ABSTRACT
Recent media exposure of sexual abuse of boys by Catholic clergy has engendered a crisis in the Catholic Church. One of the less painful sequelae has been an attempt to understand this phenomenon better. This abuse is a subset of the wider problem of child sexual abuse, and presents one of the least-understood aspects of this problem—sexual abuse of boys by male perpetrators. This chapter reports on 26 adolescent boys and adult men who describe having been sexually abused by Catholic priests as children or adolescents. The length of time that it takes boys and men to report this abuse; the characteristics of priests’ abuse; psychological sequelae, including psychiatric diagnosis; sexual concerns such as fantasies and questioning orientation; sexual abuse of others; and impact on spirituality will be discussed. Two cases, the first of an adolescent boy who entered therapy only a few years after the abuse occurred, and the second of a man who waited over four decades to tell his story, are presented in depth. On average, the men waited more than 18 years before coming forward to seek psychological help or legal action.
