BishopAccountability.org
	All I Want for Christmas By Jaime Romo Healing and Spirituality December 21, 2009 http://jjromo.wordpress.com/ CSA is not one group's problem; by expert accounts, it is a silent epidemic throughout the United States, and, indeed, the world, creating social havoc – for the children, adult survivors, and society. It can be prevented and it can be treated, but a conscious and sustained effort is both missing and essential. (Stop the Silence[i]) I led a Safeguarding God's Children training last week for church members of 4 congregations. During the first video, one of the participants commented, 'that actor seems the most convincing.' The video consisted of interviews with child sexual abuse (CSA) victims and abusers. The interviewees weren't acting. In the discussion, I noted the bumper sticker, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I observed that child sexual abuse is too much for most people to face without minimizing it in some way to protect themselves. I begin my trainings with a few assumptions: That we're good people, learning how to do justice; that we're all in this together; that collaboration is required for growth in consciousness, healing, and justice; and that today is a good day to end abuse everywhere, to have more healing and be more spiritually alive. That's what I want for Christmas: the end of abuse everywhere, and for everyone to have more healing and be more spiritually alive. The daily headlines seem to say that the toxic, festering wound of religious authority sexual abuse has been lanced and the filth must come out for the body to heal. Perhaps some pedophiles have been removed from employment in an organization or have been incarcerated. Perhaps you have shared in the efforts to punish pedophiles (i.e., outrage) or support victims in your organization (i.e., compassion). CSA, particularly Religious Sexual Abuse (RSA), is difficult to address due to the sensitivity of the topic, as well as the near-invisibility of its victims. There is massive underreporting of the problem due to fear, shame, and a resistance to believe minors' disclosures of abuse: only one in 10 children tell; 42 percent of women and 33 percent of men never disclose the experience to anyone. To date, only 2% of priests or other religious leaders who are known or credibly accused to be child molesters have spent even one day in prison for this criminal behavior. The truth is that religious authority sexual abuse is more than a collection of individual, pathological behaviors. Given the evidence, we need to reconsider child sexual abuse as a systemic problem and ourselves as an essential part in the system. The organization Stop the Silence: Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc. (Stop the Silence, www.stopcsa.org), an organization begun to provide comprehensive prevention and treatment of CSA, reports that "CSA has extremely severe consequences,[ii] including decreased school performance, delinquency, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, anti-social behaviors, incarceration, promiscuity, teen pregnancy (60 percent of teens who become pregnant were sexually abused as children[iii]), prostitution (95 percent of teen prostitutes were sexually abused[iv]), homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, HIV, suicide, homicide, and chronic disease. Decades of research documents that adults who were sexually victimized as children have a higher likelihood of being negatively impacted in their adulthood by numerous types of psychological and physiological ailments and sociological pathologies,[v] including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), self-destructive and violent behaviors (over 32 percent of convicted killers were sexually abused as children[vi]), and chronic disease.[vii] Childhood abuse is the greatest predictor of HIV in women.[viii] Beverly Daniel Tatum offers a very useful and parallel discussion of racism, not as individual acts, but as a system of hidden conditions that privilege some and work against others. She offers the image of a moving sidewalk at an airport as a way to respond to the person who claims, 'I'm not racist,' yet who does not actively work to end racism. Borrowing her image to frame how racism has persisted, let's re-consider religious authority child sexual abuse. In other words, no one may claim to be an advocate or anti-abuse, likewise, without taking action to support victims, and prevent future abuse. No one may claim to be an advocate or anti-abuse without taking action to transform the hidden system and overt behaviors that lead to CSA and similarly, Religious Authority Sexual Abuse (RASA). The moving sidewalk that leads to RASA is in place. In other words, we don't have to 'do anything' to contribute to the system or operation of overt behaviors that lead to child sexual abuse. We contribute by going along and standing still. Adults cannot claim to be innocent or neutral in this discussion. As the Los Angeles class action suits neared trial dates, I wrote the following to the bishops. "There is no question that you and many members of this community of faith are good people who do and who have done many good things. You are no better than others who have come before you in this regard. Thomas Jefferson, a brilliant 'founding father' helped construct the constitution that has guided our country over the centuries, and he was a slave owner and he fathered children of his own slaves. He, like you, lived a lie to those he served and perpetuated a social cancer and double standard that continues today in this country on this day that we celebrate our 'independence.' He was no authority on ending slavery in this country and you are no authority on ending clergy sexual abuse in your church. End all child abuse—everywhere—and begin within your 'community of faith.' You cannot do this alone. You did not begin child abuse. You must, however, live to end it. The words you speak to survivors and all you have damaged and destroyed are completely inadequate. Your actions to end all child abuse, beginning with ending it in your ranks, are inadequate. But they are what will matter after today. They will answer the questions that you must answer with your lives, "So what?" So what, that you have fought to release known criminals? So what that you have spent millions of dollars in legal fees to block the truth about child sexual abuse in your lives? So what if you have sold some properties to 'settle these cases'? So what if you have avoided bringing the cesspool of child rape in which you walk to a public court? Your actions to end all child abuse, beginning with ending it in your ranks will be inadequate. But they are what will answer the question, "Now what?" Now what is different? Now what do we have to show that religious authorities are part of the solution and not the problem of child abuse? Now what will happen the next time a child or adult comes forward to report the unspeakable crime that I and these survivors have reported? These are the questions that you must answer with your actions beginning today: So what? Now what?" It may not be in our lifetime or in our children's lifetime or in our children's children's lifetime that child sexual abuse everywhere is ended. We will only know the impact of our lives towards this end when we have evidence of efforts to end child sexual abuse anywhere. Words and intentions are completely inadequate at this point to share with those who have been victimized as children or vulnerable adults and then re-victimized by those to whom they reached out for support, validation, or acceptance. Some evidence of effective efforts to end CSA might look like a 'Safe Church' policy adopted for a local group that is the result of a thorough, documented, and facilitated discussion and education process involving survivors and non-survivors, experts and average Joes. Likewise, some evidence of efforts to end CSA might sound like compassionate listening/ accepting and respecting others' experiences that challenge church views (beginning with abuse victims). It might sound like facilitated communication about abuse that moves towards dialogue (like the 'truth commission' that has been held in South Africa post-apartheid or between children of Holocaust survivors and children of Nazi soldiers, and now between Israeli and Palestinians. That would be a real gift to children and the world.
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