ARDMORE (PA)
Main Line Times
August 23, 2018
By Henry Briggs
“If it’s painful for you, think what it does to us.”
I have heard some versions of that phrase for a number of years now whenever the subject of child rape comes up and not just from Catholics. While the Catholic Church is in the spotlight again this week, and has been on and off for decades, maybe even centuries, it isn’t alone.
A few years ago, my old high school sent a letter to alumni admitting to sexual abuse of students. It wasn’t alone. The Chicago School System had child abuse at its schools, as did LA and other cities. To a lesser or greater extent, so did many other schools, none of them Catholic: St. Paul’s, Choate-Rosemary Hall, Exeter, to name a few. Horace Mann in New York had 62 cases. “Me” and “mini-me,” compared to the Catholic Church, of course, but not in terms of the harm: the non-Catholic kid suffered just as much as the kid in CCD or PSR.
In most cases, people who love those institutions — from school alumni to lay board members — share the “if it is painful for you, think what it is to us” sentiment with outsiders. And then continue with their lives as though nothing had happened.
Child sexual abuse is bad; knowing about it and doing nothing to stop it is horrific.
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