Unholy Rites: The Sexual Torture of a Little Boy

By John Davis

In 1957, the life of a seven-year-old Sydney boy was about to be torn asunder. For five years little John Davis was raped, intoxicated, drugged and lied to by a priest. The consequences were dire, including drug and alcohol abuse, self-harming, attempted suicide and severe mental illnesses which persist until this day. Remarkably, he has survived with deep Christian faith and his sanity intact.

This amazing true account will shock, alarm and infuriate. Johns courage, faith and successful unfaltering struggle for justice are both humbling and inspirational. This is a must read in our turbulent times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483612492

John Davis

John Davis is the author of two poetry collections, Gigs and The Reservist. He is a polio survivor and a Coast Guard veteran. Currently, he resides on an island in Puget Sound, Washington, and teaches high school while moonlighting in blues and rock 'n' roll bands.His poems have appeared in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review and many other literary journals.

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Copyright © 2016 by John Davis.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-1248-5

                eBook           978-1-4836-1249-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 01/22/2016

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CONTENTS

1 Acknowledgements

2 Why the Title?

3 Privacy for Significant Others

4 Introduction

5 Effects of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA)

6 Mental Health Warning, Disclaimer

7 Jesus, Jonquils and Joy

8 The Affable Priest

9 Enter the Demon

10 Grooming Mum and Dad

11 Grooming Me

12 Unholy Rites

13 My Body and Soul Debased

14 Anaesthetic, Insertions and Snapshots

15 Off Like a Shot

16 Self - Harming

17 Off the Rails

18 Bottoming Out

19 The Shattered Mirror

20 A Bit of a Loner

21 No Way to Start a Marriage

22 Alone Again, Naturally

23 Why We Remember Later

24 A New Start

25 Salvation and Redemption

26 Reconstruction

27 Quest for Justice

28 Beware of Grooming Efforts

29 What Worked for Me

30 Conclusion

1

Acknowledgements

M y gratitude goes to my wife, whose patience and love seem to know no bounds. The names of my support people are not revealed. My real name is not Joseph James, as I prefer to maintain my privacy. But I tell the truth in this book, so real names are irrelevant. In other words, the names of most others in this book -- other than the perpetrator of dark deeds -- are pseudonyms. To my psychiatrist, 'Dr Bill Smith', my sincere thanks for helping me heal over the years. To the staff and Chaplains at 'The Mental Hospital' in which I spent nine weeks, my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for pulling me back from the brink. Not to forget the caring professionals from the St George Sexual Assault Service at Kogarah, with whom I had quite a bit of counselling. And thanks to Sutherland Psychology. Respect and thanks to Jason Parkinson of Porters Lawyers in Canberra. He is one of Australia's best personal injury specialists, if not the very best. And he is very good at pursuing claims for survivors of clergy abuse. I recommend you consult him. And for my two surviving brothers, I am grateful because they have encouraged me greatly in my pursuit of jus tice.

My deep gratitude also goes to my Church family, who never cease to inspire and bless me. My thanks to Bernard of 'Broken Rites', a website dedicated to survivors of sexual abuse.

And on a spiritual level, my undying gratitude and humble thanks to my God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For he created me, and is now moulding me into just what He wants me to be. Whatever that may be is good enough for me. His eternal love restores me. I trust him, for he is the Master Builder of Master Builders of human lives.

2

Why the Title?

O ne of the many Holy Rites of the Catholic Church is or was called 'Extreme Unction'. The priest anoints the dead or dying, or in danger of death, with sacred oils and says certain prayers. The idea, basically, is to cleanse the departing or lingering soul of the subject, and to draw into a 'state of grace' the fading, lingering or departing soul of the person so that he or she will be admitted to heaven. That's it in a nutshell, though I hope I haven't oversimplified it. My sexual torturer told me that if I told anyone about what he made me do, I would go to hell if I died without the last rites or confession, in what he called a 'state of sin', as opposed to a 'state of grace'. He maintained that I would be committing a damning sin if I divulged. So on one occasion, he having sexually abused me in a particularly degrading way my natural rebelliousness and my desire for justice led me to confront him and tell him that I would tell my parents what he had done to me. He cautioned me, saying that little boys can die unexpectedly, and do indeed go to hell if not in a state of grace. He convinced this gullible innocent that he should give me what the Catholic Church called the 'Last R ites'.

How could I doubt him? After all, as I had been taught, he was a Vicar of Christ. As such, he was extremely powerful, and I was just a little boy. The whole thing almost literally scared me out of my wits, and contradicted the holy nature of the rites, so I have dubbed it 'Unholy Rites'. The rites are supposed to be holy, but the intention behind them was so wrong it was almost satanic. He tried to coerce an innocent little boy into a silence that would enslave him for life, and he almost succeeded.

But, as it sometimes turns out, coercion ultimately fails and fear is conquered (in the very long term, mind you!) so that at least in some respects, good triumphs over evil. It did for me, but it took 55 years. And I doubt that there can be any act as evil as sexually exploiting the trust, vulnerability and weakness of a small child, and that of his parents.

3

Privacy for Significant Others

I gave a lot of thought to whether significant others in my life should be named. In order to respect and protect those who really matter to me, I give no real names of significant ot hers.

4

Introduction

D ear reader, thank you for buying or borrowing this book. Now while the title might be catchy, this book is not about something nice. In fact, it's a true-life horror story. It doesn't make for pleasant bedtime reading, and is certainly not a coffee-table volume. Instead, it is about dark, depraved acts perpetrated deliberately and with meticulous planning and flawless execution on an innocent child.. . me.

Between 1958 and 1962 I was serially raped and molested in my own home -- that is, sexually tortured - by a paedophile priest. His name was Father Leonard John Henry.

*** Editor: please note: this man was born in 1918, so if still alive, would be almost 100 years old. I have been assured by the Catholic Church that he had no surviving relatives. As their records are usually reliable, I assume they are correct. For this reason, I feel confident in naming him. However, if naming him has potential for libel, or contravenes content requirements in some other way, please feel free to delete the name. I also left the name in case there are any readers who were his victims, in case they might wish to take action against the Church. I'll leave the final decision to you.***

There is some pretty scary stuff in this book, and there may be times when you may simply have to put it aside for a time. It may even be hard for you to conceive of anyone being so evil and twisted. But as already stated there is no fiction in this book. It is about the devastating effects those acts had on a little boy, and the damaged man he is now. The account of it all is my own true story. There are a number of reasons I want to tell it. First, it's important for my healing. Second, it's to let survivors know that there is hope. Third, it's a warning to parents about how easily they and their children can be groomed. Last, it is a warning to paedophiles that they are risking the loss of their welfare or lives from bush justice. My personal account deals with a subject which is not at all nice, one which