Hi, My father is a Catholic priest who has spent my whole life trying to cover up my existence as I am a living example of the fact he failed his celibacy vow – he refused to meet me until I was fourteen and I’ve only seen him a handful of times since. Last year I found out about a group called Coping International who support Catholic priests children around the world and through them found out that there are thousands of RC priests children who are being silenced – sometimes in awful ways – in all countries where Catholic priests are living because their existence shows a failure of the celibacy vow. I have written a book about my experiences called ‘Dying to be Free’ which has just been published by O Books (http://www.amazon.com/Dying-Be-Free-Enforced-Transformation/dp/1785352547/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1463839415&sr=8-2&keywords=dying+to+be+free), which explains how I only came to understand this important phenomenon after a near-fatal accident in 1998 resulting in weeks in hospital healing from internal injuries. I had a near death experience following the accident and understood during that time that God doesn’t want people to use his name to reject their own children. This is really important. There is an absence of love occurring when priests reject and silence their own children using God’s name and their profession as an excuse, and this is very harmful to the priests children as well as the priests. Coping International has detailed the various abuses, psychological affects and violations of human rights that this entails on their website (copinginternational.com). I know that my experience happened to make me understand that far from being unloved I am very loved, and as a society we need to peacefully raise awareness about priests’ children and help the church to embrace them, not harm them; they need loving and cherishing from the moment they’re born not rejecting and shaming. This all needs to be done with forgiveness and compassion for any true and effective change to take place. I don’t blame my father as in the bigger picture he was caught up in a system of secrecy and silence that already exists – a systemic change is needed within the RC Church to allow these men to be good fathers and love their children with pride, It’s not the priests who are failing the vow, its the church that is failing the priests by having the mandatory vow of celibacy in the first place. The sociologist Richard Sipe has estimated that only 50% of Catholic priests are celibate at any one time, which explains why there are so many hidden priests children. This is a global problem and is happening in all countries where there are Catholic priests. I would love any advice on how to peacefully raise awareness of this issue because it would help to bring this secret phenomenon that is harming thousands round the world out into the open so it can be sorted out. The biggest goal would be for mandatory celibacy to be made optional for Catholic priests, as it is for Anglican ones, so that they can be encouraged to truly love their own children, as I believe this is the message God wants us to know. Thanks so much for your time and I hope to hear from you, Hannah