Sacrificed

On June 28, 2021, in Martinsville, VA, I gave the SECOND of two talks to a  group of concerned Catholics and supporters of Fr. Mark White -- a  Catholic priest who is to survivor Catholics what Fr. James Martin, SJ,  is to LGBT Catholics -- whose bishop has petitioned the Vatican to expel him from the priesthood because of it.

On June 27, 2021, in Martinsville, VA, I gave the first of two talks to a group of concerned Catholics and supporters of Fr. Mark White -- a Catholic priest who is to survivor Catholics what Fr. James Martin, SJ, is to LGBT Catholics -- whose bishop has petitioned the Vatican to expel him from the priesthood because of it.

6. Why aren't things getting better for survivors? Actually. Because Abuse Profiteers are running the Catholic Church. Men like my friend the cardinal, a man I've known since I was a third grader at the Church of the Immacolata in St. Louis, where he saw, and turned a blind eye to, at least some of my and our sexual exploitation and abuse by Father LeRoy Valentine in the late 1970s. And then did worse as a bishop.

What's the big deal? About abuse? And having been abused? What it does to your family, as much as what it does to you.

The lie is that they didn't know, laid bare by the fact that, by the 1970s, the Archdiocese of St. Louis had in place a program -- The Program -- to manage and only God knows what else known abusers, including my abuser, Fr. LeRoy Valentine.

8. It wasn't just bad luck. Rather, we were sacrificed. By people we loved. And who I thought loved us. That's the only conclusion I can draw from the evidence. But why? How can one human being do that to another?

7. I found it in late January 2020. The document that proves that it didn't just happen. Rather, we were sacrificed.

Repressed Memory, the Timeline, and My Parents are topics I address in my Catholic Survivor Q&A, a bonus episode which is an interview I did with a listener of my podcast, Sacrificed.

5. I was sexually exploited, abused, and assaulted — raped — by a priest. Then things got REALLY bad.

4. What happened? Exactly? Specifically? This is the second of two episodes that go into what happened to me when I was a kid. I tell my store in as much detail as I can, while skipping over the most graphic stuff.