By Kathryn Casey
The Forbes
November 16, 2011
http://www.forbes.com/sites/crime/2011/11/15/penn-state-the-catholic-church-and-finding-the-big-picture/
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It's one of the downsides associated with a couple of decades as a crime writer: I have all kinds of stories in my head and images, places I've been, the voices of people I've interviewed, many of whom have suffered from horrific crimes or lost a loved one to violence, most often rape or murder. So when sensational cases hit the news, I'm often propelled back, my mind on someone I met somewhere in the past, a victim who suffered a similar fate.
The result is that, for me, the victims aren't faceless. I've been in their living rooms, sat with them in courthouse hallways, listened as they've talked in haunting, painful sobs describing the worst days of their lives. They exist and they suffer and the tragedy is compounded when there are children involved.
The past few days I've heard pundits discussing the similarities between the sex abuse scandals at Penn State and the Catholic Church. Personally, I applaud the actions the Penn State board took in the past week, firing up the chain of command and holding accountable those who are alleged to have covered up.
Last month I wrote about the charges faced by Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, who is charged with not alerting authorities when one of the priests under his command was found to have child porn on his computer. Perhaps if it had followed the Penn State board's model, the Catholic Church could have put the scandal behind it decades ago, stemming the staggering monetary losses and the horrific tally of victims.
However, it appears that Penn State came to this revelation late. If the reports are correct, the initial reaction of those in charge was to follow the Catholic Church model of circling the wagons, protecting the institution from scrutiny by not notifying authorities and, therefore, allowing the abuse to continue. The cause, according to the expert opinions being bandied about, is a culture that puts protecting the corporation (in this case, the university and church) above the welfare of the individual (the victimized children).
It occurred to me that perhaps what's wrong here is that those in charge were able to distance themselves from the victims, to assume that it couldn't happen to their child, or, as awful as this sounds, believed that no real damage was done to either the victims or society as a whole.
Perhaps, I thought, someone should explain the true human cost of the sexual abuse of children. Now there are many out there, victims and their families whose lives have been profoundly affected and professionals who work in the field, who are better equipped than I am, I know. But there was a time, back in 1995, when I was in Salt Lake City working on a magazine piece entitled "When Children Rape." During my research, I attended counseling sessions for the young victims and perpetrators. What I experienced has never left me.
The victims' session was in a nondescript office building in southern Salt Lake, and the eight girls ranged in age from five to six. All were suspected of having been sexually abused. Consistent with national statistics, their abusers weren't strangers. According to studies, nationally in 30 percent of such cases, the abuser is a family member. A whopping 60 percent of the time, the perpetrator is someone known to the children but unrelated, as in a babysitter, a scout leader, and the like. This category would include religious counselors, like priests, and someone like Penn State's Jerry Sandusky, a man who through his charity dedicated to helping at-risk kids set himself up in a position where he worked closely in a trusted capacity with children.
Getting back to that counseling session I attended. At first it looked like a little girl's birthday party; the children milled around, and the room was atwitter with their high-pitched voices. Then the counselor urged the girls to sit. Some did. I remember a young girl with blonde hair and startling blue eyes who claimed a chair not far from mine. At the beginning of the hour-long session, she had her back hunched and stared at the floor, appearing afraid. It took most of the session before she joined in, and I'm not sure she ever truly relaxed.
One child was a five-year-old with dark curls and green eyes whom I called Meghan in my article. She never did sit but circulated nervously through the room. It was suspected that Meghan had been gang raped. The number of teenage boys and the particular details of the assaults were still unknown. Meghan was so traumatized she couldn't talk about what had happened to her. Even with the counselors, she'd been unwilling to say who was responsible.
In the brightly decorated room with its colorful cartoons on the wall, the mood was anxious. The children were on edge. This wasn't surprising. There were, of course, the physical implications of the attacks, including bleeding, infections, and sexually transmitted diseases.
Even after their bodies healed, the psychological toll was daunting. These darling little girls, these beautiful children were destined to suffer inflated rates of eating disorders, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Many would fight profound feelings of guilt. For even at so young an age, they would wrongly believe that they were somehow responsible. As they matured, they could have difficulty trusting and find it hard to maintain relationships.
In addition, throughout their lives, it was likely that the children would have a tougher time setting personal boundaries. This could lead to being re-victimized and having little sense of control in their lives. The abuse would most likely leave these children feeling exposed and vulnerable, unable to protect themselves.
I remember at one point the counselors had the children hold up stop signs and shout out, "No!" The concept was to return to them the ability to order others to leave them alone, to not be afraid to say no to a would-be abuser. The idea was to give back to them what had been stolen, a sense of power and security.
As I watched I remember looking at these little girls, bright and full of life, and wondering how anyone could violate such innocence.
On another day my lessons involved sitting in on a group session of boys, all of whom had been court-ordered to attend after having sexually abused a child. If I'd met the six teenagers on the street, I would have thought that they looked like good kids, clean cut with wide smiles.
As the session began, each revealed what had brought him to the program. One, a fourteen-year-old said he'd "had intercourse" with his four-year-old cousin.
"Intercourse?" the group leader asked.
"I raped her," the young man admitted.
As I listened, I heard that the boys knew what they'd done was wrong and that they were ashamed of it. "Even my parents couldn't believe what I did," said one.
"Why do you think you did it?" the moderator asked the group.
"I guess I was upset. Maybe I was getting even," one boy said.
"With who?"
"I don't know," the boy said with a shrug.
Many victims of childhood abuse pull their lives together, some even go on to use their experiences to help others. But for a very long time those working in the field have believed that childhood sexual abuse is tied to a cycle where an inflated percentage of the victims grow up to become victimizers. In this group half of the boys raised their hands when asked if they'd been sexually abused as children. "How did that make you feel?" the moderator asked.
"Mad," said a fourteen-year-old who'd been caught molesting a nine-year-old neighbor. "Really mad."
"How do you think your victim felt? Was he mad? Angry? Probably hurt?"
"Yeah, I guess he was," the boy admitted.
A 2011 study in the British Journal of Psychiatry assessed this belief that childhood sexual abuse contributes to the number of sexual abusers. What it discovered was that the assumption was true. Among the 747 men studied, the rate of sexual offenses was 35 percent higher among those who had suffered childhood sexual abuse.
How is this relevant to Penn State and the Catholic Church?
Please note that Bishop Finn, the priest accused of having pornography, and all the parties charged at Penn State have declared that they're innocent and none has yet been tried nor convicted of anything. But for right now, let's assume the evidence placed before the grand juries in both cases is true. My guess is that in instances like these, the individuals initiate and maintain the cover up hoping to protect an institution. While doing so, they probably believe they're looking at the big picture, serving a program (a church, a university) that not only employs them but does good work. The university educates tens of thousands of students, while the Catholic Church counsels millions of Catholics and runs charities worldwide.
But let's take a step back and really look at this.
In truth, aren't those who cover up actually missing the big picture completely? Penn State and the Catholic Church are robust institutions, both capable of surviving scandal and moving on, so neither is truly in need of this misguided protection. Perhaps those involved don't understand that they are not only imposing life-long pain on the victimized children but negatively affecting society as a whole, by feeding a cycle that multiplies the number of abusers and, therefore, increases the number of victims. The bottom line is that the cover ups aren't protecting anyone but, rather, making all of our children, all of us, less safe.
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