Sexual Abuse
What if there were more woman priests? Clergy of all denominations are included in the ranks of sexual offenders, but the Catholic Church has a unique characteristic which also magnifies the issue. It is an gender specific organization. Gender exclusive organizations such as fraternities, gentleman’s clubs, sports teams, some military units, etc. often exhibit behaviors that would not exist in a co-ed environment. Integration of woman, as equals, in any organization provides balance which might not exist otherwise. So why not have women priests?
Accountability
The executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference had an answer to the problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. “We believe that if women had a say in the church, if there was more accountability and more transparency, [then] the men would have been held more accountable.”
This is one of those changes that would be good for other reasons as well. Unfortunately, like many things that make sense. They take far to long to implement.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
Can you imagine seeing the following:
The surgeon general warns that contact with certain religious leaders may result in unwanted sexual abuse.
Even if something like this did exist, it would probably get about the same attention as the warning on cigarettes.
So lets dial back the clock about 50 years to the corporate offices of cigarette maker X. You’ve just gotten the first research reports back that says your product is addictive, dangerous to children in the form of second hand smoke, and causes cancer. So naturally you stop making your product, make a public apology and arrange for medical treatment and compensation for those affected. Well we all know the scenario played out differently.
Details when the Vatican was first aware of the problem in their midst are a little less clear. But the pattern of response is similar – ignore the problem, try to cover it up, use the legal system to silence victims, and wait until you are sued to begin responding.
If Only…
Hindsight is always twenty twenty. So is the response appropriate to the time? If we take a lesson from Star Trek, “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few” . I’m sure this was the logic that led to the responses of both organizations. It’s a comforting axiom which often covers for bad decision making. Like most decision making, it gets better through education. Today kids no longer have unrestricted access to cigarettes based on a more educated public. The religious community is starting to take steps to undo years of un-enlightened decision making. Perhaps in a few years our children will be safer from the danger of abuse as well.
Sexual Abuse
The latest papal apology by the Pope fell more than a little short by most estimates. Groups dealing with clergy abuse have almost unanimously expressed their disappointment with the latest papal remarks. It is a start, but not what people are looking for. So what is it that people need?
Clergy sexual abuse is unique in one key aspect. Most child sexual abuse ultimately destroys a trusted relationship. Clergy abuse falls into this category as well, but there are actually two relationships that are damaged. The first is the relationship with the abuser, and second is the relationship with the church.
Validation
Apologies are nice, but even good apologies in this case really don’t solve the problem. Most clergy victims aren’t really looking for papal apology. They are looking for validation of what happened to them, assurances that this will never happen again, and they would like to repair the relationships that can be repaired.
This is where the Catholic Church has dropped the ball. The strategy in the past has been one of containment. It has cost them the trust of their members, and millions in legal fees. What they need is transparency, because this is the basis of reestablishing trust. And here is the hope for clergy abuse victims. The trust with their abuser may have been destroyed, but the church can build a safe environment where past victims can trust again. This is more than apology. It’s what victims are looking for.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
One of the things that is attributed to abuse within the catholic church is an unhealthy sexual attitude. This is a complicated argument. On the one side abuse is largely about power, it is also an acting out of fantasies. Most of the roles within the catholic church are amongst other things, based on a system of repressed sexual desires. With repression come fantasization, and all too often it manifests itself as abuse.
Repression
The other side of the coin is the recurring sexual attitude in many Christian teachings that sex is bad, dirty, etc. A lot of this goes back to some of the early traditions of repressing pagan traditions which embraced sexuality. Condemning sex was also a way of controlling the role of women within the early church. Sex became something that was not spoken in the positive sense.
Put these two together and you end up with a system which facilitates abuse, that is then not spoken of. This allows it to continue as a vicious cycle. Removing celibacy as part of the priest/nun tradition would help promote healthier attitudes about sex. But abuse is ultimately about power, so it might help certain aspects, but it wouldn’t fix the overall problem. Better attitudes about sex, and open discussion about sex, and specifically open discussion about sexual abuse is what we need.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
Knowing but not doing anything about it is the latest banner of guilt capturing public interest. “Pope Benedict XVI failed to act over complaints during the 1990s about a priest in the US who is thought to have abused some 200 deaf boys, victims say.” The public cries out “how could you have ignored this problem?”. The sad truth is it happens every day – it just doesn’t make it to the front page of CNN. It is a systematic failure to act.
So where is the problem here? Taking a quote from Star Trek – “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one”. Just as that logic was shown to be flawed in the TV show, the same is true here on planet Earth. It’s easy to rationalize that serving a larger population sometimes means not dealing with “smaller problems” . Especially when it’s a topic that no one wants to talk about in the first place. Much like the problem of sexual abuse itself, the actions of the people dealing with it, often exist out of a lack of education. So do we blame people for their ignorance, or educate them? There’s an enlighted answer, but the reality is that blame solicits the most emotional response and plays better for the media. Blame can be done in an instant – education takes time.
System Failures
As a parent dealing with your child’s sexual abuse, you will probably find yourself dealing with several agencies or individuals who failed to act. There were a couple that really annoyed me. First was the public safety licensing person that pencil whipped an inspection I requested because she was tired of me calling about the status. The other was the school superintendent that told us we couldn’t discuss the subject with our child’s teachers unless we got a subpoena – and the offender wasn’t even associated with the school.
There’s a saying that given the choice between maliciousness and incompetence – assume incompetence. Failure to act often falls into the later area. Conspiracies play better for the media, but most times it comes down to people not having the wisdom that the generation that will follow them is likely to have. Concepts like slavery and racial purity have all been popular themes in some culture in the not too distant past. By people’s decisions to act they have largely disappeared. My hope is that an awareness of sexual abuse will cause more people to act. It may dramatically reduce it in our lifetime. For now, there continues to be those that we rely on that fail to act. And for the majority that simply made decisions that seemed right for the time, my hope is that the media attention will serve as an education for better decisions in the future.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
