by Tom Rastrelli (University of Iowa Press 2020) $19.95; 328 pp. Though he’d always known that he liked boys, little Tommy Rastrelli pretended the opposite when he was in grade school because all good Catholics got married.
His family was devout, and Rastrelli never questioned God’s love — not even after he was repeatedly molested by a doctor in his Iowa hometown.
For several reasons, he never told his parents about the abuse, enduring it for years until he’d convinced them that he was too old for a pediatrician.
That God hadn’t saved him from a predator made Rastrelli slowly lose his faith … and his self-respect. He stopped attending Mass and began questioning the Church’s teachings.