Did something happen to you
When you were eleven?
Eddie joked a smile upon his face
Was I overstating things?
Milking it as they say
No I wasn’t
What happened was a disgrace
I lost my home and family
Taken from the fold
Put in airy monasteries
Forbidding and so cold
I lost the keys to my own life
Before I ever got them
Do this do that from hereon in
My own will was forgotten
Removed from normal places
Corralled inside the church
No local pals no local girls
Normality not much
Programmed for the celibate life
Obey and carry on
A boy went in a boy came out
The seminary song
Brian Fahy
3 March 2023
+ When you are inside a system it can be very hard to critique it clearly. You have vested interests and cannot comfortably entertain criticism. When you get outside the system then you can begin to see more clearly what its faults were. Roman Catholic seminary system took away from me my family and my local life. It also took away my freedom, urging me into the way of obedience and self- denial in ways that Jesus never intended. I was conditioned into priesthood and religious life before I ever knew what life in this world is about.
Erris Poetry 