MASSACHUSETTS
WBUR
Fri, Mar 08, 2013
by Caryl Rivers
Caryl Rivers: In 1983, at the age of 38, my brother hanged himself with his belt in a hospital ward and his once promising life was over, stolen away by years of abuse at a Catholic school. (AP)
Over the past two decades, the vast clergy sex abuse scandal has left the Catholic Church morally and economically devastated. It left my family devastated as well and caused more pain than I ever could have imagined.
In the 1960s, my brother went off to a high school run by the Christian Brothers. He emerged four years later terribly damaged and depressed. Along with dozens of other boys in the school, he was abused over the entire course of his time there by one of the priests, and he was warned not to tell anyone about it.
For years, he did not. Then, in his early 20s, he had a major mental breakdown from which he never recovered. A psychiatrist told my mother “I have never seen such ego destruction as what happened to your son in that school.”
A bright, caring, handsome young man, my brother struggled mightily to overcome his abuse, but he did not succeed. Although he married and had a child, his demons ultimately got the best of him. In 1983, at the age of 38, he hanged himself with his belt in a hospital ward and his once promising life was over, stolen away by years of abuse at a Catholic school.
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