Bringing

Down The

House
Tom Matlack talks to a sexual abuse survivor who helped
expose the Catholic Churchs cover-up.
Tom Matlack talks to a sexual abuse survivor who helped
expose the Catholic Churchs cover-up.

In the fall of 1997, I was introduced to a gentle, funny man who had
a photographic memory for Hollywood birthdays. Princess, as many
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trust and upon whom I relied. He would take my late-night phone calls
whenever I felt myself sinking in my troubled personal life as a divorced
father of two small children.

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and now, I hope I have been a compassionate friend to Princess as the story unfolded on the


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My personal life improved from those early days, but I somehow sensed that my friend was
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the scandal had impacted him, but I generally listened and tried to provide encouragement.

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birthday?

Q: What is a good man?



Q: What have you learned about yourself in the last years by going through the process that
you have?
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thought, wow, I have a lot of work to do.

Q: How about your ability to trust?

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power in my life. For forty years I had all this guilt and felt like I was responsible. Now, I look
at it as a crime perpetrated against me that should never have happened. But thats not how
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changes. Ironically, I can now trust more easily.
Q: What inspired you at the very beginning to confront this?

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crime to happen and for someone to get away with it. So I think every voice counts.

Q: How has all this changed how you view mens capacity for evil?

more hopeful?

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people who helped me, people who did kind things for other people
going through this. I feel more hopeful about the human race.

Q: What do you think about how this issue plays into the kind of
sexuality in our country right now? It seems like theres this explo-

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in porn. Most hotel chains do that.

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Q: I believe that one of the reasons the Catholic Church was able to get away with the cover-

,

expressed in our country?

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But I mean, if you think about it, priests, the Catholic Church, theyre not supposed to be hav-

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I dont believe for a minute that theyre sincere or sorry that these crimes have been commit-
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Q: What was supposed to go on in the hospitals? Were they sup-

posed to cure them?

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there be a need for sevenhospitals?

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who dont rape children. So, I dont know.

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your way through?

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was very helpful, because I hadnt seen him in almost twenty years, and I walked into a court-



On a certain level it helped me forgive him. Hes really mentally ill, and he has no idea that he
did anything wrong or immoral. He really thinks he did the right thing, that he was helpful to
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and I didnt want to, but I said I would do it. Eventually they decided not to have any former


But the reason why I said I would do it is because I thought it could help put him away.
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bered them.

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feel about that now? Do you feel like thats been repaired?

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dont feel like Im falling apart like I did when I started doing the work on this. I certainly
dont feel like Ive got this big secret weighing me down that Im carrying around like I did for
so many years before I dealt with it.

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I dont see myself that way.
Q: So what advice do you have when you talk to other people who are struggling with this
experience?

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owned him.

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person. He was older than me, but very baby-faced, and I thought he must have been so
,

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would you go to your mother about something that happened twenty years ago, unless you
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But he eventually, literally, drank himself to death. I remember when he died, I thought,
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havior, a lot of wasted lives because of child rape.

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Q: What do you think that people who are not survivors should know about the whole
experience?

//

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ciety. Nobody wants to talk about it, because most people


abused someone.

I think theres a real need for society in general to be

educated about the whole process. I dont know how that
would happen, but theres so much depression and rage
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children. I know its one of the reasons they should hear about it, but I think its one of the
reasons that makes them uncomfortable.

^^

About Tom Matlack

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5-year-old sons. His wife, Elena, is the love of his life.

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commentary on a whole slew of topics for men and about men
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