According to an article over at Powerblog!, the Catholic church is targeting the attorneys that are helping those sexually abused by priests.
An anonymous commenter replied:
I feel that these accusations are way out of hand, I can't imagine why someone would wait 20 years or more to accuse someone of molestation.
Why would someone wait 20+ years to report molestation? There are a number of reasons known for a failure to report among rape and molestation victims. Most rape and molestation victims never report. It's easy to understand how these reasons would apply in the situation of molestation of a child by a priest:
- Age:
Children do not make good decisions. Adults have to protect children from the dangers of the world because their minds are not fully formed and do not have the experience to deal properly with problems. Expecting a child to report immediately is absurd. The longer the secret is kept, the harder it becomes to reveal.
- Authority:
The priest is, in the Catholic church, the representative of Christ on Earth. To a child (and even the child's parents), this alone can be a strong disincentive to report the abuse. Priests are honored in the Catholic church. The victim may feel that the accusation will not be believed or that the repercussions of making the accusation will be too severe to be tolerable.
- Victimology:
Pedophiles tend to be good profilers. They can pick out the child that is weak and unlikely to report. They go after the attention-starved that will tolerate the unthinkable for what appears to them to be love. The abusers will select the ones that will not be believed or who have no one to turn to for support.
- Threats:
Pedophile priests have a unique situation. Because of their authority, their threats can carry an extraordinary weight in the child's mind. "If you report me, God will punish you." It doesn't take much imagination to come up with any number of threats a priest could make that would control a child. Standard threats, such as "I will kill you and your family" are also used by pedophiles.
- Response:
Sexual victims often respond sexually to their assault. Adult rape victims have trouble coping with their apparent betrayal by their own body. Imagine how a child must feel. Parents, not understanding human sexuality, might seek to hide the molestation because they fear this proves their child is gay.
- Enticement:
One of the standard defenses against sexual assault is that the victim was "asking for it." In no way can a child understand be considered to have caused their own abuse. Adults are supposed to be responsible and seek help for any child that exhibits inappropriate behavior. But blaming the victim is a time-tested trick that works amazingly well on adults. Children have little defense against this strategy, especially when their parents buy into it.
- Homosexuality:
Pedophilia is not homosexuality. Pedophiles may or may not have a preference for male or female victims. The attraction is not one of sex but of power and control. Pedophiles choose professions or volunteer positions that give them access to victims, such as coaching, teaching, or religious vocations1 Often these situations provide same-sex victims of opportunity. But in the public's mind, homosexuality and pedophilia are confused — and the Catholic church has taken steps to enhance this connection. Thus, for the victim to admit that abuse occurs, the question of the victim's sexuality is brought up. Given that the pedophile may be able to target gay children, the problem is amplified. In a religion that condemns homosexuality, this can create a strong disincentive to report.
- Coverup:
When abuse was reported, in what I believe was often an honest attempt to save the career and soul of the involved priest, the priest would simply be moved to another parish. We now understand that pedophilia is not something that responds to religious or medical intervention. Still, where abuse was reported, the family may have been content with the actions taken at the time. Finding out later that the priest moved from parish to parish damaging children removes any consolation from whatever success was achieved in the initial report.
- Money:
Money is indeed a factor. Do some people simply seek to make money from reporting abuse? Of course. Some reports of abuse have been found to be false. Might victims seek to make money off of their tragedy? Some might. I'm in no position to condemn them for that.
For most victims, though, the damage is life-long. Depression, inability to function sexually, and other problems may require extensive treatment — treatment that costs money. The longer a secret is hidden, the harder it can be to treat.
When victims are slimed by attorneys for the church in the standard legal maneuverings, the victim can suddenly find that ratcheting up the damages asked for is a good idea.
- Foot-dragging:
Many victims first attempt to work things out with the church. By dragging the negotiation process out, a lawsuit may be finally filed a decade after the first attempt to deal with what occurred. Then the lawyers for the church ask the TV cameras why the victim waited so long to do something about the abuse.
According to the article quoted by Powerblog!,
Dioceses received 783 new credible allegations last year, according to the bishops' conference, after paying out $1.5 billion in abuse-related costs since 1950.
Notice the use of the word "credible." These are allegations that appear to have substance. In response to this, "some U.S. Roman Catholic leaders are taking an aggressive, public stand against attorneys who represent victims." In other words, if there aren't any attorneys to represent the victims, the problem will go away.
Blaming the victim for not reporting sooner and attempting to prevent access to legal assistance is not what this problem needs. Does anyone believe that such behavior glorifies Christ? I would think the church would seek to make peace quickly with the victims and do everything possible to restore their faith.
- It's worth noting that, while I'm discussing the problems the Catholic church is facing, all religions are at risk. A wise church has a detailed plan to prevent sexual abuse, no matter the denomination. [back]
I wish more people knew this…
Almost 100% of what you’ve said is dead-on, but I must take issue with one bit:
The statistics I’ve seen clearly show that the majority of reported abuse cases were post-pubescent males. While I don’t think this information makes the problem go away, it does change it somewhat. I think it’s rather unfair to accuse the Church of merely shifting blame (in this case).
One more thing:
Saying this, and nothing more, gives the impression that the Church is a big bad bully and beating up on the bad guys. Meanwhile, the truth is that blood-sucking ambulance-chaser types have been having a field day at the Church’s expense. Goverment bodies at all levels let this go unchecked while public schools have the same kinds of problems and worse and are mostly immune to litigation.
i am so very glad you wrote this. believe me, if anyone thinks it is hard to report things of this nature now, or even 20 years ago, try the early 60’s. we all thought nuns were perfect and priests were akin to having Jesus walk in the classroom.
whatever they said was the law, that was it, no debate, nothing.
even now, victims of abuse, even older ones will not come forward for the very reasons you list.(even when the rapist has nothing to do with religion)
i read the article on powerblog via the pgh webbloggers. i thought about replying and then thought, “why?” the stanchest defenders of the catholic church or any church will just reply saying that “you hate catholics, or you are nursing a petty grudge or…” those are people that can not admit, even to themselves that the church as an institution has problems that should be delt with. they are the same people most times, that can not admit that their political party has problems that should be addressed.
that attitude lets things go one as they always have.
christians have bloody hands every bit as much as any faith. they would be much better off to say so and try to make amends. we have made war on each other and on other faiths. we HAVE made mistakes, bad ones.this one is a bad one as well.
i think the church still is making bad mistakes, but i’m sure you know that because of my posts on condoms.
unless someone knows a victim of abuse or has been one, i feel they are arrogant at best, cruel at worst to blame victims as a whole saying they just want money.
as long as the church, among others, lump pedophiles in with gays as one and the same, they will never reduce the problems. pedophiles want children, boys, girls, the operative word here is children. homosexuals are not pedophiles and most pedophiles are not gay. it’s 2 separate things. but boy, it’s so much easier to just continue to be homophobic.
thanks again for a very well done post.
you explained it much better than i ever could. now, if only people listen instead of just branding you a catholic basher or telling you they’ll “pray” for you.
Er…make that “good guys”
oh, and one of the reasons, funky, that boys were molested more is that priests have access to boys much easier than girls. pedophiles want children. children are what turns them on, not so much, gender. go on, blame lawyers all you want. it doesn’t negate the truth.
yes, public schools have pedophiles as well, any place where there are children, there is an opportunity for a pedophile to try to take advantage of that. we aren’t talking about public schools, we are talking about the church and a long overdue house cleaning.
you wrote “Meanwhile, the truth is that blood-sucking ambulance-chaser types have been having a field day at the Church’s expense. Goverment bodies at all levels let this go unchecked while public schools have the same kinds of problems and worse and are mostly immune to litigation. ”
tell me, what is “and worse?” what is worse than a pedophile molesting a child?
and as bad as it is for a teacher to molest a student, it is far worse emotionally for a priest to do it to a child.
schools, as far as i’ve seen, do not reassign teachers to other schools knowing they are molesters.
churches, i think, should be held to a higher standard than even schools or the boy scouts or anything else as the claim their authority from God.
FD, Sherry,
First, I decided to use the term “pedophilia” instead of splitting the discussion into “pedophilia,” “ephebophilia,” and sexual abuse over the age of consent based on power. In the class on sexual predators, ephebophilia was mentioned briefly and then lumped in with pedophilia for ease of discussion. The common use of the term “pedophilia” includes both and a) I didn’t feel like having to define ephebophilia and b) I couldn’t remember how to spell it.
You do not want to know how many word choices in this blog are based on my spelling ability (or lack thereof).
By using the word “children,” I focused on…children. Sexual interaction between someone old enough to consent and clergy where violence or the threat of violence is not involved is another topic entirely, and with a different profile. I’m also less qualified to discuss it. In working up a sexual abuse prevention program at my former church, I tended to focus on children, as I was head of the Sunday school department at the time. I have training from PAAR and CVVC, but that deals with rape. I know something about transference/countertransference and basic human sexual attraction, but how that relates to the abuse scandal is beyond my training.
I’m tempted to write a full article on the p/e vs. homosexual problem, but for right now I’d simply point out that the chief differences between pedophiles/ephebophilas and homosexuals is that the prime known risk factor for p/e is prior abuse, whereas homosexuality appears to be a combination of genetics and complex environmental factors — that does not appear to including abuse.
In other words, while there may be more homosexuals in the priesthood than in the general population (I actually admired that solution to the homosexuality question at one time), the abuse does not occur because they are homosexuals but because a) if you’re going to abuse someone, it’s a great way to get access to kids and b) the abused may attempt to recapitulate their abuse not only by molestation but by doing it within the church framework.
This means that heterosexual males in the priesthood are also more likely to engage in abuse.
The sex of the victim appears to have far more to do with prior abuse and availability than anything else. The underlying sexual orientation (heterosexual/ homosexual) appears to be unimportant — or possibly even absent in a number of abusers. Of course, since it’s a complex problem, I’d think of plotting it on a complex plane.
It’s a lot more complex than I’ve explained here. I’ll see if I can dig up my lecture notes. That’s going to be fun…not! I’m not positive they survived the last house flooding.
yes, i agree, i tend to ramble, but that was my main point, it isn’t the gender of the child so much as the age, it’s a child. that’s the attraction. the church always lumps homosexual individuals in with pedophiles. they are not one and the same.
i never thought of the other problem of using one’s position to obtain sex from a person of age. i don’t think that happens as often in the church. in fact i think there are lay people /catholic or non that have a thing for seducing priests or trying to, just as you might have cop groupies etc.
then you have the doctors, teachers etc that use their positions to seduce of age people. i agree it’s complicated, but i refuse to sort of give the church a pass by infering that people are lying, teaming up with greedy , unethical lawyers to rob the chuch and blacken her reputation. the church did THAT all on her own by hiding the problem.
Sher,
Most of the cases I know of in protestant churches involve a minister acting in a counselling capacity having an affair with the person coming for counselling.
In psychology, someone guilty of that would have their career destroyed (at least that’s how it’s supposed to go).
yes, i understand that, it happens out of churches as well, but the pedophilia in the catholic church was allowed to go on, hidden, victims intimidated etc. i don’t have to go on, it’s common knowledge now. therefore to try to get people to believe that it is blown all out of shape by blaming lawyers and greedy liars is just another attempt to take the blame off of the church.
it’s time to just admit once and for all that these crimes were ongoing for years here. the last pope insisted that it was an uniquely american propblem(hinting that it was due to our culture) but there have been documentaries done on catholic orphanages in ireland and reports of parishes in south america where it was just as bad, if not worse.
i feel it would be better to get this out in the open, and go on from there, a little poorer and hopefully a lot wiser.
by the way, i don’t like having my comments twisted on another’s blog( funky dung’s) where he said that “someone” should explain to you and to me that things aren’t simply black and white and that we said that(i’m paraphrasing here)lawyers +good and the church=bad.
i never said that, you never said that. i resent that.
i’ve gone out of my way to try to explain why some people took so very long to come forward with their accusations. i also said that i’m certain that there are a few greedy people and unethical lawyers just out for money.
but…
so, i quit. my only hope is that he gets older he becomes smarter about people and less reliant on the fact that he is “book smart”
he has an attitude that i find arrogant. knowing latin doesn’t mean anything other than knowing latin.
the church really chugs along just fine without
him defending her.tho if he feels somehow that’s his calling, he’s intitled. he isn’t intitled to use my name on HIS blog tho.especially when he twists what i’ve said.(i did reply on his blog, i wouldn’t have seen the comments at all except for the pgh webbloggers)
i will not be back, nor will i bother with him.
he should take a lesson from Christ in humility. it was good discussing things with you. thank you for the time. sherry
[...] UnSpace - (But Chloe Still Rules!) » Why Molestation Victims Don’t Report Would someone please explain to Rob (and commenter Sherry) that the problem isn’t as black and white as Catholic Church = bad, lawyers for alleged victims = good? (tags: homosexuality pedophilia ephebophilia Christianity Catholic priest abuse scandal lawyer lawsuit) [...]
I only have so many characters to summarize links on Delicious. Anyhow, if my description is really far off, people will know that as soon as they read the actual comments. People are free to follow the link and form their own opinions. I know darn well that my readers often disagree with me.
I’m sorry that my flaws have upset you so much. Truly I am. The Latin’s just for fun. I don’t use it to sound erudite. I’m just a nerd.
Actually, every Catholic is called to defend the Church his/her own way. Actions generally speak louder than words, but sometimes words are needed, too. That said, I do not have such delusions of grandeur that I believe my particular defenses are terribly important, relevant, or neccessary. By engaging in dialogue, I am hoping to not only correct people’s mistaken notions about the Church, but also to grow in knowledge and faith. Most importantly, though, I hope to be a witness to the Gospel. If I have failed to do that in my dealings with you, I apologize. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Um…yeah I am. That’s the nature of public forums.
If so, something got screwed up. For reasons unknown to me, I never saw any comments on my blog from you. I did not, nor would I, censor you by deleting your comment - just in case the thought crossed your mind.