Review: One priest, one family, decades of abuse and suffering
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 22, 2011
Growing up Catholic for many boys meant becoming an altar boy, fish on Friday, confession on Saturday and mass on Sunday. Unfortunately for many of those boys it also meant falling victim to a predatory priest.If we've been desensitized by all the attention given to the issue of sexual abuse by priests, David Margolick, succeeds in helping plant the topic back on the public agenda. "A Predator Priest" has force and impact because Margolick, a journalist who has written for "Vanity Fair" and was a reporter for the "New York Times" tells a compelling story that focuses on one priest and one family. The issue of predatory priests is abstract. Margolick tells a story that's squalid and all too real.For a half century until he simply became worn out and in ill health, the Rev. Bernard Bissonnette, "Father Barney" molested dozens of boys in the many parishes in Connecticut and New Mexico to which the Catholic Church assigned him in order to stay ahead of the repeated allegations of sexual abuse.One of those boys was Tommy Deary, one of 13 children of the deeply faithful Deary family of the sleepy mill town of Putnam, Conn. Described by his brothers and sisters as a trusting, vulnerable kid, Tommy at 13 was an altar boy at St. Mary's and was being repeatedly molested by Bissonnette.A victim, Deary was tormented with guilt and shame for 30 years, his brother Teddy said, "His suffering didn't show. It's not like he had a limp. It was a pain that you couldn't see." In September 1993 at age 43, he went into his garage, hooked up a hose to his car and asphyxiated himself.Three of his brothers set out to find a measure of justice. They succeeded in 2005 when the Vatican defrocked the old, infirm priest. The church described his offense in Latin, "Delictum contra sextum eodem sexu: sexual misconduct with someone of the same sex."That's only the shell of this painful yet remarkable story. Margolick has researched and documented a forceful account of abuse that strains credulity and serves as an indictment of the Catholic Church, which by turning a blind eye becomes complicit in decades of abuse involving an uncounted number of victims.[4.5 stars]