"Spotlight" gave me nightmares

I watched Spotlight and it was weird to hear Fr. Callahan's name come up. Basically there are three Jesuit priests who heavily influenced me and who I respected immensely even though I did not consider myself a Catholic when I knew them. I was baptized, but I never got into it, and when i went to Nativity, I just thought that Buddhism was more reasonable.. but actually all I really considered Buddhism, was just meditation. I wouldn't say I am atheist now, I could still consider myself Catholic, or ai Do Catholicism, like a walk, or I swim, or I do Kung Fu , or White Crane or Hung Bak Choi, I don;t see such rigid lines.

But in any case. The first Priest I talked and philosophized most with was Fr. Cullen. In highschool I got a letter from Nativity that there had been an accusation against him that he had asked a boy to touch his penis and that it had been settled out of court. Some of the Nativity Alumn I talked to were pissed because they said, "That never happened." But I said, "Why would someone lie about that? For money?" It's possible. But I do remember him taking a well developed boy aside when we were changing, which was strange and, in full view of everyone, admiring his muscles etc. But at the time I didn't think anything of it.

Anyway, a lot of what I heard about the studies about why priests may molest boys was from  him too. He taught in class that if you cut off the possibility of marriage, that in a certain number of priests they will have these thoughts and perversions.

Okay. So I still have fond memories of Fr. Cullen, despite the accusation, but if he did that, obviously that is wrong. And based on what I saw myself, and the code words of being put out to retirement homes. It's possible. In fact, it's likely isn't it? But I just don't want to admit it to myself.

Fr. Callahan... I wrote a whole speech about how much I respected him at a B.C. High Fr. Callahan dinner which got a standing ovation, which was initiated by Mike Barnacle. Fr. Callahan once said to me, "There will always be room in Jesuit order for you if you decide to take that route." He said that even though at the time I was not Catholic. My Mother was proud, because she was.. though lapsed.. and also more Buddhist by then. But still that was how she was raised.

His name popped up in the movie, and it wasn't that he had done anything, but it was implied that maybe he knew something about it and was part of the system that protects priests that are abusers... I don't know.


So the last priest that is the hero of my childhood is Fr. Hick's, who spoke at my mother's funeral. Some people would say we didn't have a funeral. I say we had simple one at the grave site.

He taught Algebra in the Middle East and was very open minded. He always seemed to be a priest that, yes was part of the church, but was simultaneously outside of it. I can't imagine that we would have anything to do with any of this.

Now of course there are a lot of younger priests who wouldn't have anything to do with this either but honestly, I have never found any of them to be very inspiring.

In any case I had a nightmare about Fr. Cullen after watching Spotlight. It wasn't my first nightmare about him. The first one he had a heart attack in the dream and I tried to start his heart again by pushing on it, a cross between CPR and magic. It turned out, he had actually had a heart attack right around the same time I had the dream.

But in this dream, (he has passed away now for almost 5 years or so) he appeared as a shadow... a demon version of himself. I had my fists up to defend my self, to jab into the demon face to protect myself from getting close. But at the same time i appealed to his other side crying out, "Help!" but I was cursed his demon side so I said, "Help me motherfucker!" it was a strange thing to cry out but I cried it out as loud as I could over and over... which came out as barely a whisper. or something.. in any case it was loud enough that Grace heard me and said, "Honey!" and woke me up from my nightmare. We started cracking up because that was some craziness.