**Listen to the StoryCorps interview here**

A clergy abuse survivor, former nun, Catholic elementary school principal, lesbian, gay rights activist, competitive ballroom dancer, and author all walk into a bar …

The “crowd” is just one person: Mary Dispenza. Her story is compelling—rich and complex in the relationships between how our society views sexuality, the roles of women, organized religion, activism, and child sexual abuse.

 

 

 

I’ve known Mary for years, but I had the ultimate honor of interviewing her for StoryCorps in 2014. You can listen to the piece here. We talk about how sexuality—as defined by others—has been a recurrent theme in her life. We also talked about family, love and loss. We both cried.

A blog post can’t do justice to Mary’s intricacy. You can’t talk about her abuse without talking about why she became a nun. You can’t talk about why she left the convent unless you talk about her passion for education. You can’t talk about her life as an adult Catholic without talking about her sexuality. You can’t talk about her activism without talking about her huge and unconditional love for her family. And really, you can’t get to the loving and multi-faceted heart of who she is without seeing this juxtaposition:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

… or without mentioning her amazing wife Mary Ann.

The Book

I discussed Mary’s book SPLIT before in an earlier post. It’s a worthy read. With the recent release and huge praise of the film SPOTLIGHT, we tend to forget that the faces of the clergy abuse crisis are diverse and compelling—men and women, gay and straight, of every color and socio-economic background (and even non-Catholics).

But Mary’s story is so much more than just a tale of abuse and recovery. In many ways it’s a story of all of us: how our authentic selves are a work in progress. How we evolve. How we grow.

And how we do it from a place of love.

It’s only .99 for the Kindle.  Don’t have a Kindle? You don’t need one – but you can buy them here:

 

The next time someone tells you that “Pope Francis is different” when it comes to child sexual abuse, invite that person to think about this:

If you steal a few Vatican documents and expose corruption, you WILL go to Vatican jail.

From today’s LA Times

The books, both by Italian journalists, are based on leaks from the Vatican and follow the arrests over the weekend of a Spanish priest and an Italian public relations consultant suspected of supplying the authors with stolen documents.

Father Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, 54, remains in jail at the Vatican, but consultant Francesca Chaouqui, 33, was released after her arrest by Vatican police.

BUT – If you sexually abuse children or cover up abuse, you will NOT go to the Vatican hoosegow. But the Vatican will put aside money to “accelerate things.”

From The New York Times, June 10, 2015

Father Lombardi said the tribunal would also examine some of the abuse cases perpetrated by clergy members that were “still pending” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. “They are still very numerous and have accumulated,” he said. The tribunal will “accelerate” matters, he said, noting that money had been set aside to bolster the new section.

If Francis truly wanted to punish child sex abusers or their enablers, he would. But he won’t.

The arrests and jailing of Balda and Chaouqui proves that the Vatican is doing little more than providing “lip service” to victims and Catholics who want accountability. That is totally unacceptable.