Review: Who is ultimately responsible?
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 26, 2011
Although a true story in this Kindle Single, A Predator Priest by David Margolick, this reads like a novel.  I couldn't put it down until the last word had been read.  It is the story of Bernard Bissonette, a pedophile who was also a Catholic priest and also the story of one of his victims in particular, Tommy Deary, whose life was forever changed and ruined by this man, and ultimately lead to Tommy's suicide.  As the story begins, Tommy's three younger brothers are in New Mexico on their way to Father Bissonette's house to finally confront him about what he'd done and the fact that they wanted this man defrocked.  The church had basically hidden the priest in the desert where it was extremely difficult to find him in his older age.Father Bernard Bissonette began his molestations long before the many reports we hear in the twenty-first century.  Tommy Deary was an altar boy in 1963 when he was repeatedly molested by this priest who preyed on the most vulnerable boys who were not aggressive and who seemed needy.  They were threatened with going to hell if they told parents or police.  Such things weren't openly discussed in the 1960's and then, as now, children were afraid and ashamed to tell parents or other adults what had happened to them. Bissonette arranged fishing trips with some of the boys in his parish, and these turned into nightmares for the children.When the church finally found out what Bissonette was doing, it did nothing to stop him or to remove him from the priesthood.  Complaint after complaint started coming in after some time passed, and so Bissonette was moved from one parish to another.  Each place he went the same thing happened and he was shuttled off to another location.If this were fiction it would be bad enough, but since it's true it's a very sad and all-too-common story.  It will anger you and give you compassion for the children affected by men like Bissonette. But what about men like Bissonette?  Is he responsible for having an illness that he didn't ask for? Is the church ultimately responsible for allowing him to remain in churches where he had access to young boys all the time? And is the church responsible for not defrocking this man when he failed his second chance and they knew exactly what he was doing?This is obviously a very thought-provoking read that the author has put into a form that reads fast.