Altar Boy: A Story of Life After Abuse
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Altar Boy: A Story of Life After Abuse (Penguin Ireland, 2003, ISBN 1-84488-002-8) is an autobiography by Andrew Madden.
Altar Boy is the story of a young boy who was sexually abused by a priest and how he slowly came to terms with the abuse and began to recover.
Andrew Madden was a 12-year-old when he became an altar boy. He wanted to become a priest, but his love of the Roman Catholic Church was destroyed when Father Ivan Payne, a priest he knew well, started to sexually abuse him.
He was abused for three years, the nightmare only stopping when he was fifteen. He received no support from the church, and had great difficulty in having normal sexual relationships. He also became an alcoholic.
He finally went public with his story and eventually received financial compensation.
