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A secret that should have blown the Vatican out of the water and forced the world to take notice.

When Brendan Boland was fourteen he confided a secret to a priest he didn't know. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review purposesĭisclaimer: I received this book through NetGalley as a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. This is an uncomfortable and disturbing read but a necessary one. To add insult to injury he had to fight for years to obtain compensation from the church - the organisation which should have protected him in the first place.

Then if you say anything to another adult about what is going on the chances are you probably won't be believed.Īll these thoughts and feelings come over so well from this book and I found myself empathising with the author and becoming angry over the betrayal and the way it coloured his life. How does a child deal with such abuse? They are brought up to trust a priest implicitly and it follows from that that anything the priest does or says must be acceptable whatever instinct tells you about it.

It is clear from this book that the harm done is hugely damaging and long lasting colouring the rest of people's lives. Children - apart from the author - who reported the abuse were not believed or the whole thing was swept under the carpet because 'no lasting harm' had been done to the children. So many people knew of the abuse and turned a blind eye to it. When the author plucked up his courage and told another priest about the abuse the resulting investigation swore the author to secrecy and assured all concerned that it would not happen again and that steps would be taken to stop the abuse of other children continuing.īut the actions taken were not effective and the priest continued to abuse children for more than twenty years. First there was the priest who inveigled his way into the author's family and used the trust he gained to abuse the author. This is a harrowing story of a betrayal of trust by so many people whom the author could have expected to rely upon.