Priests, Nuns, and Little Bambino’s

I was never molested – only groped.

Catholic School confessions – Part 1

By John Ceccon

Prior to the banning of corporal punishment in Massachusetts in 1971, and the repeal of the Stubborn Children law in 1973, children had child endangerment felonies committed against them on a daily basis under the guise of discipline, in a place where they were supposed to be safe – A Catholic school room…….and nobody had a problem with it. Mine was located in Boston.

Back in the 60’s kids had no rights – none…….zero, and Catholic priests and nuns were like John Gotti, they were untouchable. You didn’t question their tactics and even the suggestion that they were anything other than holy servants of God, was seen as an accusation against God Himself. This twisted wall of protection was at the core of the Catholic Priest Pedophile scandals of the 60’s and 70’s. They were untouchable, and they knew it. How convenient!

Anytime I tell people that I attended Catholic school during the sixties and was taught by priests and nuns, the first thing they ask is if I was molested by a priest or not. Well…….they don’t really come right out and ask, but they dance around it in such a way that it almost compels me to give them a nice taboo man on boy sex story that involves a man of the cloth and me being raped in a Catholic church confessional, so lets get that out of the way right now. I was never raped by a priest………I was only groped…….a lot. The word “molestation” had not made its way into the American vocabulary yet. How convenient!

The first dirty joke I ever heard came from the mouth of a Catholic priest when I was in the first grade at the tender age of seven.

The first time I heard the term “hard-on”……..wait for it……..wait for it……… yup, I heard it from a Catholic priest. I never actually saw a priest’s penis, but I’ve seen a few tents in few priests robes on more than a few occasions. Do the math. Besides, there was enough daily nun initiated physical and emotional abuse in the Catholic school system that a little groping every now and then was no big deal. Sometimes, it was the lesser of a handful of other evils.

Prior to the early 70’s, The dismissal of children was rampant in American society. Then things changed, real quick. I think it was the the peace loving, nonviolent, pot smoking hippies that had something to do with it. Before that, the parenting model for kids was that they were to be seen and not heard. It wasn’t just at church either. There were plenty of other creeps in the neighborhood whose lives revolved around the pursuit of pre-teen sexual escapades just like their pastoral counterparts. So, what I’m telling you is that I had choices. I could let some POS Catholic priest def lour me………….. or one of the neighborhood creeps, and there were plenty of them.

In 1966, nobody referred to a kid toucher as a pedophile. I don’t think that word was even in the dictionary yet. If you didn’t have one of them in your neighborhood or family, Father Talbot was more than eager to fill that void, (pun intended). There just wasn’t this public scrutiny about child molesters yet. There was no such thing as children’s rights or time outs that didn’t involve sports. Here kid, here’s my adult male appendage, make believe its a baseball bat, or a submarine, and don’t forget about the standard, “don’t tell nobody” or “i’m a priest, no one will believe you” clause. It was like the kid toucher wild west. Just as long as they keep a low profile and the kids kept quite, all was good in the church and neighborhood. The good ol’ days.

A child’s rights? Riiiight.

In part 2, we’ll get to know a few of the Vatican empowered creeps who were
responsible for ruining an entire generation of young men. They were the Ron Jeremy’s and Atilla the Hun’s of the Catholic church, and I went to school with them. I have to make a disclaimer first. If you are one of the priests or nuns that I’m about to name, and feel I have defamed you – sue me! I have a really good lawyer and 6 years of notes from my therapist.

There was an entire generation of kids who were ruined by their experience in Catholic schools during the 50’s and 60’s. A lot of them have spent most of their adult lives battling addiction, alcoholism, and hundreds of other disorders that make day to day life a struggle. To date, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross parish has paid out over 50 million dollars in settlements to sex abuse victims.

Stay tuned for pt. 2