I went to the gala. And I remembered.
On holding many things.
CW: Discussion of sexual assault, mental illness, suicide.
I went to that Catholic Studies gala. I thought I was bold. I’d written five thousand words justifying my decision to go. I’d addressed the Department’s failure to address the allegations of abuse by one of its esteemed priest-professors. I wrote how our Department chair Dr. Briel knew about the allegations and still sent Father Keating to live with students in another country. I wrote about my anger and about my hope. A few days after I published that piece, I was in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas. I was waiting for the Archbishop to begin the pre-gala Mass. I didn’t expect to remember these other things, to feel these other things. I was living inside of that essay, and it wasn’t finished yet.
The Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas brings up many things for me. I associate it with weeks of sobbing and years of anger. I associate it with caring for the soul of someone utterly destroyed by the casual cruelty of what happens in these Catholic spaces. I associate it with Catholic Studies. But the story of that chapel isn’t my story to tell. Not today.
This is today’s story…
I sat in the pew. I reviewed the programming for the Catholic Studies 30th Anniversary celebrations. The programming included three alumni. Each had hurt me. One with homophobic comments. Another sexually harassed me. Another sexually assaulted me.
All of them celebrated alumni.
And me: just another attendee, in a pew, at a table, paying money, no spotlight, no fanfare, lots of hurt. And some hope.
And a Substack.
I don’t have the spotlight here, in the pew, at the table, at the gala, in the department’s magazine (more on that later). The spotlight shines brightly on other people. On them.
I want to shine the spotlight on all of it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Several days after the gala, I’m in my therapist’s office.
I’m more faithful to therapy than I am to Mass these days. I want to be more faithful to Mass. But what does it mean, when I go to a therapist’s office and receive understanding and the capacity to change, whereas I go to Mass at the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas and receive pain?
“A part of me wants to tell him what he did to me,” I say to her. “But then… I don’t think he’s a bad person. I don’t want this to ruin his life. I don’t think he remembers. He’s a good guy. And we’re still friends. We don’t talk too often, but I don’t want to lose what we do have. It still matters to me. But I… I don’t know… I feel something…”
She asks me what I feel. I sit back on the couch and close my eyes. I breathe. I put a hand on my chest. And I feel the tightening. I’d felt it before. Around my neck. “Psychosomatic symptoms.” The tightening of a noose. The feeling I’d had a couple of times, after that time I’d tried to…
She asks me if the feeling comes about because I feel that I’m being silenced.
“No,” I say. “It’s the feeling of… It feels like death.”
I remember distinctly not wanting to be touched the day after the assault. My roommate looked at me and asked me what was wrong and put a hand on my shoulder. I winced and drew away. I didn’t tell him what had happened, what I’d woken up to, confused about what was happening, and then realizing it, and then not knowing what to do. I told no one for years.
I now wonder about my therapist and the Holy Spirit. My Catholic education taught me that history is God’s mysterious conspiracy. God’s power is seen in the moment of the unmasking of horror. Catholicism is a weird thing. Even during my atheist phase years ago, I felt like I was still somehow inescapably Catholic. I felt as if I was Flannery O’Connor’s “Christ-haunted South.” Christ haunted me, and then He possessed me.
I wonder about my therapist as a spirit surveying the Christ-haunted south. I wonder about her as a messenger of the Holy Spirit. Two times I’ve told my therapist something that had happened to me, and she responded, “Chris. That’s assault.”
I’m a smart guy. But I’m not sure I would have come to that conclusion on my own.
How many graduate degrees do you need before you’re able to name your own experiences? If it wasn’t for my therapist, I’m not sure I ever would have. If it wasn’t for my therapist, I don’t think I would have ever told anyone what had happened to me. I would have let that experience live on silently within, keeping it away from the surface, spending a lifetime suffering its impacts and having my hurt manifesting in hurt I pass on to others, wanting to speak aloud something but feeling a noose around my neck whenever it came close to my lips. I would have taken it to the grave.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We are taught to misremember. Half-memory can be a tool of the devil, and we are all his henchmen. After the allegations against Father Keating went public,
In the wake of the public lawsuit against Father Keating and our Archdiocesan reckoning with the reality of abuse in the Church, Catholic Studies had an opportunity to explore the meaning and significance and signs of sexual violence and manipulation, and we wasted that moment. Instead, we labelled her crazy.
So when it came to my own experience of assault, I was voiceless, and alone. I’d already seen how my community would react to allegations of abuse. Catholics Studies never gave me the tools to really recognize what had happened to me or to try to address it or to heal it. In the aftermath of the allegations against our professor, Catholic Studies gave me the tools to keep quiet. I passed those tools onto others.
And I suffered.
And then I saw him in the goddamn gala programming. I felt the tightening of the noose.
I want to be free.
In that session with my therapist, I tell her how I maybe don’t need to talk with that guy about the assault. Maybe I don’t need to address it. Maybe I don’t need him to know how he had hurt me. I don’t want to ruin his life. This would be so much for him to take in.
She says that it’s clear I care about him. She also says that, if you want a deep and free and loving relationship with someone, you don’t withhold the truth from them, not when it’s impacting you in this way.
I don’t have to tell him. But am I quietly holding onto the truth because I love him, or because I am afraid?
But maybe he doesn’t remember, I tell her.
“Chris,” she tells me. “I strongly suspect he remembers.”
I start to cry.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After I published that piece about Catholic Studies and the abuse by Father Keating and the gala and my complicity, I received many messages from other alumni. Some over email. Some at the gala. Some afterwards. Here are some (paraphrased):
“Actually, my wife and I were talking about this a couple of days ago, and then we saw your piece.”
“Hey, thanks for writing that. Let’s get together. I’d really like to talk about it.”
“I saw your piece. Thank you so much. I have some stuff that would also be good for you to know.”
“The community I grew up in is reckoning with its own history of abuse, and I’m really grateful you’re pursuing this with Catholic Studies.”
“I wasn’t the only one at my table at the gala who had read it.”
This is how the dynamics of abuse work: they convince you you’re the only one. You’re the only one who experienced this. You’re the only one who thought this. You’re the only one who cares about this. You’re the only one who thinks there’s much more to address. You’re the only one that feels some discomfort at the gala.
If they can keep you silent, they can keep you thinking you’re the only one, that you’re the crazy one, that it’s not a big deal, that everyone else has “moved on.” They hope that, if you let enough time pass, the harm just won’t matter any more. Just keep avoiding the conversation long enough for enough people to forget.
But some of us wear the marks of this conversation on our bodies. I wear it in the invisible noose around my neck. I am loosening it by having this conversation. We have no idea how many others are slowly being choked to death. I want to help. I need to help. I need help.
When someone finally speaks, a world of “only ones” can emerge.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After the gala, I finally told a friend. I drove the car and explained what happened to me.
“That’s not okay. That’s not okay,” she said over and over again.
As she said the words, this thing within me closed off, steeling me against them. I couldn’t hear these words. I was not ready. Sure, it was bad, but was it really that bad? I’m okay, right?
But then in the therapy session, I find myself using her words.
“It’s not okay.” And I say, “If that had happened to one of my friends, I’d think, ‘That’s so bad.’ That’s really really bad.”
It’s often easier to confront others’ hurts than our own.
She asks me how I feel.
“I feel… I feel so sad. And I feel angry. No one helped us!”
We were supposed to be this fantastic community, coming out of this exemplary program. How many more are the “only ones” who went through what I did, and who said nothing, because we were convinced our Catholic community had nothing to offer us?
But still I tell my therapist how I don’t feel mad at him. And I don’t know that I want to address this with him. I don’t want to hurt him.
She asks if I am afraid of hurting him, or of losing him.
A pause. A long pause.
I am afraid of losing him. If this comes out, if he knows that I know, can we still be friends? I’ve already lost so many friends. It’s so hard to have belonging in this world.
But maybe I had already lost him. If holding onto this secret means carrying a noose around, having it tied around this part of myself, then we don’t really have each other. Because in our relationship, I am partly dead.
This is the choice: hold onto him in a living death, or risk losing him so that I may learn to be fully alive.
I choose to write.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I get all these awards, all this money, all this recognition in my professional life. In the last month I’ve gotten an award from our CFO for employee excellence, been flown to California to receive the highest award in my company, and been named a finalist for two industry awards that will take me to an executive conference in Arizona. I consulted for a podcast that last month was ranked #1 at Apple Podcasts.
And I find myself asking, “Why have I never been in the Catholic Studies magazine?”
If you’ve ever wanted permission to ask yourself that question (or whatever that question would translate to for your Catholic community), you don’t need my permission. But I’ll give it to you anyways. Ask the question.
Our Archdiocesan newspaper published an article of “30 Catholics under 30.” The paper told me that I had been chosen for inclusion. Later, the paper reached out and asked if it would be fine if they didn’t include me in the list, since I was already being featured in other articles for work responding to the Church’s abuse crisis. I said that was fine with me.
You might suspect that they were worried about controversy that might come with my selection (as an openly gay man), and that they were using those articles as cover to remove me from the list. But I know the person who made the request, and I think it was honest. It was sincere. I have a lot of respect for her work as an editor.
Still, looking back, I think I should have said to include me. People like me should see lists like that as places we belong. But people like me are so rarely chosen for things like that. I shouldn’t have let go of the chance.
My personal motives aren’t pure. I like the limelight. It’s something I have to keep an eye on, keep in check. When I see Catholic peers celebrated by Catholic institutions while I sit at a gala as just another attendee, I sometimes ask myself: Is it because I’m gay?
There’s a certain egotism to the question, I admit. I’d only ask it if I thought I was deserving of at least some of the spotlight.
I think I am. And I was. I know it. And they do, too.
I guess what I’m saying is: I should be in the goddamn Catholic Studies magazine, because people like me should be in the goddamn Catholic Studies magazine.
But we’re not. And the consistency of that fact defies coincidence. There are too many coincidences in all of this.
In our session, I tell my therapist that I’m thinking about writing about the harassment and the assault. I hadn’t brought out into the light yet.
I tell her, “Isn’t that totally fucked? That I’ve written about so many harms I’ve suffered in the Church, and those aren’t even all of them? It’s like, ‘What’ll he pull out next from his bag of tricks?’”
I laugh, because… what else can I do?
A coworker once told me: “The funniest people I know all had rough upbringings. And you’re hilarious.”
In many ways I had a wonderful childhood. But my adolescence was very hard. Sometimes I wonder whether my parents struggle with the ways in which they weren’t able to protect me from the Church. But they did their best. And I am still here.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When you write about things like sexual assault, it’s the assault itself that stands out to people. That’s not what stands out to me.
A few years ago, I attended an Archdiocesan event where a therapist discussed the impact of abuse. Often, she said, the response of people to the abuse can have a more significant psychological impact than the physical abuse itself. Dismissal or disbelief by Church leaders can be more psychologically damaging than the actual event of abuse.
What happens when the Church doesn’t even need to dismiss your abuse, because it has raised you to dismiss yourself? Our institutions don’t need to kill us; instead they drive us to do it ourselves.
That sort of thing can really mess you up. I think about my failures to love and to be loved, and I sometimes think: We didn’t stand a chance.
Every success of our love is a protest.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One reason I’m not naming the Catholic Studies guys who harassed and assaulted me, and all the betrayals I suffered in the program, here: because this is not a situation of a couple of “bad apples.” What are the chances that I’d write that essay, and then a few days later this is what I’d experience at the gala? After a while, horrible coincidences stop being coincidences and start revealing institutional problems.
When I say “institutional,” I don’t just mean the institution of Catholic Studies. I mean the institution of the Church.
I’m not naming these individuals, because it could be anyone. Sexual violence and the marginalization of LGBTQ+ people are all over our communities, including our Catholic communities. At the next Catholic Studies gala, take a look at the programming, and think to yourself, “It could be any of them.” Because it could be any of them. Because we don’t talk about it.
All the eyes that scanned the Catholic Studies gala programming and had no idea. Partly because they didn’t want to know.
When you scan your Catholic community, do you search for what—who—is missing? Do you ever wonder if you may be partly responsible?
I do.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My company had a global event on why trust matters. They asked me to be one of the panelists for it. They opened the event by asking each of the panelists why inclusion matters to us. I said:
“I’ve really learned how inclusion matters through learning to love myself. I’m going to tell a story that some of you have heard. But it’s a foundational story for me.
“Years ago, I was getting my law degree, and also a Masters in Catholic Studies. For a long time in was my dream to work in something related to the Church. While I was in grad school, the head of my program asked me to apply for an internship working at the UN in Geneva doing research and writing for the Vatican. It was my dream opportunity, and it was sure to be the start of a very exciting career. The program head literally told me, ‘I can’t think of a better candidate for the position than you.’ The application would be a formality. I told my family and friends about it. But a few weeks later, I was told that they actually wouldn’t be giving me the role because, as they put it, it wasn’t a good time for a gay person to take the position. What they essentially said was: you don’t belong here, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.
“The thing that really strikes me about that situation now is how no one stood up for me. The religious organization and leaders went along with it. My university went along with it. And I was so naïve and had such a distorted sense of self-worth that I went along with it.”
There were other things that happened to me while I was in grad school.
I was so naïve and had such a distorted sense of self-worth that I went along with it.
My parish asked me to give a talk, and I offered to give a talk on Catholicism and homosexuality, as someone who was gay and committed to Church teaching. The parish leadership told me, “We’re not there yet.” I heard: We’re not ready for you.
I was so naïve and had such a distorted sense of self-worth that I went along with it.
A guy in my law school class, after a night out at a bar, randomly told me, “If you try anything on me, I’ll beat the shit out of you.” He said this as I was walking him home to drop him off with his roommate, because he was too drunk to get home by himself. I had never done anything to him. Being gay was enough to be labeled a predator, to be threatened by a classmate.
I was so naïve and had such a distorted sense of self-worth that I went along with it.
I was assaulted during an anonymous hookup. I sat in my car afterwards on a dark street, trying not to cry, and I whispered to myself, “This is what happens when you’re worthless.”
I was so naïve and had such a distorted sense of self-worth that I went along with it.
And there were other things. Things for perhaps another day.
I see American Catholics complain about persecution, and it makes me want to laugh.
Ten years later, that parish still hasn’t had that talk. Just like Catholic Studies hasn’t had its talk. Catholic institutions often say, “Not right now.” I’m not going to sit around waiting for ten years. I’m not going to sit in my car repeating to myself over and over, “You’re worthless,” waiting for them to convince me otherwise.
I had more to say at that work event:
“Inclusion matters to me because people often deserve more than what they’re given. I now know that I was worth standing up for. I deserved that. And one of the ways I live out that belief today is by standing up for others, by helping others see when they are not getting what they deserve. And what they deserve—what I deserve and what you deserve—is inclusion and belonging. Sure, the inclusion stuff is good for our ability to recruit and retain talent and win in the marketplace. But we don’t need a talent war to justify inclusion. The only justification that inclusion needs is that you are here. I work on inclusion because it’s what people deserve. Because I care about our people. It’s what I want for everyone here.
And I mean that. I’ve left a job because people weren’t treated with the respect they deserve. I took a big pay cut because of it. That’s the kind of leader I want to be. And that’s what I expect out of my leaders. And I think that’s the kind of leadership we can cultivate here. That’s why I’m here
I ask myself: Do I have higher expectations for my company than I do for my Church, than I do for Catholic Studies?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The good Catholic Studies has brought to my life is not lost on me. My Catholic Studies semester abroad was among the happiest times in my life. So many in the community were so good to me in so many ways, even the homophobic ones. Some of my closest friends came out of Catholic Studies. And, despite all this, it was so good to see so many people at the gala, to see the good that can still come out of Catholic Studies. Deep down, despite ourselves, we are all manifesting a mysterious goodness.
And our shortcomings still matter. They’re still worth talking about.
The conversation I am learning to have goes something like this…
“You did this, and it really hurt me,” I say.
“But,” they say, “I didn’t know how to do any better. If I would have known…”
“I know,” I say. “And even if that was the case, you still hurt me. Maybe you didn’t have what you needed to do better, but you still hurt me. And I need you to see that.” I have tears in my eyes.
We can hold all of these things, the desire for apology and accountability, and also empathy for those who hurt us because they didn’t have the resources or knowledge to do better.
This is a hard lesson for healers: learning to take accountability for the things we’ve done, where we didn’t have the tools or resources or knowledge to do otherwise.
I think of Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov:
“There is only one way to salvation, and that is to make yourself responsible for all men’s sins. As soon as you make yourself responsible in all sincerity for everything and for everyone, you will see at once that this is really so, and that you are in fact to blame for everyone and for all things.”
This runs counter to everything we are taught by our institutions overrun by the avoidance of liability. It’s unclear to me whether lawyers are the worst thing to have happened to the Church, or whether the Church is the worst thing to have happened to lawyers. I am a lawyer. And the Church has happened to me. And I have suffered.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Both Father Keating and Dr. Briel taught us that the great movements of this world are not driven by the masses, but by small groups of people full of a mysterious life.
Dr. Briel taught me that the interrogation of your religion is a worthy endeavor, and that this interrogation might lead you to a totally new place, and that once you get there it’s not a bad idea to write an apologia. I remember looking at him across the table, discussing Newman, suspecting that this mode of teaching was Newman’s very own. One of the most remarkable professors I have ever had.
And fuck that guy. And God bless his soul. And fuck what he did to me. And God forgive him. And God help me forgive him. And there is so much more to say.
My motives for forgiveness are not pure. I have never abused a child. But I have betrayed my loved ones. In my self-delusions, I have stabbed good people in the heart.
I think: “If they can be forgiven, surely I can be too. If they can have a future after what they did, so can I.”
The Church somehow maintains this power from within, this ability to engage in self-critique. Francis of Assisi could only “build my Church” because he stepped outside of it. He worked to construct a thing he could dwell within. This power to critique, to speak, comes from within. From within me. And… from within the Church. Where She must, the Church has the power to speak out against Herself. And to build. And to rebuild. The critic has the power to reconstruct.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Another reason I haven’t written about this before: I love him.
I love all three of them: the person who made those homophobic comments, the person who sexually harassed me, and the person who sexually assaulted me. On my better days, I am angry and sad and hopeful and I love them.
We should address the ways we’ve harmed others. We should be held accountable.
And, also, we should heal. All of us.
I don’t believe any person should be solely defined by the worst things we’ve done, even if sometimes those things play defining roles in our lives.
I want all of those people who hurt me to live full happy lives. I want them to be honored for their achievements. I want them to be featured in gala programming.
I want them to see the harms they’ve caused and to heal.1
And I want to heal.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When I lost that internship, I gave up so many dreams. But I adapted. I changed. I gave up those dreams, but I did not give up dreaming. I now know I am a man capable of infinite dreaming.
I also know that the dreamers are the ones capable of nightmares. And I hold these too.
Pretty things are not necessarily beautiful. Horrible things can be fashioned into beauty. Sometimes I feel that I am sitting at the pottery wheel. Sometimes I feel that I am the clay.
The advice I’d give my younger self: You are stronger than you know.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“How are you feeling today?” she asks me.
“I feel stretched out,” I say. “I feel like I’ve done so much holding space, and now I’m just kind of tired. Not in a bad way.”
I tell myself:
You can hold space.
You can hold many things.
Today, maybe you cannot hold everything.
Today, hold what you can, and just a little bit more.
Rest when you need to.
Keep stretching yourself, little by little.
Tomorrow, you will be able to hold just a little bit more.
And maybe one day you will be able to hold all of these things.
You don’t have to choose.
You can choose all.
Note: If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
Another reason I haven’t written about this: people might misuse it.
People might read all this and say something like, “Look how he is working to forgive the people who hurt him and wants healing and reconciliation with them! This is true healing: forgiveness and reconciliation and giving love to the people who hurt you. And this is so much more impactful, him giving love and not just cynicism or bashing those students or the program.”
I understand where some of this is coming from. Unfortunately, these kinds of messages can be deeply harmful to victims and survivors. It can shame them for not feeling, or even wanting, reconciliation. It can make them feel like they’re weak or damaged because they don’t have feelings of love towards the people who hurt them. And it invalidates the anger and fury that consumes them, that they are processing, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for hope for change.
There is no one pathway to healing. I’m giving (what I think is) mine. My pathway should not be used to silence others who may have different feelings, or to marginalize those on other paths.
I can choose to love the people who hurt me, to want some kind of reconciliation, to not want them to be defined by these things, to wish them fully happy lives. Not because these are things I have to choose, but because these are things that I want to choose. Because I am the victim and I get to decide what I will do with my hurt.
For many, forgiveness may be something they choose, while reconciliation may not be possible, reasonable, or responsible. Victims should be empowered to choose whether they want to pursue forgiveness or reconciliation, and what that looks like.
Thank you for sharing all of this. I’m so sorry you suffered.