Healing Abuse - A Prologue
I am a survivor of clergy child sexual abuse that occurred approximately 30 years ago. Many have asked survivors the question, “Why now?” in regard to the delayed reporting of our abuse. “Why now?” because it’s still going on. Do not doubt that children are still being abused in parishes across the church. Do not doubt that the church continues in denial. Despite the rhetoric of full disclosure, my abuser was named in a recent L.A. Times article among 11 additional cases not fully disclosed by Cardinal Mahony.
My childhood was fully immersed in the Catholic Church. I studied at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, from 1981-84, with the hopes of becoming a priest in the diocese of Los Angeles. In short, I have been as deeply Catholic as a person could be for most of my life.
Over the past couple of years, I have spoken to many reporters, friends, acquaintances, and church going strangers about past and present patterns that perpetuate clergy sexual abuse. Instead of compassion from active parishioners, their basic approach has been to challenge my integrity. ‘What do you expect to get out of this?’ Another common question is,” Why didn’t I report the abuse when it happened?”
I was groomed, I thought, by a messenger of God to become a priest. My family and personal devotion to church was second to no other devotion. As a result of the abuse, I lost an important part of my mind. These events became disassociated from the rest of my life. My conscious and unconscious mind split. It wasn’t a conscious decision to suppress these events; it was the only thing that a 13 year old could do to deal with unspeakable experiences and continue to embrace my vocation and church life I loved. After decades of living this way the wellspring of my own memories was opened as I read and heard about the Boston clergy scandal during the summer of 2002. My memories and emotions became uncontrollable in a way that nearly ruined my personal and professional life. I reported my own abuse because I had to report it. As an adult I can deal with this forthrightly. The way I expected the church and this society to deal with it.
At the time of my reporting, I believed that church leaders would want to know about my experiences, in order to protect children and further sanctify the church that I had always loved. I believed this until I actually reported to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. My intent was: to protect children; to help myself heal; to let go, forgive and reconcile in whatever way possible with humanity and church. But instead I was ignored, pacified, and then exposed to great hostility by the very people I was asking for help. This only added a new layer of trauma to my abuse. Now my naïve faith in the church has been replaced by my understanding that only systemic accountability will bring any semblance of justice or confidence to me and other survivors that clergy sexual abuse will end.
I imagine that many readers may be approaching this topic with some distance or detachment, as neither an abuser nor as a person who has been abused. I imagine that it is difficult to see value in taking up such a tragic and toxic topic. It may also be seductive to dismiss this issue as only involving a few individuals who did some very serious damage to some vulnerable children. But whether you consider yourself religious or secular, we as Americans have looked the other way while this happened and did practically nothing to prevent this ongoing abuse of power, this betrayal of confidence, and erosion in trust in our very culture.
What’s at stake in this issue? In a word: civilization. A society where children mistrust adults because children are abused and because other adults allow this to happen, and do not believe or protect children, is no civilization, certainly no democracy. Instead of our society benefiting from the vast gifts of these persons, their gifts are often lost to us along with the abuse they endured.
However, if you the reader can face this deep, shameful, and unspeakable reality and find in yourself the outrage and compassion necessary to correct systemic perpetuation of clergy sexual abuse, then I and thousands of survivors can begin to know justice; then you will have taken up your role, as adults, to address crimes against humanity, and to save civilization.