggin’ traumatised by it, most people don’t speak up and the cycle continues. 
 

Virtually everyday now I am in contact with people who say they were sexually abused when they were young.  In my case it was abuse by members of the Catholic Church but the people I talk to are from all areas of the community, from various backgrounds and the more I look at it, the more I am shocked by the stories. 
 

I encourage people within the religious organisations to start asking some real questions.  So guys get yourself some Y fronts or boxers because those awful things you wore when I was a kid were revolting.
 

Please note:  I have nothing against any particular religious group as there are good people everywhere who are genuinely devoted to their Faith and I have the utmost respect for those people.  However, I would like to give you a little wake up call about what has been going on behind closed doors. 

Safe Sex for Altar Boys sounds like a stupid title, controversial maybe and antagonistic. 

Please hear me out, I’m a sensible and compassionate man, and with deep regret, sadness and dismay I must tragically say that I was once an altar boy.  But  now the good news, I am still here, in good health and am still reasonably good looking and attractive to the visually impaired and women over sixty five.

In my case fortunately for me, aids arrived late on the scene, and although I served at the Catholic church, I have never had to spend agonising moments wondering whether I had caught the deadly bug that has kept the coffin makers busy for the last so many years. In those days in the sixties when I was abused by members of the clergy, aids was unheard of.  So whether it came from aliens, the evil lab somewhere in the Swiss Alps concocted by guys in lab coats with strong accents that replace the w’s with v’s like the bad guys in James Bond movies or whether it mutated from some other germy type of thing that only nerds would be able to accurately describe, is not of great importance to me because I still get to see the beauty of the sunrise. Well at least when I accidentally get woken by some sort of bird species scratching on the corrugated roof or my wife getting out of bed to contemplate her navel with the help of her self awareness mp3’s on her iPod, knitted blanket and a plie of objects that she walks into whilst trying to sneak incognito to another room.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t care for others, because I do and I’m prepared to put myself out there in the world to help make a difference and help protect altar boys.  It almost sounds crazy doesn’t it, but hear me out, I ain’t stoopid. Hear the chant “What do want, safe sex for altar boys?  When do we want it?  Now!

So even though I have been traumatised by the sexual abuse that happened to me as an altar boy, I haven’t had to worry that my unfortunate experiences in 1967 and 1968 had given me a sickening disease accompanied by some sort of death sentence handed over by fools that violated my innocence and the trust that was given them in the name of Jesus. 

When I look at something like a deadly sexually transmitted disease, I’m looking at other aspects that relate to it and not just the obvious.  In my digging around for reasons for any problem, I always look for the cause and not the effect; a bit like the way some Natural Health practitioners approach the healing of their clients, yeah I guess I sound a bit new agey but please note I will not mention the word Mayan or 2012 in this article.  And there is an underlying problem in our community, and it’s called sexual abuse of children.  This problem is causing numerous other imbalances.

On my journey of healing I’ve looked a lot at human nature, why people do things and when things are done, the deadly silence and the cover up.  This haunting silence and cover up is just as scary for me as aids because it’s very close to us, closer than you are probably willing to admit.  It is not something happening in the third world countries that we cringe at when we see it on the television, that’s if we watch documentaries instead of cop shows that usually start with a dead body, blood and trendy looking detectives.

This deadly silence helps to cover-up  the sexual abuse of children in the church, of which I am a victim of.  For men it is a very shameful thing to say they were once raped as a child by men, it is humilating and very confronting to our manhood.  This shame and fear that men like myself experience or have experienced is the very thing that has enabled the paedophiles hiding in the churches to not have to face the consequences of their insane actions.   But hey, men like me have balls because we stand up and say to people that child molesters got us but the more people like me that stand up to bring an awareness of it, the safer everyone else’s children will be.  They might have got my body, well really I was just eleven years old, that wasn’t much of a victory now was it but they never realized that I would scream loud in the years to come.  When one person speaks up, others wake up.

I’m astounded, my site has only been up for a couple of weeks and there are quite a number of women that have contacted me, wished me well and said that they had been raped or sexually abused in some way.  As a man I admire their courage and wish them love,  healing and a happy life ahead of them. 

People in the church do not have the courage to consider what has gone on behind closed doors for many years.  And in some cases it hasn’t even occurred to them that anyone in the church may betray their trust.  And it’s bewildering to me that those who know what goes on just do the sign of the cross and hope that it will go away, these people are pretty gutless. 

For a boy to have been violated by another male at a young age is very traumatic; and the effects of it are very hard for a man to shake off.  So I am breaking that deadly silence to help myself and am also making an effort to help other men restore their manhood in some way if they feel a little like I do; that’s what the Healing Trees is about.  I’m using a symbol to grow in strength, something to care for, and something more tactile.

So I’ll say it again very f***ing loud this time ‘Safe Sex for Altar Boys’ and that means when they are legally old enough to have consensual sex with someone they choose and not have to suffer the indignation that men like myself have experienced.

MAY GOOD MEN CLAIM BACK THE CHURCHES AND GET RID OF THOSE THAT ARE DANGEROUS TO THE COMMUNITY

Children dream, fantasize and are very trusting.  For me having the opportunity to be an altar boy and having what looked like a monk as friend was a great thing, ‘hey mum I’ve got my own monk, just like Robin Hood’.

 The Franciscans as you may know are a Catholic religious order that dress in brown gowns and are named after Francis of Assisi. My other childhood hero was St Anthony of Padua; I spent hours praying at his altar in the church where I was an altar boy.  Sure, a bit odd but we’re all different and between playing football and eventually discovering girls, having some sort of relationship with what I thought God was, was important to me.  And I must say this ‘God’ thing has always remained an interesting enigma and something that I haven’t discarded and contemplation of this God thing has consumed a lot of my cerebral hard drive.

Where children get into strife is in trusting who they consider to be good people.  As for the Franciscans, from a child’s point of view, yes they must be good, they have dedicated their lives to God as far as the child can see; they are simple and have someone that talks to animals and resembles a great sage as a prototype to fashion themselves on.  

The good people in the community are lining up for Holy Communion, going to confession and listening to wisdom and occasionally nodding off during sermons on a Sunday.  As a child how can we not trust these guys; families encourage us to be good, love God and associate with good people.

The congregation within the churches have a lot of difficulty with accepting the sexual abuse that has happened in the churches by the clergy.  How graphic do I need to be with this to get my message across to people?  In my case and those around me, we were nothing short of sex slaves for old men that must have been mentally unbalanced, and I do not wish to be disrespectful to the mentally unbalanced or good priests and brothers when I say this.  We were there just for their pleasure, while our parents thought we were getting closer to God, we were being abused by a number of them that were giving God’s blessings from the pulpit.

Not every one that looks like Friar Tuck is a safe person to be around, nor is everyone that wears a brown robe untrustworthy. But now when I see those friar cookie jars I just cringe, when I look at a church I wish to vomit and wonder if there is a history there that some man or woman somewhere carries but has never spoken of.  And this is sad because I am a man that really does respect the life of Jesus and the principles he stood for.

I ask that the good people in the church stand up and speak up about the abuse they are aware of and help create a safe environment for all children.   

Would Jesus clean out the temple if He were here?

Each day my Healing Tree grows taller.  

Oh and by the way, my problem is not just an Australian one, check out the following link.

Bishop Accountability

Each day my Healing tree grows taller.  

Healing Tree

This tree is my symbol of victory over sexual abuse by members of the church when I was a child in Sydney Australia. I am man of courage, integrity and strength and it is to inspire others in their healing process.  

I wish to encourage people within the churches to reflect on this serious issue and to recognise that there is a serious problem that has existed for many years and deal with it appropriately.

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Today I took a major step towards healing and it was pretty darn funny.

I went to the markets with the idea of buying a tree to help me in my healing process.  Although I sort of convinced myself I was there to do a bit of Christmas shopping, what I was really there for was to purchase a tree.  I needed a simple tree as a symbol of healing.  I was at the markets for about five hours and during that time I wandered past a few stalls selling plants; I couldn’t quite see what I wanted.  Just as I was leaving, I saw a tree out of the corner my eye.  The specs on the tag said it was a native which grows about three to four metres.  The salesman wasn’t overly helpful and maybe not so friendly either, he never realised the significance of the moment for me.  It was just another customer buying a tree.  As I walked away my eyes filled with tears, I had that choking feeling that you get when you watch a sad movie and you know that the character has made it through their turmoil and come out victorious.

So I took the tree home, what could have been one of those very deep moving moments of powerful significance somehow turned into something from a Monty Python sketch. Imagine it, a man of fifty two with the gardening skills of a three year old pacing around his front and back garden for a half an hour with a shovel, a tree, a garden fork and a pick axe followed by his wife, trying to decide on a place to plant a twelve inch tree.  Even though I knew it was going to be about three or four metres high when it comes into its own, I could only see it as a twelve inch tree.  This led to discussions like, too close to clothes line, there are probably pipes under that spot, too close to the fence and my wife kept constantly reminding me it’s going to be a tree not the ‘mini me’ of a plant that I was looking at.  I just couldn’t get the concept, little thing grows into big thing in about eighteen months. 

Eventually I managed to find ‘the spot’ for it, somehow covered myself in too much dirt, accidentally hosed myself and then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to take a photo of a green tree on a green background.  I took some photos which included my feet in an effort to be artistic but as of now, I still can’t find them on the cameras storage device.  I know I have feet and I know I clicked the button, where the problem is I am not sure.

 So my deep meaningful moment turned into a bit of a joke but maybe sometimes that’s a better way to deal with grief and the tragedies of our life.  Life gives us the hard stuff and then when we least expect it, life arrives with a comedy act for us to star in.

So now I have planted my tree.  It is a tree that signifies new life, victory against those from the church who abused me.  And my tree is a symbol for the entire world to see that I have survived with dignity and as I am a man that sees unconditional love and compassion as the goal of life, I fully understand that the path to those things that I consider to be virtues can be more arduous than we expect or desire.  My tree can is an expression of those very things that I value most.

I encourage other victims of sexual abuse by members of the church to plant their own tree, send me a photo and some encouraging positive words to help others heal, so that those others recognise they are not alone and can move on in their lives unhindered by the actions of those who had no respect for themselves or others.

For more information about healing trees  

 TH

What has motivated me to stand up and begin to tell the story of the sexual abuse that was inflicted upon me by supposedly responsible members of the church, is because of the cover up that has gone on, a cover up to keep the ‘good’ name safe of religious organisations.  These organisations offer payouts to people once the perpetrators proven guilty but conditions are placed on the payouts. The main condition that troubles me is that the incidents be kept private.

But hey, this is not good enough. We have the wellbeing of children at stake here and also the overall health of the communities we live in. 

And here’s a massive issue that bothers me.  Sexual abuse although it is nightmare in itself, it can in many cases be the beginning of a long stream of nightmares for the victims.  When people are sexually abused as children they can go on to lead very disharmonious lives; lives destroyed by drugs, alcohol, violence, mental illness and other events that impact on the people that they encounter; loved ones and strangers can be affected.  I’m not saying that everyone that is abused by members of the church goes on to live a totally dysfunctional existence because that is not so.  There are marvellous cases of recovery, and that is what I am working towards, both with myself and others which I make contact with.

So I ask that those within the churches begin to start to self reflect on the issue of sexual abuse within the church environments where they worship. I am not saying that every church has child abusers, this would be very unfair and it would be a lie to even suggest that.  But from my own personal experience and experiences of a number of people I have encountered, the sexual abuse of children in the church has been much more common than most people think; many people will not speak up. And an unreasonable response that I have heard from some members of some church congregations is “Oh that doesn’t happen any more, it happened to you forty years ago.”  Let’s get real with this and stop the denial and garbage.

A Snippet of My Personal Sexual Abuse Experience
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At twelve years old when I was at a particular Catholic school I was called into the headmaster’s office. 

He said to me “Do you know why you are here?”

I said “Yes”. 

And he said “Why?” 

I said, “Because you’re going to give me sex education.” 

He said, ”What makes you think that?” 

My response was, “Because Brother xxxxxxx at the church gives me sex education.”   

He said, “I think you’d better leave.”

I’ll spare you the details of my sex education by an abuser, as a child I didn’t realise the difference betweenongoing abuse and education because I trusted.

As an adult I am pretty disgusted that there was no enquiry about it at that time.  But what has infuriated me more is that a particular brother (not the headmaster) from that very school, sexually abused a boy and the victim eventually got a  payout.  The article is on brokenrites

The place where I was abused had no relationship with that school apart from being the same religion, Catholic, but was only a few kilometres away.

Nor was there a complaint by the very member of the church that caught members of the church abusing me at eleven years old.  At least the rescuer was kind enough to wrestle with the person behind me and also throw a robe over me because I was completely naked ( not the accepted standard attire for altar boys, but the one that was common where I served the priests.) .  I am ever grateful to that man but feel upset with the system that prevented him from taking the issue further. 

(Please note: Brother xxxxxxx has been mentioned by brokenrites.com.au and I am aware of other victims apart from myself.) 

If people within the churches don’t explore their churches past, they may very well be putting their children in the hands of persons who are unfortunately untrustworthy