'In Treatment' star Gabriel Byrne reveals childhood abuse

Blames Catholic celibacy vows for priests' cruelty

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Gabriel Byrne as therapist Paul Weston in HBO's "In Treatment"

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“So celibacy is a man-made thing. And so you had these people who give up the possibility of human contact and warmth, and you have them in front of 50 kids, and they’re told that they can hit with impunity and that discipline is to be meted out for any transgression or perceived transgression. So the stage was set for all kinds of abuse, both physical and sometimes more than that.”

Byrne is referring to the more severe abuse he suffered when he was 11-years-old, which he first revealed last year in a gripping interview with Ireland’s RTE Radio.

"I was taken advantage of in a very vulnerable situation where I was being told the facts of life," Byrne said. "Physical boundaries were crossed, let's say."

The inappropriate contact involved "touching and closeness rather than anything more overt than that," added Byrne, who was far too frightened at the time to reveal the treachery to his parents.

The horribleness Byrne experienced, he said, didn't inflict long term damage, but it stayed with him to the point where he actually looked up and called the criminal cleric some years ago in a retirement home.

"I asked if he remembered me and he said no. Then I said to him, 'Do you remember a kid from Dublin who was really good at Latin?'

"He said, 'Did you have black hair?' I said yes and gave him my name again. He said, 'The only person I know of that name is a film star,' and I said, 'Well, that's me.' Then there was silence on the other end of the phone."

Byrne never chose to pursue any kind of action against the abuser. "I thought, should I do anything about this? I decided no. What is the point?"

The one thing Byrne does credit the Catholic church for is their high regard for theater, his passion.

“One thing that the Catholic Church did give me was a tremendous sense of appreciation of the theater, because they truly understand theater,” he said.

“I mean if you’ve ever stood in St. Peter’s Square and watched the Pope come out onto that balcony, or if you watched the funeral of the last Pope, he was himself a former actor in Warsaw, in Poland, you know, dressed like that, with that hat on him, going out surrounded by thousands of extras on the set designed by Michelangelo and Bellini - I mean he had the greatest gig of all time. And the church truly understands what theater is and what it is to control and manipulate - sometimes for good, sometimes not - vast crowds.”

You can catch the talented Irish actor as therapist Paul Weston in HBO’s “In Treatment” Sunday and Monday nights.

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