MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune
By Damien Cronin on Apr 11, 2015
I had just turned 13 in 1954 when I started at Dominican College Newbridge, a residential Catholic high school for boys in Ireland. I had grown up in Carrick-on Shannon, a small town in the Midlands, and this was my first time away from home and family.
In October or November, I recall, I was told a priest wanted to see me in his office. He was waiting for me and closed the door behind me. He told me he had heard that too many of the new students were goofing off and that I was a main offender. He told me to drop my pants. He then put me across his knees and gave me a terrible beating. I’m convinced he meant to hurt me. Next he stood me up in front of him, and he molested me. I was shocked and in pain.
He told me to pull up my pants and return to study hall. He warned me not to tell anyone what happened or he would expel me and call my parents to pick me up; I would have to leave in total disgrace, he said.
I was so ashamed. It was all my fault. I believed everyone in the school, faculty and students alike, knew or soon would know what happened. I clearly was a bad kid. The priest said so. The baddest of the bad, he said. I believed him. And it became my personal definition. I was totally unworthy of anyone’s friendship or love or caring.
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