By Sandy Mickleson
Messenger
July 23, 2008
http://www.messengernews.net/page/content.detail/id/507620.html?nav=5010
An abused person needs someone to talk to, someone with empathy, someone who cares.
Often that person is a good friend, a minister or a priest. But sometimes the abuser is the clergy.
That's where SNAP - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests - steps in. With groups across the country to help those who have been victimized by clergy, SNAP offers support to survivors of abuse and their families.
In Fort Dodge, abuse survivor Janet Clark is heading a SNAP group that will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. Those interested in attending the support group may call 573-4536 to get the location.
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Janet Clark, of Fort Dodge, has started a support group called SNAP in conjunction with state and national SNAP — Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests. She said victims of abuse often find it difficult to discuss what happened to them, but she wants to help them find a safe, comfortable place for the healing to start. Clark continues to deal with her own abuse by a priest years ago and sometimes wakes up from nightmares about it, she said. Photo by Sandy Mickelson |
"We want them to call for a location because we want it to be safe for survivors," Clark said. "We want them to feel it's a safe place."
Moreover, she added, some people may feel embarrassed to attend the support group, even though it's there to help them.
"It's a real hard step to take," she said. "I've gotten used to talking about it."
That doesn't mean it comes easily to her, however. And there are nights when she wakes herself up with bad dreams, and suddenly another hurtful memory comes to mind.
"Something like this does not go away," said Clark's husband, Joe. He didn't know about the abuse until a few years ago.
"I guess I knew she was having problems," he said. "It finally came out. It's not something that goes away overnight. It's something you learn to deal with."
As a young woman at a Catholic retreat, Clark was abused by the priest in charge. Early in 2007 she published a novel, "Blind Faith," that details the life of a young man abused by his parish priest. She used her abuse to get the emotional input in the book. After the book was published, she delivered a lay sermon at her church, St. Olaf Lutheran, on the burdens of abuse, using Isaiah 58:6 - "to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free" - as her basis.
It's important, she said, to face the memories, to talk about them and to get them out of that little cubbyhole in the mind that holds bad things of the past.
After she delivered the sermon, she said "quite a few people came up and told me they had been sexually abused - not by clergy, but they had been abused."
Clark left the Catholic church, but remains up to date on the issue.
"I would like to see Bishop Nickless reach out more to victims," she said. "When the Pope was in the United States, he told the bishops it was their God-given duty to heal the wounds caused by abuse."
Walker Nickless is bishop of the Sioux City Diocese of the Catholic church, ordained in late January 2006.
"Victims have to be able to talk about it, have to be able to get it out," Clark said.
To be able to facilitate the support group, Clark attended SNAP training in Florida and from July 11 to 13, she was at a SNAP conference in Chicago.
John Chambers, of Des Moines, founder of Iowa SNAP, said he was a sophomore at Dowling High School when he was abused by a Catholic priest who taught biology.
"He was a compulsive fondler," Chambers said. "He would fondle boys in the classroom in front of others."
Even as he talked, the stress in his voice belied his ability to be calm about it.
"I think it's very tough for parents to deal with that realization, and as a devout Catholic to think their parish priest could do such a thing," he said. "It's just unbelievable. Their minds can't absorb it. It was tough for me."
Clark tells of a man in Colorado who had been abused when he was young. For 35 years he kept quiet, then started to tell his story. He was hushed, told to get over it and worse, she said, told by a priest, "If Jesus could suffer and die on the cross, I would think you could handle this."
And that, Clark added, is the kind of support many abused people get - no support at all - which will make the SNAP meetings even more important for those abused by clergy.
"This is a big problem in our whole culture, not just the Catholic church," she said. "I'm scared that survivors aren't coming forward to get the help they need. I'm scared that it may still be going on today."
Contact Sandy Mickelson at (515) 573-2141 or smickelson@messengernews.net
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