Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line

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Forgiveness: Stories from the Frontline

Gripping stories from people who've had to struggle with forgiveness in order to be free.

How do you survive and restore your life when something truly appalling is done to you? Journalist Marina Cantacuzino hears five gripping stories.

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Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line: Mathew

Mathew

BBC Radio 4 - Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line, Mathew

Can Mathew forgive his father for the conversion therapy he suffered as a gay teenager?

The story of a young gay man who was put through controversial conversion therapy by his father. Five years ended in family schism, much unhappiness but final forgiveness.

When Mathew Shurka was a teenager in Brooklyn, New York he came out as gay to his father, who put Matthew through highly controversial conversion therapy as an attempt to change his sexuality.  

What followed was five years of misery that took Mathew to the edge of suicide - he was made to cut his mother and sisters from his life, to sleep with women with the aid of Viagra, and to hide his true identity.   He eventually escaped the therapy.  But could he find a way back to his father through forgiveness? Marina Cantacuzino, founder of the charity The Forgiveness Project , finds out. 

Presented by Marina Cantacuzino
Produced by Susan Marling
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Forgiveness: Stories from the Front Line

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