By Boy X who has written anonymously for us before.

Comboni Missionaries Sexual Abuse

Firstly, I would just like to thank you gerambo for your wishes to me in what you posted on 27th Dec. I must admit that what you said regarding closing down part of my personalty, is something I had never heard of before.

I have been thinking a lot about it since. Initially i felt a bit uncomfortable about the idea, I don’t really know why,

Maybe fear of my memories, or fear of the memories I have still to remember. I know they’re there because lately I have remembered some things.

Mostly about my feelings, my feelings when certain things happened. Frightening feelings. Feelings that became worse as time went by.

Even after the sexual abuse stopped, things got worse. Maybe I was gone in my mind by then. The memories that frighten me the most are memories about my last year in Mirfield.

I know I was a mess and, thinking back, it surprises me now that I wasn’t asked to leave during that time and not told by letter to my parents during the Summer.

Clerical Abuse by Comboni Missionaries

It was in my first year there that they started on me and by the time I reached my last year there, i was living a nightmare and clinging in desperation to my friends.

I sometimes wonder what my friends thought of me. I never told any of them what was going on. I was too ashamed to do that.

I still feel shame and that’s the main reason I’ve always writen anonymously. I think I may have eventually said who I am but I wrote about what I was doing in London.

How do I tell my friends I did that?

I can’t. I wish I had never writen it.

Expelled from Mirfield by Comboni Missionaries

The strange thing is, if that letter hadn’t come,saying I shouldn’t return, I think I would have returned. I can’t say I really understand that .

I’m not sure if it was after my first year or after my second year, when the summer holiday were ending and I was due to go back, I told my parents that I didn’t want to go back.

I think it must have been the day before I was suppose to go back that I told them. Anyway, when the day came, I didn’t go. Sometime during that day, I changed my mind, I can’t remember why.

Returning to Mirfield

So my mother phoned Mirfield and made some excuse and she was told I could return a day late, so that’s what I did.

I’ve always been aware of what happened regarding the abuse but maybe it’s all the pain and confusion in my mind because of it that I buried things within me.

I don’t know. Hopefully I will find out.

Psychological Help

Although I haven’t been given a date yet, I am going to be seeing a psycholgist, perhaps things will change. One thing that has helped me a lot is talking with Mark over the phone and writing down everything I do remember.

I decided to do that after I first had something posted on the blog. Nearly all what I’ve writen is just for myself. Trying to get some order in my mind.

Bishop Ceresoli

I’ve been trying to figure out what was going on with me concerning Father Ceresoli while I was at Mirfield. I’ve been looking through the blog to see if anyone else had any particular problem with him. I found two mentions, one refering to Fr. Ceresoli as a psychopath and another refering to him by the writer as one of the most evil people he has ever met.

I can think of a few reasons why he might have affected me so much,so much so that I have always looked on Ceresoli as some sort of monster.

I remember that it was quite a long time before Ceresoli had any effect on me, maybe because while in the juniors, I had relatively little to do with him or he with me.

Sexually Abused by Fr. Pinkman

Perhaps by the time I had been sexually abused so many times I was probably too weak, too vulnerable to be able to cope with his vile evil ways.

Perhaps if the sexual abuse had never happened, I would have been able to cope with him, maybe not.

Maybe his cold uncaring attitude to me might not have impacted on me too much. Maybe it would.

I know that emotional abuse can destroy your mind , destroy your life just like any abuse can.

But then I think, and I’ve said it before, Ceresoli knew I was having problems, so wasn’t that the time for him to show some concern – at least to ask me what was wrong?

Not that I would have told him, but he never even asked. All I got was ridicule. Does it take special training for an adult to know when a kid is hurting? Maybe a psychopath doesn’t see the hurt, or if seeing the hurt, doesn’t care.

Give Me the Boy

Then another notion pops into my head, perhaps it’s something I saw on the blog, I can’t remember, but perhaps not. The system itself. Changing the saying slightly, ‘ Give me a boy for a few years and I’ll show you the man’.

Treat a kid with harshness, and if he survives, the desired outcome may be achieved, an automaton. Is that what Ceresoli is? Is that what they all are?

To hell with those who don’t survive but say a prayer for them anyway?

But who knows? I don’t. I’m just speculating,just beginning. I know I’m still all over the place with my thinking but I want to understand what happened to me.

I need to understand. Whatever it takes, I’m determined to do that.

Read Boy X’s Story by Clicking on My Last Goodbye

Comboni Missionaries Other Names

They are known in English-speaking countries as the Comboni MIssionaries (ex-Verona Fathers), in Italy as Missionari Comboniani, in Spanish-speaking countries as Misioneros Combonianos, in German-speaking countries as Comboni-Missionare and in Portuguese-speaking countries as Missionarios Combonianos.