1972, at the age of 16, I had reached a point in my young life of absolute hopelessness and overwhelming feelings of emptiness, and saw no escape from the psychological terror of living with the violent outburst of an alcoholic father and the manipulative seductions of his sexually abusive brother, Uncle Oscar. I had no one to talk to, no one to rescue me; suicide seemed my only way out. I hated myself and the abusive home in which I lived. I was sickened, confused, and disturbed by two issues: that my uncle Oscar was mentally coercing me to have frequent sex with him in my house and that my body responded with pleasure to his physical stimulation. I existed in a state of self-conscious distress and mental confusion.
One day in 1974 during my senior year of high school, in a moment of desperation, I locked myself in the bathroom with a razor blade in one hand, standing before the vanity, ready to slice my wrists. Tears ran down my cheeks reflected in the mirror. Excruciating hours of depression and sadness had lead to this moment, and I could think of no one person important enough in my life to want to live for or who loved me unconditionally and without impossible expectations.
In a split second before slicing my vein, I froze. Somehow I experienced an unexpected moment of insight and hope. My thoughts had turned to the comfort that spiritual focus brings and I was unable to follow through with the horrible task of killing myself. As a practicing Catholic, I thought that it must have been God who prevented me from actually taking my life that day. And that God must have some reason, some purpose for keeping me alive. It was this thought that led me to believe I might have a special calling to do something important, something I couldn't understand right then. In my mind as I stood in the bathroom, it struck me that the most honorable way for a Catholic to completely give his life over to God was to become a priest, and so I began making inquiries.
At 16, suicide attempted at this very spot.
I spoke with my local priest who advised that, in addition to seeking therapy, I start to read scripture, attend bible study classes and spiritual retreats, and speak with various clergy. Following his advice, I threw myself into my religious studies and prayed frequently, all the while feeling more and more hopeful and confident in this new direction for my life. I felt further drawn into the religious life after attending several seminary vocation exploration retreats.
In the fall of 1974, I entered the Catholic religious order of the Claretian Missionary Priests and Brothers, and began seminary training to become a priest. I was 18 years old. My family and friends were completely surprised at my decision to pursue the religious life of a priest, but supported me as best they knew how. I was finally out of a truly terrifying and turbulent abusive childhood home life, safely on my own now and out of harms way, or so I thought.
I joined the Western Province of the Claretian Missionary order in Los Angeles, California. I was particularly attracted to this order because the Claretians are devoted to social concerns and issues of justice and peace in parishes and foreign missions, magazine publishing and serving more than sixty countries on five continents. I had researched and interviewed several religious communities, as well as the Los Angeles Diocesan seminary, but was drawn to this particular community by the actual priests and brothers I had met and conversed with.
The order’s founder, Saint Anthony Mary Claret, encouraged his Missionaries to “use all possible means for the salvation of souls” and this is what I saw the Claretians creatively doing. They were smart, witty, committed ordinary men taking on extraordinary causes, such as supporting Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers boycotts, helping establish social justice programs, and staffing many foreign missions. Working predominately in Latino and African American communities, the Claretians seemed to be involved with neighborhoods that needed the most work, both spiritually and economically.
I was excited about my decision to join this community of priests and brothers, because I now felt that I could embrace a new life of prayer, service, and inner peace. I had renewed enthusiasm for my life as a servant of God in the Catholic Church. Having spent much of my childhood living in dread and fear, I felt all that seemingly disappear with each new Claretian priest or brother I was introduced to.
An important part of the Claretian seminarian training was for new seminarians to attend public school institutions, gaining education and performing volunteer work at local parishes. We gathered around 5 p.m. for daily Mass followed by a communal dinner and great discussions and debates on any number of topics. I enjoyed these interactions and cherished those moments of mental expression and exchange. Evenings were usually spent studying, and at 9 p.m. we would gather once again for evening prayers before retiring for bed. The schedule would repeat itself throughout the academic school year. Every summer, after the semester ended, each seminarian was assigned a summer post for further hands-on ministry training and placed under the supervision and spiritual direction of a senior priest. I gained tremendous personal support from my superiors and spiritual directors during these assignment periods.
For the first time in my 18 years of life, I was able to talk openly with my religious superiors about being sexually abused as a child and was encouraged to describe some of the violent traumatic episodes I had experienced but held as a tightly guarded, personal secret. I felt relieved of the burden and free to express my most intimate fears, thoughts, and feelings. I was never chastised for expressing my anger or silenced in shame. The seminary was a wonderfully caring and supportive learning environment for me. I found my inner voice and gradually learned to express myself more clearly. I was encouraged to bravely speak out and found unlimited acceptance and support. I also learned to be confident with public speaking. It was at this time that I realized I could never again remain silent about my childhood sex abuse experiences, and I began to openly assert, from that time forward and with confidence, that I was an incest survivor.
I was happy to be practicing chastity during seminary training because I had carried so much emotional baggage regarding sex from my childhood. During my childhood there were many confusing contradictions regarding love, sex, and relationships that were still unresolved within me as a young man. Sex was a confusing element for me, and I was glad not to have to deal with it, to confront it at all. That's what I thought.
Throughout seminary life I, like most male seminarians, engaged in private moments of masturbation, both as an ongoing temptation but more often as a welcome releasing of stress. Seminarians were encouraged not to masturbate but instead to strive for complete celibacy. However, in reality there was so much unspoken sexual tension, I personally had to masturbate several times a week just to mentally end my overwhelming preoccupation with it.
There were many times in the seminary—or house of studies as we referred to it—when various sexual topics and conversations would present themselves among us. At times these topics would revolve around romantic relationships, sexual behavior, morality, celibacy, and the like, arising from the social encounters we individually experienced on campus; and some were questions sparked from our spiritual studies. The seminary house had an average of six to nine seminarians, each man sharing a room with one other seminarian. There was always one prefect, a priest who served as the house leader. This priest lived in his own room within the house. The prefect was always available to talk to, and he supervised most of the study activities and our community ministry assignments.
In addition to straight seminarians, several in our house were gay, some bisexual, but all of them closeted. There was comfortableness among us seminarians. We felt free to talk about everything, to bring honesty to our discussions. This was especially true when we were in formal, supervised training sessions. After months of sharing our most intimate thoughts and fears with each other, the majority of us felt safe to continue the personal verbal sharing with one another in private. As might be imagined, on occasion, these private discussions topics would turn sexual and then an awkward nervousness would surface between the two seminarians that could potentially complicate one’s practice of celibacy.
Personally,
