Mimi Bull

Mimi Bull grew up in New England, the adopted daughter of an older single mother who raised her alongside her adult "sister" who she later learned was her biological mother. Mimi's memoir (now out from Bauhan Publishing) tells the story of growing up the unacknowledged child of a Catholic priest and what that meant to her as a child, her mother, and her own children.

The book describes Mimi’s early family life, being raised by two women, with “Fr. Hip” their parish priest and her guardian. But the book focuses on how things changed when she learned that nothing she was told as a child was true. In this way, as well as being an unusual personal story, Celibacy addresses universal themes of hiding secrets, depression, marriage, the importance of claiming one’s roots and identity.… (más)

Mimi Bull's memoir tells her story as the unrecognized child of a priest and a single mother. She was officially "adopted" by her biological grandmother and thus was able to spend her life with her birth mother (who she thought was her adopted sister) and have a close relationship with her biological father, the local parish priest. Yet she always felt precarious in her situation and as an adult was haunted by depression and feelings that something in her life was missing. It wasn't until the death of her birth mother that she learned the whole story and was able to come to terms with her background.

This book begins and ends with Mimi writing a letter to Pope Francis asking that the Church provide official recognition of the children of priests. Because of the official Church policy of celibacy, these children have been forced to hide their backgrounds and deny their true parentage. Only in the past few years, as Mimi Bull approached her 80s, was she able to find support and a community of people who grew up in her situation. Her story is a valuable one. But because her parents were so determined to keep their secrets, she doesn't know much about their actual relationship and what brought them together. She speculates on how they must have felt and why they did what they did, and she writes about how their actions affected her life and made her both a confident, sophisticated world traveler and subjected her to deep depressions. Fortunately, her life has been an interesting one, and her writing is very good. But unfortunately, the story of her parents is one she has to piece together decades after the fact based on memories and impressions and guesswork rather than relying on first-person or even second-hand accounts.… (más)