Confessions of a Gay Priest

A Memoir of Sex, Love, Abuse, and Scandal in the Catholic Seminary

Tom Rastrelli

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781609387099
• eBook ISBN: 9781609387105
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Tom Rastrelli is a survivor of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse who then became a priest in the early days of the Catholic Church's ongoing scandals. Confessions of a Gay Priest divulges the clandes­tine inner workings of the seminary, providing an intimate and unapologetic look into the psychosexual and spiritual dynamics of celibacy and lays bare the "formation" system that perpetuates the cycle of abuse and cover-up that continues today.

Under the guidance of a charismatic college campus minister, Rastrelli sought to reconcile his homosexuality and childhood sexual abuse. When he felt called to the priesthood, Rastrelli be­gan the process of "priestly discernment." Priests welcomed him into a confusing clerical culture where public displays of piety, celibacy, and homophobia masked a closeted underworld in which elder priests preyed upon young recruits.

From there he ventured deeper into the seminary system seeking healing, hoping to help others, and striving not to live a double life. Trained to treat sexuality like an addiction, he and his brother seminarians lived in a world of cliques, competition, self-loathing, alcohol, hidden crushes, and closeted sex. Ultimately, the "for­mation" intended to make Rastrelli a compliant priest helped to liberate him.

PART I

ST. STEPHEN, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYR

Patron Saint of Stonemasons 1994–96

As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and when he said this, he fell asleep.

—Acts of the Apostles 7:59–60

AUDITION

Stuck between my parents, I knelt in a pew with my two sisters and brother. I hadn’t been to Mass since transferring to the University of Northern Iowa in the fall. On an earlier campus visit, Mom and I had walked by the red brick building without realizing it was a Catholic church. It looked like a cross between a bank and a Pizza Hut. Now, students packed the nave. Some were dressed up. Others wore the usual college grunge. I stared at the neck of the guy in front of me, trying not to nick his collar with my folded hands. My parents made the sign of the cross and sat back into the pew. I crossed myself to appear as if I’d been praying and followed suit.

They were in town for Theatre UNI’s spring run of Shaw’s Saint Joan. I had the role of Brother Martin Ladvenu, Joan of Arc’s Franciscan confessor. He had the honor of holding the cross before her eyes as her own Church incinerated her. Hoping to be the next Al Pacino, I’d followed my director’s instructions for “method acting.” He’d shown me a clip from the documentary Faces of Death, in which a Vietnam War protestor burned himself to death. I’d scoured the library for accounts of Joan’s trial and execution. The only thing I hadn’t done was interview a priest about his life. No need. Everything I’d researched convinced me priests were hypocrites.

A young woman smiled from the wooden lectern that matched the pew’s wheat stain. “Welcome to St. Stephen the Witness Catholic Student Center. No matter where you’re from, we’re glad you’re here.” My dad nudged me. Below black wavy hair, brown eyes, and silver glasses resting on his self-proclaimed “Italian schnoz,” he offered a satisfied grin. I smiled back. Whatever.

“Please rise and welcome one another, especially anyone who is new,” the woman said. I shrunk into the rigid pew. Someone was bound to reveal I was new.

My parents knew I was frustrated with the Church. For years, our discussions about religion had ended with Dad’s irritated surrender and Mom’s silence. They didn’t know I’d quit Catholicism. I’d tried the Lutheran, Methodist, and fundamentalist Christian churches. God was the same patriarchal bastard everywhere.

Dad tapped my shoulder. I stood and hunched to offer him a partial hug and tap on the back. He kissed me on the cheek. Italians. Now everyone would think we were gay.

“I love you,” he said.

I didn’t believe him. Throughout my childhood, he’d worked sixteen-hour days at our family’s Italian restaurant. “The business” and the “good family name” came first. Now, he had his newfound sales career. He loved work, not me. I turned to Mom, but he grasped my shoulders. He forced me to meet his gaze. “I mean it, Tommy. I love you.”

“I love you too,” I lied.

The priest preached forever. I made use of the wasted time by silently running through my lines. At Communion, I did as Dad had taught: I stepped out of the pew into the aisle and extended my open palm, letting Mom and my sisters go first. I took the host by hand but skipped the flu-magnet chalice. After singing every verse of not one but two songs during Communion, the congregation sat waiting for the mustached priest to stand. I checked my watch. We were seventy-two minutes into the Mass. At home, the entire liturgy took forty-five minutes. But we weren’t done. The priest stood and meandered about the aisles rattling off upcoming events at the student center. When he mentioned the choir, Mom, who was an elementary school music teacher, smiled at me. Interested parties were to sign up in the lobby on something the priest called “the ugly orange piece of furniture.” Everyone laughed. I felt like I’d been transported into The Bells of St. Mary’s.

My dad whispered, “He seems cool.”

I wanted to say, I’m sure the little boys he’s screwing think so. I nodded.

“Have you met him?” Mom added. I kept nodding.

I’d seen the priest once. My art history professor had taken my class into the newly erected St. Stephen’s to view its “prize-winning minimalist design,” lack of stained glass, and icons. I’d never seen icons in a church. At home, we had faded statues that shed paint chips the size of Communion wafers. Minutes into our visit, the short priest with glasses, puffy salt-and-pepper hair, and a mustache, had huffed across the chapel. “You need to go,” he said to my professor. “Our daily Mass is in twenty-five minutes.”

Throughout the announcements, the congregation and my parents laughed at the priest’s jokes. After ten minutes, he concluded by introducing a visiting choir director. They’d met in the early seventies while studying music at Mount Saint Clare College in my hometown, Clinton, Iowa. Mom majored in music there in the late sixties. I’d gone to preschool there. Mom’s cousin, a Franciscan nun, had lived there. Nuns, priests, and parishioners had frequented our house. My parents would want to meet the priest and his friend. They’d invite them to lunch. I wanted to choke myself to death on a missalette.

After the crowds dispersed, my parents cornered the priest in the back of the chapel and introduced themselves.

“Rastrelli?” his nasal baritone proclaimed. “I loved Rastrelli’s Restaurant.” He jabbed my arm, “You’ve been holding out on me, son.”

I smiled through my guilt as they combed through shared acquaintances. Then it hit him: in 1974, a young Rastrelli mother with flowing blonde hair and a little girl had roamed the college showing off a newborn boy. He had held me in his arms.

His brown eyes scanned me. I silently pleaded, Don’t say, Where have you been all year?

He could have humiliated me, but he didn’t. He let my parents believe what they wanted: Father Scott Bell and I were buddies.

AN ACTOR PREPARES

From a futon across the smoky dorm room, some theatre and music majors cackled. They were drunk or high. I didn’t know the difference. Outside of sipping Dad’s traditional Chianti at family dinners, I’d had maybe ten drinks my entire life. I’d never been buzzed. I was frightened of what I’d do, what others might discover.

Jonathan swigged Boone’s Farm while holding court from his ratty armchair. The others shared cigarettes and bottles as he outed the music majors he’d blown. I sipped Cherry Coke and watched the news, trying to appear uninterested.

On the TV, a boy with a Muppet-like voice spoke. “He’s adorable,” I said.

“Who knew?” Jonathan said. “Tom’s a pedophile.”

A pain like nothing I’d felt before shot through my gut. “Shut the fuck up,” I yelled.

Jonathan jumped up. Booze splashed from his bottle. He had four inches and eighty pounds on me. He released a smoky laugh, “Whatever, pedophile.” The others laughed.

I shoved him into a dresser and ran into the hallway. He pursued me shouting, “Pedophile.” I slid into my room and bolted the door. He pounded on the wood.

“Shut up,” I howled at the door.

“I fucking hate you, pedophile,” he yelled and left.

The pain in my gut spread. My chest tightened, as if breathing might make my heart explode. I gasped for air and curled up on the cold linoleum.

The violence exploding from me made no sense. I needed my best friend and roommate Tobey. He’d understand. But he was on a drive with Jonathan’s boyfriend, Kent. I knew what happened on drives with Tobey. Blow jobs. Just like the ones he’d been giving me for the past two years.

* * *

Tobey and I played Sega in the basement of my house. Lying in our sleeping bags on maraschino red carpet, we chatted and took turns with the game. In two weeks, I’d leave for my first year of college; Tobey would remain for one more year of high school. With a short pudgy frame, he was my physical opposite. He had the face of a little boy and the tongue of an old letch. We’d conversed about everything from eternal life to what finger we used to wipe our asses. Of all my friends, I feared leaving him most.

He tossed his controller aside and ran his fingers through his feathered black hair, “Why do Catholics believe Mary’s hymen didn’t break during Jesus’s birth?”

“We don’t believe that.”

“You do.” His brown eyes flashed in the TV’s light. “I read it in my dad’s books.”

He was a “PK,” pastor’s kid. His family belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest and most progressive Lutheran denomination, unlike the conservative Missouri and Wisconsin synods stippled across Iowa. Until Tobey, I’d thought all Lutherans were diet-Catholics.

Masked by the air conditioner’s growl, our theological discussion deepened and then morphed into talk of sex. Tobey adjusted the bulge in his sleeping bag. I adjusted mine, making sure he noticed. Our voices quieted. “I think mine’s small.” “I bet it isn’t.” “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.” “How do you jack off?” “Let me show you.” “That feels good.” “Have you ever fanaticized about, you know, blow jobs?” “I’ll do it if you do it.”

We flipped his Swiss Army knife to determine who’d go down first. The side with the cross-encrusted shield on it he designated as heads; the blank side, tails. The knife landed tails mere feet from where I’d touched my first penis, during kindergarten.

His name had been Jimmy. A girl at school had asked me to play “Under the Covers,” but I’d refused. A week later, I led Jimmy into the basement and played with him. My older sister, Jenny, caught us and tattled. Mom sat me down on the harvest green couch in the living room and explained that it was okay only for the doctor to touch me “down there.” Mom didn’t seem angry, but I heard something new in her soft voice: flatness, like disappointment or shame.

Tobey smelled of secondhand smoke, fabric softener, and a sweaty blanket. He tasted of salt and freedom. I didn’t think or hesitate. He fit in my mouth perfectly. It was the most natural thing I’d done. Until he came, triggering my gag reflex. I barfed into an empty Big Gulp cup. He tried to weasel out of reciprocating. I begged. He gave in. Pleasure and bliss eradicated my lifelong shame. As I was about to cum, he pulled away, leaving me to finish myself. I wiped off with some tissues and retreated to the bathroom to flush the evidence. When I returned, the basement was dark. I felt my way into my sleeping bag.

“We can’t do that again,” he said.

“I know.”

My parents had taught me to save myself for marriage. Dad told me to pray every night for a good wife. Staring into the darkness, I made the sign of the cross.

* * *

Lying on the floor of my dorm room, I couldn’t move. I’d transferred to Northern Iowa to be with Tobey. We’d been blowing each other, but there’d been no kissing. He claimed to be straight. I’d waited, trusting that his bodily response proclaimed the unspoken, real presence of love in his heart, but the argument with Jonathan had exposed my illusions.

Tobey was screwing Jonathan’s boyfriend. He’d probably given me AIDS. I lay there on our dusty floor, in the very spot where Tobey had topped me. When I’d tried to enter him, he’d spazzed out. He didn’t want me inside of him. I was infected. Queer. Faggot. Sinner.

I pounded the linoleum. Why had God made me like this? Did God even care? God didn’t defend my family after my parents withdrew us from the Catholic school because the male teacher had harassed my sister. The parish shunned us and old schoolmates threw rocks through our windows. When Alzheimer’s was deleting Grandma Rastrelli’s memories and she called the house, sobbing because she’d found another copy of Grandpa’s twenty-five-year-old obituary, God didn’t comfort her. I did. God didn’t answer my family’s prayers during the farm crisis that drained the restaurant of business. Dad declared bankruptcy a week before I graduated high school. God wasn’t there when Dad’s siblings parted ways. The family that prayed together didn’t stay together.

Dad would cut me off if he knew about Tobey. Mom would mutely follow. I deserved it. I’d thought the boy on the news was cute. Was I destined to abuse children? According to the televangelists, that’s what gay men did. My family couldn’t know me. Tobey did, and he didn’t love me. I was a transfer student from a community college that was a glorified high school with ashtrays. I couldn’t even get a leading role at the University of Fucking Northern Iowa. I’d never make it on Broadway.

I searched the room. Everything reeked of Tobey: the movie posters we loved, the couch where we sucked, and his jar of Vaseline on the dresser. I dug through my toiletries. Tylenol? Too weak. I needed something serious. How many slices would a disposable razor take? I’d never contemplated suicide. It felt strangely exhilarating, powerful.

But I hated blood. And pain. As a kid, I feared shots. I hated that doctor, his oily mustache, rubber gloves, and nurse, who wiggled the needle.

What about the theatre? I could dive from the catwalk onto the main stage. But it was locked. Even in suicide, I was a failure.

I curled up on the floor again. Hours passed. I stared at the baseboards. Tobey didn’t return.

In the milk crates under the TV, I noticed my Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast videotapes. I’d watched them with my little sister and brother, Maria and Jeff. What would committing suicide teach them? That it was okay to give up, to be a failure? But I was a failure at being Catholic, at being straight. Still, they loved me. Could God? I hadn’t prayed in a ye...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• Part I: St. Stephen, The First Christian Martyr, Patron Saint of Stonemasons, 1994–96
• Part II: St. Pius X, Pope, Patron Saint of First Communicants and Pilgrims, 1996–98
• Part III: St. Mary, Mother of God, Patron Saint of Crusaders, Needle and Pin Makers, and Virgins, 1998–2002
• Part IV: St. Jude, the Apostle, Patron Saint of Lost Causes, 2002–3
• Part V: Resurrection, 2003–4
• Part VI: Beautiful Child, 2019
• Acknowledgments