MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
By Kevin Cullen / Globe Columnist /
In 1994, seven years before the clergy sexual abuse scandal exploded, Robert Costello sent a letter to Pope John Paul II.
“Dear Holy Father,” it began, “When I was a small boy of about 10 years old, I was sexually abused by our parish priest. The abuse lasted for over four years. At the time, what was happening to me was extremely frightening. I was very battered on the inside and very cold on the outside.”
Costello was an altar boy at St. Theresa’s in West Roxbury, and a predator in a Roman collar named John Cotter routinely molested him. Cotter would follow him into the pool and put his hands down his swim trunks.
“On the inside, I was dead,” Costello wrote to the pope.
Costello felt a shame he could share with no one. He started stealing drinks from his grandfather’s liquor cabinet.
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