Book Excellence Review
Behind Sacred Walls: The True Story of My Abuse by Catholic Priests by Michael Roberts recounts the compelling true story of Michael Roberts’ years of abuse by a priest from the Catholic Church. Growing up in a devout Catholic family, Michael developed a close friendship with their parish priest, which eventually led to years of ongoing sexual abuse. In the book, Michael recounts his journey of survival, explaining how he was able to break free from the abuse and seek justice from the Church. Michael writes in a candid, sincere and truthful manner, allowing his story to create space for readers to question the way that we live out faith in our churches. Michael deconstructs the policies, failures, and power that makes abuse within the church so difficult to address raising questions of vulnerability, protection, justice and restitution. Michael’s strength, will and perseverance is to be admired and this book is critical reading for anyone involved in church leadership and the Catholic Church community as a whole.
– Review by Book Excellence (bookexcellence.com)
Goodreads Book Review
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
More and more people are bravely writing about their experiences of abused by Catholic priests. This book is a bit different than the others because this author was abused as a late teenager and that abuse continued into his 20s. It’s scary to read about how this priest manipulated and brainwashed Michael into thinking the priest was helping him and that he was the only one who would ever love him and not use him. These disgusting predators really know how to find the most vulnerable people as their prey. It’s horribly sad to know that Michael didn’t know who to turn to for help and yet when he did try to get help, those people that were supposed to help him did not. Even as an adult and trying to battle the Catholic church really was an uphill battle.
Kelly Long (Librarian and Goodreads Reviewer)
https://www.goodreads.com/…-kelly-long?utm_medium=api
Teach, Read, Inspire Review
This memoir tells the story of a young man’s decades-long struggle to remove himself from a brutally abusive relationship with his catholic priest. The priest groomed the author, Michael Roberts, starting when he was a teenager and a member of his parish. The priest forced his way into Michael’s family and was seen as a mentor by his parents when really he sexually, mentally and physically abusing their son. The priest had two personas and easily convinced people that he was a kind and caring leader in his community, when in reality he was a stealing, lying, sexually promiscuous, abusive alcoholic who took advantage of people, especially young boys.
One of the ways that the priest abused and controlled Michael was by manipulating elements of the Catholic religion to his advantage. Michael grew up in a devout Catholic family who revered religious leaders and believed homosexuality was a sin. The priest took advantage of this by using his sexual desires and power differential to convince Michael to be complicit in sexual acts and then used those acts as blackmail or a threat to out him to his parents as gay. Michael tried to strike up a positive relationship with someone in his community who was well known and liked and should be a mentor and caregiver, but was taken advantage of and abused in several ways. As a result of this abusive relationship Michael was not able to have healthy romantic or platonic relationships, was raped and abused by several of the priest’s friends, and struggled to financially support himself. While there are many gruesome parts to this story, arguably the worst is when Michael finally comes forward about his abuse and is completely ignored by several members of the church, including one who listened to his report and then went on to rape him. This memoir brought the deeply rooted problems and denial of the Catholic church into broad daylight.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this tremendous memoir. I would recommend it for anyone who is interested in learning more about the Catholic abuse scandal and first person accounts of abusive relationships and the impact these relationships have on the victim’s life.
Angie Kuhnle (Educator)
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
https://teachreadinspire.wixsite.com/website/post/behind-sacred-walls
