UNITED STATES
Let’s Think This Out
Bruce R. Nelson
Posted on April 13, 2017
A few days ago in this space I kicked off Holy Week with an expression of dismay over the Catholic Church’s incorrigible ineptitude in dealing with its never-ending child sex abuse scandal. I wrote about being stunned over the Church’s legislative campaign to make it more difficult for people to sue their rapists and molesters.
The subject was out of my wheelhouse. I am neither Catholic nor a theologian. Yet, the concept of the country’s largest Christian denomination serving, in effect, as a pedophile lobby seemed preposterously creepy. The post triggered more reaction than anything I’ve written since the inception of this site. It was read by hundreds throughout the United States and 12 other countries. Thanks to the comments, email and private messages it produced, I know more about this ecclesiastical quagmire than I did a week ago.
Here’s a smattering of what I learned:
• Holy Week is treacherous for many sexual abuse survivors. It ignites memories of torture that defy comprehension. For some, it means reliving a boyhood Good Friday ritual in which they were tied, naked, to large wooden crosses by their parish priests, and then molested. For other survivors, a term that carries more positive energy than “victims,” the week brings back images of when, at 11 or 12, priests sodomized them in a confessional.
• A 48-year-old man, after multiple suicide attempts and several breakdowns, finally came to grips with the reality that, at age 11, his priest repeatedly raped him, always assuring the boy that this was part of God’s plan. The statute of limitations in his state barred him from filing suit.
• A man in his 20s filed a complaint with Church officials detailing the sexual abuse he encountered years earlier by a priest who ran a boys prep school. After a lengthy internal investigation, the Church exonerated the priest. The man killed himself years before other victims came forward and the state lifted the deadline for filing suit.
• The statute of limitations issue is not just about money. For the survivors, it is about truth telling, pulling back the Church’s veil of secrecy that has draped this scandal, to one extent or another, since the beginning.
With apologies for burying the lede, that last bullet point is the most important one. I always believed plaintiff attorneys had their fingers crossed when they told jurors that, “This is not about the money.” These survivors have nothing crossed. The salve for their unimaginable wounds is not a seven-figure damage award. It is total and complete transparency. They want to open up every dark nook and cranny of this scandal and let the light of day shine in.
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