NASHVILLE (TN)
Nashville Scene
By John Spragens
Gentlemen: It is 4:00 am and I could not sleep because I had another one of those nightmares. I thought I would take the time to share with you why."
That's how David Brown began the six-page letter he wrote to church officials in the early morning hours of June 4 of this year. He wrote it in an attempt to explain himself, to force three men from the Catholic Diocese of Middle Tennessee to understand what he had been going through, in stages, for almost a half-century now: the sleepless nights, the manic temper, the fear of intimacy, the shudder he feels when he remembers stale, smoky breath and scratchy whiskers rubbing against his face. The list goes on.
Brown didn't think he would send the letter—he never even planned to write it in the first place—but suddenly, it just made sense: dredge up the deepest, most painful memories and force himself, and others, to deal with them. Let a lawyer and two priest administrators know how it feels and smells and sounds to be 15, a lanky, trusting high school sophomore, and to lose your virginity—involuntarily—to a grown man. One you trusted. He wanted to explain what it's like to deal with the shameful stigma that, left to fester, turns into an angry, hurtful silence and haunts you for a lifetime.
The letter's three recipients, like most people, were probably never sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest. At least they're not saying so if they were. So they probably can't imagine what it would be like to go through such a terrifying experience. Who could?
But unlike most people, these men are used to dealing with this situation. They work for an organization that has employed multiple sex offenders over the past five decades. The Diocese of Middle Tennessee, like many offices of the Catholic Church nationwide, has seen its former priests investigated by law enforcement officials. It is currently fighting a lawsuit from two plaintiffs who claim they were molested by a former clergyman in Nashville who had left the priesthood.