Life Among Pedophile Priests, New Book by New Mexico Author-Activist, Hank Estrada

I’ve learned a bit about life in Catholic seminaries, which in the USA produced seven thousand pedophile priests in the last fifty years*, from the book “Unholy Communion: Lessons Learned from Life among Pedophiles, Predators, and Priests.” As an 18 year old seminarian, New Mexico writer Hank Estrada found himself naked in bed with an older priest. The series of molestations, related in the book, led to Estrada abandoning his lifelong ambition to become a priest. Unholy Communion** left this reader seeing seminaries as environments where covert sexual activity is almost inevitable..

“On one occasion, Father John rubbed himself up against me so much that he climaxed right in his walking shorts. I eventually came to realize that Father John believed that as long as he did not physically expose himself or masturbate, he wasn’t really engaging in a sexual act or breaking his celibacy vow.” (From page 26)

Soon after Estrada joined the Western Province of the Claretian Missionary Order in Los Angeles, Father John Raab spotted him as an easy target.

The young seminarian was vulnerable, tormented by the experience of being regularly molested by his uncle as a child (some of which is described graphically in the book). Within weeks the priest has the seminarian in bed, which is also described vividly in the book.

Currently Estrada is developing an online support group for survivors of clergy sex abuse at hopehealhelp.net.

Priests in training are cloistered in seminaries, at the same time they are pampered and treated to vacation jaunts, as Estrada describes in this scan from Unholy Communion, which is available for purchase at hankestrada.com

n Unholy Communion, Estrada comes part way out of the closet as a gay man in the 1980s, after leaving the seminary. He ends up entrapped in a “public exposure” charge and spends years in confused relationships.

Estrada spent years after leaving seminary trying to warn Church hierarchy as Father John continued to prey upon young men in seminary.

Letting priests live normal sex lives, even if that means marriage to another man, would probably put an end to the pedophile priest epidemic in the Catholic Church that we’ve experienced in America recently.

Estrada’s life was derailed by the dishonesty of Catholic bishops, both in operating sexually charged seminaries for “celibate priests” and in continuing to criminalize and denounce homosexuality. Can Catholic bishops stop protecting their bank accounts and their new found positions of power as Republicans long enough to notice the dysfunction their religious sexual policies perpetuate?

Keep Reading.

Read a longer version of this post as well as scanned pages from the book at City of Angels Blog posted today by Kay Ebeling

Kay Ebeling pioneered internet journalism by creating City of Angels Blog, where she reports on the Pedophile Priest epidemic in the Catholic Church as one of the victims. Today CofA Blog continues its muckraking tradition on several topics, producing stories that are overlooked by mainstream media. Ebeling's day job is all done online, so she is currently traveling the country while producing City of Angels Blog, which started at http://cityofangels3.blogspot.com in 2007.

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