In April of 1984, I was sexually abused by the assistant pastor of my Roman Catholic parish. I was sitting in his office counseling about my painful childhood when he said to me, "I'd really like to go to bed with you, but I think it would destroy us both." A year and a half later, he propositioned me again. As part of my healing, I wrote a book about my experiences. My book is out of print, but it is now posted in it's entirety here. 

The online edition is in Arial/Geneva type.

Internet Edition
April 5, 2000

ALL SHALL BE WELL moved to its own web site on 1/26/03.

I wish to dedicate this story to:

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of those oppressed by the institutional church, who has shown herself to truly be a loving mother to me

Father Mike, who inspired my finding my voice as a writer and my learning desktop publishing

Father Mike's community who have added the word "stonewall" to my vocabulary

Corinne Taylor, who midwifed this story as I have lived it, teaching me to believe in myself and listening to me on the phone as much as my mother would have if she'd been able

John, my brother, who loves me and who gave me the computer on which this was written

Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O., who taught me not only how to pray centering prayer but also the value of humiliation

All those who have supported me and Father Mike with their prayers and their listening over the nine years we have known each other.
 

I am choosing to typeset this using the type face CHICAGO since both Father Mike and I were born in Chicago in 1944.

The photographs are my own.  Each is copyrighted!

The clip art is by Sister Jean Morningstar, SNJM.

Copyright  1992-2003 by Mary Isabel Steele
 

First Edition printed under the title
        Women Make Up Stories about Priests Who Refuse To Go To Bed with Them: One Survivor's Story of Clergy Sexual Abuse

   First Printing  December, 1992

   Second Printing  January, 1993

   Second Edition  June, 1993

Nine years ago today I was sexually abused by a Catholic priest to whom I'd gone for pastoral counseling.  He didn't rape me.  He never even touched me.  He said,  "I'd really like to go to bed with you, but I think it would destroy us both."  Just those words, along with his second proposition and many, many lies have colored every day of my life since.  This is the story of my abuse and my recovery to date.  It has been written over a period of four and a half years.  It includes, fiction and non fiction, poetry and prose.  Those who have tried skipping around reading snatches here and there in earlier editions report it has made no sense to them whatsoever.  I do highly recommend reading it beginning to end, as it was written, in chronological order.

Many who have read the earlier edition found, no matter what order they read it in, it made little sense to them.  It is a story about incest and about forgiveness, two little understood topics!  It contains some of Father Mike's lies and double messages, things I have never  been able to understand!    It is also a story of God's grace.  Years ago I learned that a reader's response to my writing is usually more about her or his own journey than about what I have written!  I pray you may be able to understand what I've written and that you find it a gift.
 

Mary I. Steele
Albuquerque, New Mexico
April 12, 1993
 
 

table of contents	1988