BASTARD PRIESTS

“PRIESTS OF LOVE”

It seems every time I open the news paper, there is yet another story about priests molesting children. If you believed the news, you could so easily come away with the impression that all men of God are tainted!!

This is patently absurd and unfair, and I want it to stop.

When I was at Catholic school, those men of the cloth engaging in sadomasochism, bastardisation, buggery and broad spectrum molestation represented conservatively only about one third of the staff population. However, the popular press seems intent on us believing they were all engaged in it!!

When I was a child, we knew we had a 2 in three chance of avoiding being molested. And those odds were a lot better than most of the religious institutions we are hearing about!! Kids today! They don’t know how lucky they are!!

In our day, if you managed to run the gauntlet and get through your school day without being molested by a priest, you were ahead!!

And the range of extracurricular activities could not be ‘beaten’, so to speak. Not only was there bondage of varying degrees of intensity ranging from light spanking to full tilt thrashing, but there was strip poker in the priest’s rooms, Saturday night at the movies (who cares what picture you see until Brother Bob had to change reels) and the famous ‘copping a feel in the sick bay’ for those too ill to fight back.

Anyone who went to my school knows what I am talking about; it’s like we are all grudging members of some deranged club we never wanted to join in the first place, where we cannot bear to meet one another let alone talk about that which unites us, and it is a club we would never in a million years have chosen of our own accord.

We were inducted; conscripted, forced against our will by some lust driven papal ‘press gang’ with fire in their eyes and black deeds in their hearts.

But there is some hope on the horizon for our club and its legion of members…
“A THIRD of child sexual abuse cases substantiated by the Anglican Church resulted in no action against the perpetrators, a new study by the University of Sydney has found.”
Dr Aspinall the Anglican National leader said the report would not only strengthen the church's child protection protocols, but was a reminder of the "tragic events of the past and of the pain which still exists".
"We reiterate our apology, our sorrow and our deep regret for abuse which has occurred," he said. He said the report showed the church needed to better encourage people to feel they could come forward to deal with their past.
The church has been putting in place new processes including screening those working with children and young people, a code of conduct and training.
The review called for improved education about the issues surrounding abuse and a national approach for the selection and accreditation of leaders of youth groups.”
Whoo Hooo!! I have been set free, after all these years!!

Finally, the penny has dropped instead of the trousers!!

After all this time, someone has been listening!! Preach it!! Preach the truth!! Again, for the hard of hearing in the church!!

Don’t let anyone with a collar near the children!!

And while you are at it, search their rooms and confiscate any straps, leather, broken fan belts, canes or other instruments of torture with which to dominate the young and scar them for life in order to satisfy their own sadomasochistic urges!!

Our will be done!!

People ask me, when paedophile priests come up in conversation, ‘You knew about all this’? I can scarcely believe their naiveté!!

‘Knew’?? Of course we knew! We saw! We felt! We experienced!!

It was part of the culture! It was expected!

Speaking of culture and tales of the expected, I came from a home environment where I had been abused by my father most of my young life, so by the time I got to school, for me, the behaviour of the priests was no great stretch.

It was just more of the same.

I admit it; I used to smoke at school. It was part youthful defiance- for punk just broke, and it was tough to swear and smoke and tattoo oneself- but I think it also helped me cope with the pain of being a young person in an insane world.

How could smoking possibly be any more damaging than the broad spectrum abuse that was part and parcel of my formative ‘wonder years’??

Inevitably, I would be caught smoking by Brother **** (a pesky little devil who also had a penchant for patrolling the shower rooms and peeking at the boys), and he would march me down to his dungeon (‘The Sheet Room’, where the boarders clean sheets were stored), make me drop my trousers, bend me over a tea chest, and beat me severely with a leather belt until I could hardly move with the pain. Occasionally he would insert his finger into the anus, and masturbate himself.

Today, I look at photos of domination, submission and discipline parlours and get a chill with how familiar it all looks.

I have heard people say ‘I don’t know how someone can get pleasure from all the whips and chains’. I’m not sure what it is for the priests, perhaps a kind of psycho sexual martyrdom trip a la St Sebastian, but for many of those abused in this way by priests- those who carry this strange legacy within their souls- it might have less to do with ‘pleasure’, and more to do with ‘programming’.

To some, it is even a kind of catharsis.

A girlfriend of mine once told me, as we were swapping stories and comparing scars, how, many years before she had wandered an unnamed European city feeling lost at the memory of her abuse. She spoke of seeking out a dominatrix, and requested a session. This particular dominatrix sensed something was wrong, and asked her why she wanted it. The poor girl wept, and opened up about her abuse at the hands of the clergy, and the dominatrix held her in her arms.

Free of charge.

Stop and think about this a moment; the church wants to close these places down and consign the souls of all within to the fires of hell for all eternity, while an estimated third of their strength indulges in orgies that make “Salo” look like a tea party.

While the Churches were hosting their ‘Rum Sodomy and the Lash’ parties of the type that would make Ron Jeremy cringe, this one particular dominatrix did more for my girlfriend in one humanitarian session of peace, love and understanding, than a lifetime of priests, prayer and their unique brand of ‘love’.

Hypocrisy; man, it makes my blood boil.

As a youth, smoking behind the shelter shed- even despite the risk of discovery and punishment- somehow helped to ease the pain of this kind of insanity. (Don’t ask me why; perhaps a matter for further study by smarter men than I)

And of course, like some insane never ending circle, I would smoke more, and get caught more, which made me smoke more, and I would get caught etc. I became ensnared in this twisted net of crime and punishment from whence there seemed no escape. Any wonder I now have a complicated relationship with substances of addiction, not to mention Catholicism. As if there was a difference.

I never told any of this at the time, for a variety of zany reasons; after all, it was ‘expected’ punishment for smoking, and if I told my Father- usually a child’s designated protector, first line of defence against harm or threat- about my clandestine habits, he would beat me more.

Plus, I was ashamed; the classic reversal, wherein the victim feels he is to blame.

And those with the luxury of not having such toxic memories often ask me- as if it is my job to make them understand- ‘why didn’t you say something’?

About what? This was the way things were. If it was all around you, coming at you from all directions, how could one insecure abused little boy sense anything he felt inside him to be accurate when ALL of his role models felt he needed sound and severe punishment? All of them?
All my so called role models and ‘mentors’? They couldn’t possibly all be wrong, I reasoned. So where on earth, or in Hell, could I possibly go?

And after a while, any residual sense that ‘this is wrong’ became extinguished, until ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were blurred, and one simply becomes accustomed to the pain as if it were a normal part of youth. I truly assumed all young people were frequently beaten by their elders; I had no evidence I was anything special.

Discernment is a luxury for the older, and the informed. And based on my information at the time- that this was life- all I could possibly hope for was that things would ease up one day. Or would they?

I had no proof that things would in fact ease; much like the film ‘The Professional’, where the little abused girl Mathilda sits on the steps outside her home, nursing a black eye while domestic warfare wages within, and she asks Leon the kindly hitman with searching eyes as he walks past,

‘Is it always like this, or just when you are a kid?’

Leon scarcely looks at her as he replies matter-of-factly ‘Always like this’.

And I cannot really argue with that, with benefit of hindsight. The world seems to be populated by a never ending supply of predators, whose only spark of imagination or creativity seems to be to bugger you beyond all belief, siphon your cash and steal your dreams; for me, the cycle seemed to have continued. Dante’s inferno had only seven circles. This one has innumerable. So in a way, the priests did us a favour.

They ‘buggered us senseless, but they taught us a thing or two about life’…

Or is it just the way I am thinking?

Am I attracting this karma to myself, based on the way I had been conditioned to think?? Perhaps, as the ‘Secret’ says, I have drawn negativity to myself.

My mistake; but then, the books ‘When Bad Things Happen to Good People’; ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’, ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’… ‘The Bible’…none of these seem to help. They say nothing to me about my life.

Only I can say something to myself about my life; which is why I write. Writing is my way. It is how I come to terms with the truth.

And the truth is not always pretty. The psychological effects of this abuse have been known to distort your mind, and I wonder if they have not distorted mine.

Here is a reasonable example.

While writing one day, I remembered a moment in my life where I had occasion to speak to a school mate many years after the fact, and we spoke of the abuse of the priests, and the extent to which each of us was dealing with the consequences.

He took a moment, and with a degree of repressed emotion, he told me of a girl we both knew in our class, who had been molested by a priest.

My first reaction was ‘thank God it was a girl this time’…

Read it again; ‘thank God it was a girl. That is what abuse can do to your mind. This is what the abused often regard as ‘good fortune’. Sometimes, it is about as close as we can get to ‘positive thinking’…And it is our truth; a kind of ‘reflex reaction’, or ‘reflex truth’, before the insanity of what we have said sinks in, and we correct ourselves- hopefully- before we speak. It is a close relative to that reaction built into many Anglo Saxons when they see a white woman with a Negro man; before our sense of the ‘politically correct’ comes in like a special armed unit engaged in damage control, before the thought has a chance to infect our words, or our behaviour. This kind of thinking comes from a deep, inbuilt primal xenophobia, which is woven into our psyche, and was much a part of our instincts in the times of tooth and claw, where territoriality was a question of survival. These thoughts are no longer appropriate, nor are they necessary. We no longer need them. So like our perverse twisted programming fashioned from the trauma of youth, which we no longer need, we have to work to get rid of it. No matter where your thinking comes from- no matter what the excuse- if it is merely a reflex, spawned from past experience or trauma, and hence no longer needed. It MUST be jettisoned.

We ‘abused’ must watch our thinking. We must find a way. And it must start with the way we regard the church, where it all began.

I’m not going to get into a long argument about theology. Suffice it to say, who could trust any priest or any God after this, even if God was real? ‘Free Will’, they say; that is fine for the assailant, but what about the victim? The victim needs someone to intervene; but no one ever did for me. Not the staff of the school- (the ordained or lay), nor the principal, nor God. God has his reasons, they say. Fuck you. His reasons suck. And I want no part of a God that allows his representatives on earth to do this to children, and bugger them for life. Nor do I want any part of a Heaven or a Hell stocked with these kinds of bastards.

As you get older, you realise that the behaviour was wrong, but what do you do about it? Buggered if I know, pardon the pun. I don’t have any proof, except a scarred psyche; and the kind of lawyers the Catholic Church can afford could easily prove my post trauma was caused by watching too many episodes of ‘Road Runner’.

I did not even know what DNA was in those days; let alone save any. Any traces of forensic proof are long gone, lost in the sands of time.

But the memory remains…

What is there left to do with this outrage at our treatment?

We abused need to take a good look at ourselves. We need to work through it all; the questions, the emotions, the fear, the guilt…everything.

We need to take back the power.
I guess, when you get down to it, because I never said anything at the time, I was complicit. I assume if you don’t scream, that is implied consent for a priest.

Was I a coward for not crying out?

When my father used to flog me for wetting the bed, he used to call me a cowardly dog. Damn, perhaps he was right? He used to tell me over and over again, I was a ‘cowardly, worthless dog’, and beat me until I could not walk any more, let alone be cowardly. Maybe he was right?

Perhaps I was a coward after all!!

The cowardice has followed me, I guess. My parents not only did not shield me from violence, they perpetrated it. I don’t have children because I would never want another child to go through what I had to go through.

That, I suppose, is cowardice.

And I have little faith in my public institutions to help protect my child. Even with mandatory reporting, the warning signs are rarely spoken. I cannot get the cops to attend to serious offences when I tell them! Why would they listen to the non verbal cues of a molested child?

And I guess that attitude is a form of cowardice.

I have, over time, surmised that the world doesn’t listen. And when you grow up, they no longer care. You’re on your own.

And that is cowardice.

For the ‘world’ IS me, and I have the power now, with benefit of hindsight and perspective, to do something about my world.

I care.

And I must be vigilant.

I must continue to be honest about my past, and watch my thinking when the effects of being abused come through, and I must correct it; each and every time.

It is tempting, when you have spent your formative years being treated like a beast, to continue to behave like one. It is patterned programmed response.
We have a choice; to leave decent society, and go and live with other beasts ‘Greystoke’ style. Or we can remain in society, and try to rise above our primal conditioning, and behave decently. It is known as transcendence. Many men behave as beasts, because it is encouraged. We justify our sexual deviancy and infidelity by falling back on the old ‘dick thing’ defence, as if it were some kind of diplomatic immunity for sexual experimentation, a ‘get out of jail’ card’.

This is bullshit; it is not only bogus, but it is lazy.
There might well be some primal explanation for being unfaithful. But it can never be a justification; merely a rationalisation. And rationalizations are for the lazy. And excuses are like arseholes; everyone has one. But they are not particularly helpful in any plan of action. We abused should never be as lazy as to use our experiences as justification for moral, intellectual or emotional laxity or laziness. We now have the power of choice, based on experience, perspective, and discernment. We are empowered, now that the church is starting to own up, and do something about the abuse. We have a choice, now; there is no longer any excuse. We can be powerful.

I understand it is hard. I can see how this stuff can turn some people into social deviants and psychopaths. I have had my share of emotional problems, but I have been lucky; my only departure from decent behaviour was when I joined the Police Force, but this behaviour was sanctioned by the Government, so I guess that is OK.

And sometimes I become frustrated; sometimes I think to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have to be dealing with this crap!! I should be just getting on with life!!’

Well, folks, for the abused, this is life- until we die; and that’s all there is to it. No use bitching about it; might as well roll up the sleeves and get into it.

So what am I really talking about here?

True empowerment, no matter what the circumstances; we can complain about our lot and fling lawsuits about like cream pies in a Mack Sennett comedy, or we can take what we have experienced- all the pain and trauma- and get on with it as best we can.

I use the word. I write. I can write about it now, but at the time…Actually, it didn’t seem so terrible, because it was the way things were; youth seemed to be painful, and if pain is all there is, and you know little else…you got used to it. Like Jim Morrison said, you can “be ‘down’ so long, it looks like ‘up’ to you…”

And if one can get used to that, one can get used to another pattern; that of change; metamorphosis; transmogrification.

We can rise above our primal origins, transcend the indignity of exploitation, and set an example as people who have been bent over by life, taken it up the tailpipe as gospel, then with the benefit of hindsight learnt that it was not our fault, and is not the way the world should be, and rise above it to a place of kindness and giving.

What the hell else are we going to do? Sit around feeling sorry for ourselves? Not this little black duck. And we, the abused, ask you, the spared, to be patient; these things take time. We will get there. This is important. For if we do not heal our emotions, and our thoughts, then how can we possibly hope to transcend the base primal inclinations woven into our psyche? And after all, isn’t transcendence- or, if you like, evolution- what we human beings are all about?

Isn’t it????

NEW BLOG INTRO

OK.

I thought now, as I am feeling better rested, I might try a few things.

I remember the first time FB shut me down, one of my best and most loyal friends here was ready to go into bat for me with FB- to rally forces on my behalf- and it was one of the most touching things I have ever witnessed.

And the most touching thing of all was that she felt I was a ‘stayer’- that I had some depth and breadth to me, some sustainability in terms of my blog, and that I wasn’t just a ‘fly by nighter’.

And that moved me.

And I think, for better or worse, she is right, because I not only feel a commitment to this blog (or rather these blogs plural) and the people who read them, but I enjoy doing it. It never feels like a trial, or a burden.

I enjoy it. My material might not all be useful, or valuable, but it IS truthful, and that- in my humble opinion- is one of the most interesting features of a blog.

It distinguishes it from a book, or other work of art.

I might not always be on the money. Occasionally my blogs are not up to scratch. People told me you are not going to be able to sustain one daily blog, let alone two.

True, it is not easy, but it is not as hard as I imagined, either.

I did not expect to be still enjoying it this much, or be looking forward to getting back into it while I should be taking it easy, on vacation.

This, BTW, is the type of blog I would file under ‘Bastard Files’; my occasional random thoughts, not always to do with my man’s work.

That will be filed under ‘Bastard Watch’, as I originally intended.

So, what I might do later today, is drive into town, go to the library, buy a half hour or hour block on the net, and load the two blogs, and see what you think.

I guess, as I have been thinking this through, the thing that encourages me is that I seem to have so much to say. I am writing something like 20 pages a day of all the things I ever wanted to say, and this seems as good a place as any to air my thoughts and views, and daily meditations and devotions, and responses to ‘current event’…local, national, and international.

I would not even bother if I thought I was all dried up.

The truth is, in fact, I still have so much to say, and looking over my work so far, and my notes, I have only scratched the surface.
Provided I don’t die, I feel as though I have at least another six months worth of material left in me.

At least.

I might not load each blog daily, like today…perhaps I could stagger it.

Alternate between ‘Bastard Watch’, and ‘Bastard Files’.

Maybe take a daily trip into the library, load one blog one day, and the other the next. Which would make six blogs per week, and one day of rest.

Does that sound fair?

Let me know, and see what you think.

Or we can try it awhile, and see how it takes.

Oh, and ‘Bastard Watch’ will be black type on white background format, as has been the tradition, and ‘Bastard Files’ will be as you see today, on black background.

Just to distinguish the two.

And what will ‘Bastard Files’ actually consist of?

It will seldom deliberately be the developmental work of the other blog, which deals mainly with historical matters, placed in a contextual framework to help me make sense of who I am, where I am now.

This blog will more often deal with the here and now. It will most likely be things I have to get off my chest. Burning issues, current events, etc.

More tomorrow…