Editorial - Op Ed

Monday September 20, 2010

It won’t go away until it’s fixed

... and it’s more than a matter of conversion. There is a need for a change in the entire ecclesiastical system and includes a broad and comprehensive discussion of mandatory celibacy and the ordination of women. Women must be included in the decision-making processes of the Church at the highest level. Read on…Bishops and the Pope himself have treated these crimes as moral lapses. They are surely that but they are much more. Fr. Lasch

From the Washington Post

When sex abuse isn’t taken seriously
By Mary DeMuth 


I’d heard rumors of the clergy sex abuse scandal in Belgium, but as I listened to a news radio report detail the years of silence, of victims not being heard, of suicides in the aftermath, I felt sick. Time Magazine. Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard vowed to aid victims, cooperating with authorities, intent on bringing offenders to justice.

Yet victims felt it wasn’t enough, and I understand. Because why did it happen in the first place? Why weren’t they believed and protected way back when? Why was it that they dared to tell, yet were met with silence, ridicule and inaction? I hollered at the radio, told the church to please listen this time.

It seems in some ways they have. Washington Post taking seriously the worldwide sex abuse scandal.It hasn’t always been so that folks would talk so openly. Or take a child’s words seriously.

I remember the courage it took me to tell my babysitter what those teenage boys were doing to five-year-old me. I didn’t want to say that dirty word because if I did, she’d wash my mouth out with soap. The hated word was the only epithet I knew to describe what they did. And I desperately needed them to stop doing that word.
So like the victims in Belgium, I told because I wanted to be protected. I pulled my babysitter close because I could only whisper the word. I shook as I said it.

“I’ll tell your mother,” she said.

The next day I came to the babysitter’s house, relieved. The boys wouldn’t come for me because she knew. My mother knew. We all knew. But the knock on the back door came again. The boys resumed doing that terrible word. And I realized that no adults in my world would protect me. That I wasn’t worth protecting.
The babysitter never told my mother.

Which is similar to what happened to so many children across the Atlantic. They gathered the courage to tell, some to priests, others to trusted adults. But the fear of upsetting the status quo trumped protecting children. Instead the perpetrators were protected and the children fell victim again and again.

I don’t want to live in a culture of silence anymore. It’s time we not only listened to the frightened pleas of children, but also mustered the guts to do something about it. Even if it means upsetting institutions or being ostracized. We must be a voice crying in the wilderness for the sake of those who don’t have the wherewithal to protect themselves. We must value children more than we value clergy status. We must value the inflicted person more than the institution silently afflicting.

Jesus reserved hard, hard words for those who caused children to stumble. He said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea” (Mark 9:42). I’m thankful for sea-casting words like that. Why?

Because it shows I mean something on this earth, that what happened to me as a kindergartner wasn’t right. It was a violation of my humanity, of my womanhood, my soul. The pain from the abuse inaugurated me into a society I’d rather not be part of, which is why I ache when I read the news from Belgium. Jesus’ words are for them too, though I’m sure it’s difficult to hear them when the abusers were those who purportedly represented Him.

Like those victims, I have felt the weight of the millstone in the aftermath of sexual abuse. I have felt like drowning in the anguish. Bit by bit, scrape by scrape, I’ve healed, thanks to good friends who listened, a counselor that prodded, and a hero-of-a-husband who loved me anyway. 



I’ve never confronted my abusers, or seen them seek forgiveness. But I know it must be hard, torturing even, for them to live with the memories of violating me. So I pray for them, that they’ll bring into the light what was wrought in the darkness. Like me, and my years of hard-won healing, they need to be set free too.

But few can be set free in a culture of silence.

So let’s talk. Let’s listen. Let’s seek to help victims find healing. And let’s no longer keep such a hideous crime quiet. I’ve created a safe place to do just that at My Family Secrets where people can share what’s happened in the darkness as a first step in getting free. 



Mary DeMuth is the author of nine books who loves to help people turn trials to triumph. Her recent book My Family Secrets deals with the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse. You can find out more at www.marydemuth.com.

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