I found this genuinely interesting:
The child molester was also a brilliant, generous, talented man — the only person who ever read me a bedtime story. I will love him forever, for that, even when I wake up gasping and afraid.
[….]Having survived sexual abuse in the family and the public schools, I identify deeply with the pain, the sense of powerlessness and abandonment that the victims of some of our priests and administers have endured. I grieve for them — and for my church, and for my pope, and for all of the countless good priests and religious who are tarnished by the actions of a depraved minority.
I am saddened beyond words to know that these very real sins of commission and omission will repel people, who will miss the consolations of the church in light, out of concern for its shadows.
I think the Anchoress is nuts in general, but I much prefer this to the “we’re the real victims” bullshit the Church hierarchy is spewing. This is honest, even if I don’t think it will convince many people.
Zifnab25
I’m still waiting for the Church and it’s defenders to go into full blown “blame the victim” mode. Where is Michelle Malkin, after all? Who will check the countertops?
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Zifnab25
The analogous feature would be, what? Finding g-strings in the kids underwear drawer? Finding out they strip for lunch money?
r€nato
I agree with the Pope’s priest. Talking about priests molesting children is exactly like rounding up the Jews and putting them in death camps.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I suppose, if you really lower your standards, “A few rotten apples*” is marginally better than “We’re the real victims.” All though the second to last paragraph sounds a lot like “We’re the real victims. (And it’s glorious!)”
*Where A Few = Not Every Single Person in the Organization.
kth
2: the shorts were a little short. Also the “victim” wore lip gloss.
Just curious if the Anchoress generally favors treating sex offenders compassionately, or just the ones who have taken holy orders and castration for the rest (not to discount the courage it took to write what she did).
beltane
Read the whole piece, and it is somewhat tragic on many levels. Yes, it is honest, and far more revealing of the truth than she likely intended it to be.
I’ve been getting a lot of pleasure from Sully’s writing on this lately. He is positively gleeful in exposing past instances of the Church’s sexual abuse of children going all the way back to the fourth century. He reminds me a bit of my sister-in-law who celebrated her graduation from Catholic school by burning her religion textbook. The Anchoress seems too psychologically damaged to experience this kind of catharsis.
Cat Lady
Any woman who’s a Catholic after all this crap doesn’t get any sympathy from me. Wake the fuck up. These disgusting excuses for men have never cared what you think, and will never care what you think, and will always treat you and your children like so much chattel to be exploited. It’s always only ever been about them and their earthly power. The end.
Jason Bylinowski
Uh. Yeah…….I hate to sound trite and overwhelmingly condescending (a little dab’ll do ya) but I found that essay to be just another example of writing that is very much in vogue right now, edgy and oversharing and oh-so-sexily astride on the fence between the tragic and the beautiful: transparent, falsely archetypal, wasteful of my precious bodily fluids. This is the writing of a person who listened to Like A Prayer way too much as a child and has mistaken Madonna’s Black Jesus Boyfriend for her own.
It kinda stunk, is what I’m saying here. But maybe I’m just sour.
Citizen Alan
Religion just bores and annoys me. This Sunday, I have to get up at some God-forsaken hour and go to church with my Mom and Dad. This is in addition to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, which traditionally are the only other days I go to church, but one of my cousins scheduled a wedding for tonight so I’m stuck in town for the weekend with no viable excuse for not going with them and listening to an hour of crazy talk.
As far as I’m concerned, the purpose of religion is to control people’s minds, period, whether to get vulnerable children to submit to a predatory priest or to get poor, struggling people to part with their hard-earned money. It’s all just a way to get people to do things they would never do if they hadn’t been brainwashed into believing a particular assortment of crazy things, including the idea that their particular assortment of crazy beliefs is in any way more believable or moral than everybody else’s assortment of crazy believes.
beltane
This has put me in the mood to re-read Christopher Hitchins’ God is Not Great. And before anyone accuses me of being a militant atheist, I usually consider myself militantly indifferent to religion. Formal atheism is way too serious for me; I am a quiet member of the church of “I have no interest one way or another in your neurotic attachment to the invisible beings that control your life”.
Brick Oven Bill
The Catholic Church is not a healthy organization. This is evidenced by the fact that they do not provide the source documents in the pews for the congregation.
No group should be led by individual men. Groups should be led by a consensus of intelligent people.
This is why Teabaggers insist on source documents.
Whackjob Militia Leader soonergrunt
Teabaggers and groups of intelligent people
One of these things is not like the other.
cbear
I found that I genuinely don’t give a fuck what this woman has to say about anything, much less her own victimization that, instead of leading to some level of tolerance and understanding, has convinced her (in typical conservative fashion) to share the pain with those less fortunate than herself.
Fuck her, just another well-to-do gooper with a hard luck story.
Svensker
Beltane, the only problem with Hitchins’ book is that he doesn’t know anything about religion, but thinks he does. He makes up a lot of shit and his logic is not so hot. There are plenty of good philosophical arguments to be made for not believing in a Supreme Being, but Hitchins’ basic argument seems to be “there are really crappy people who are religious and Catholicism is dumb, therefore God does not exist.”
His logic on God = his logic on the Iraq War.
Linda Featheringill
“I think the Anchoress is nuts in general”
How could she not be highly neurotic? The scars that have been inflicted on her psyche will likely be there all of her life.
Mark S.
I don’t know. If you go over to her blog, you can find all sorts of apologies for the Church and the Pope. It mostly reads like a saner version of Donohue (which is saying something, because a lot of what she writes is insane), without all of the lawyerly distinctions between pedophilia and pederasty.
TuiMel
I’m with Jason Bylinowski, but maybe I’m just sour, too. I tried to read the whole piece but I found myself reflexively skimming. Going back a second time was no better.
Ms. Scalia says that “we people in the pews are roiling with feelings of betrayal, shame, revulsion”.
I get the betrayal, and I get the revulsion, but I cannot find a reference within me for the shame – unless she and her fellow parishioners somehow knew of abuse within the boundaries of their own church, did nothing to stop it, and abetted the offending priest.
I would have liked to feel compassion toward this woman who has suffered betrayal at the most basic level, but what I felt was only her invitation to indulge in and affirm her sense of powerlessness. My rejection of that was visceral.
Catholics, IMO, need to stop projecting powerlessness and demand accountability from the institution for which they feel so much revererance. I cannot identify with it, but I will grant it. But, to pretend the acts of the hierarchy were anything less than deplorable, is to make a victim of every Catholic (as Ms. Scalia seems ready to do). The concept that God may be the ultimate judge of the abuse perpetrated by the minority that actually committed these sinful acts does not mean the sinners should not be subject to the laws of man while they enjoy earthly life.
WereBear
I find Richard Dawkins to be a writer who is more compelling and interesting.
However, for sheer readability, not to mention an extraordinary backstory, I like Godless, by minister-turned-atheist Dan Barker.
One of my favorite parts is where he explains his situation to his born-again mother… who decides his arguments are compelling, and becomes a free-thinker, too. She says, “Now I don’t have to hate anymore!”
That says a lot.
gnomedad
The Anchoress here honors ambiguity, but the Church I have known does so only when its credibility is stretched to the breaking point; otherwise, unquestioning submission to authority and belief as it demands is the rule. There are exceptions, but the current leadership has been doing its best to marginalize or outright condemn them.
WereBear
I, too, could not read the piece. She has not grappled with her victimization at all; she’s still stuck trying to please the abuser, thinking that means her torment will go away.
And doesn’t Catholicism recognize what they call the occasion of sin: external circumstances — things or persons — which incite or entice one to sin?
Creating a lot of children who struggled with mental and physical torment to the point of suicide… isn’t that also an issue here? What kind of theology brushes that off?
cbear
Tough shit.
Anybody wanna guess what her position on providing mental health services to the poor, sans some batshit crazy religious componet, would be???
Sorry to be so harsh, but the milk of human kindness for the goopers that have all but ruined this country is running a little dry over here at my house.
Linda Featheringill
To all of you jerks:
It must be nice to be so clean and pure and wholesome, to be so worthy that nobody has every picked you up and rolled your whole world in filth, to be so righteous that you have never carried anyone else’s shame.
It must be nice to be so whole that you have never failed to maintain your integrity, to have no scars on your body or your mind or your soul. It must be nice to have never broken.
It must be nice to be so goddam clean.
Desert Rat
What part of the NAMBLA Church is in “the light” as Crazy Church Lady, er, the Anchoress, puts it?
Hates gays and lesbians.
Opposes women in the clergy, in the workplace, and pretty much anywhere outside of (heterosexual) marriage and the home.
Hates people who disagree with it or question the infallibility of a clearly, deeply fallible leadership and head of the church.
Tries to torpedo health care for nearly 50 million Americans simply because a few women (not even church members), might get abortions.
Reinforces the worst prejudices of people (Proposition 8).
Aided and abetted the escape of war criminals (Nazis fleeing from Germany).
Stayed notably silent over the past 70 years in the face of genocide, ending of religious freedom, etc. in a ton of places all over the world, even when it was members of their own church at risk.
Covers up, obfuscates, and then makes excuses, even when caught red-handed at not only having its leaders diddling little boys, but then tries to cover it up, and discredit the victims.
Anybody who still affiliates with that organization is a fool. No other way to put it. If that hits somebody a little close to home, then maybe they need to think about it a little harder.
I wouldn’t be a member of a political organization, church, or any other organization that did 10% of what the Roman Catholic Church has done just in the last 80 years.
scav
Well, two of my posts here have disappeared, but given today they may reappear so I’ll just add this to the lost ones.
Again and again, I have no to negative interest in hearing what Catholics feel about this situation. What we need to know is what they will do about it. Furthermore, most of us can probably imagine that this is difficult for you to take in but all the same, stop trying to take center stage and possibly disrupting the process of Actually Fixing Something by emoting on and on about how it impacts you personally.
EDIT: Linda, We’re not all pretending to be clean nor perfect, we just want movement on making things better. Or at least I do.
Mnemosyne
You know how you see those stories in the news where it turns out that Uncle Bob was able to molest three generations of his family because no one wanted to make Grandma sad by sending him to jail where he belonged? One person finally breaks down and reveals the secret and it turns out that Uncle Bob damaged everyone within reach because no one wanted to be the bad guy who broke the family apart, so now it breaks apart because the younger generations are pissed at the older ones for not saying anything and the older generations are pissed at the younger ones for airing the family’s dirty laundry.
The Catholic Church abuse scandal is pretty much the same thing, writ large.
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
I agree.
Ian
It’s interesting that she does not claim that the Catholic Church is a basically good institution with a few bad apples. She seems to be saying that the really impressively good Catholics (St. Francis?) are at least as rare as the bad apples. (“A small minority has sinned, gravely, against too many. Another minority has assisted or saved the lives of millions.” ) That’s something you don’t normally hear from a defender of the Church, something appealingly realistic.
But then she says this…
…and that’s why the US is not the most compassionate nation on earth. It’s not in the top 10.
Likewise the Catholic Church. This isn’t a matter of a few bad apples; the whole Church hierarchy right up to the Pope has been systematically protecting and enabling child rapists.
I wish the Anchoress would remember that not all Christians are Catholic. She could get out and still keep what she loves.
Ruckus
Linda Featheringill
Don’t know who you are aiming this at but I don’t hear anyone claiming to be holy or above everyone else. But in all the RCC themed posts recently most everyone is saying that it’s not the laity that’s at fault but that the church has systematically allowed and hidden the rape of children by priests. But as more and more is known most of us wonder, how does one justify still being a member? At what point does one have to accept the the responsibility, or if you will the shame, not of the acts but of the cover up? BTW I think that accepting the shame of someone else’s actions is BS. The shame is that covering up those actions becomes acceptance of the actions. And given the RCC hierarchy there is no way short of leaving the church to change it. There is no working through a process. The RCC is corrupt from the top. For sure not all the way down and not every priest or nun, but given the situation there is no recourse.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
Well …. to write about this topic here, one must walk on eggs lest the post-eating spam filter just take it away without notice or recourse. I know this from experience, wish me luck.
I have a really hard time with this topic. I was mistreated in the way consistent with this thread’s topic, as a young lad, by somebody in a position of a little authority over me at the time. Therefore it is not possible for me to read these stories and see this topic on the news and the blogs without having some strong thoughts on the matter.
I’ve recently retired from my longtime career-job-occupation, so that gives you and idea of the age group I am in. And in the 50-plus years since the aforementioned mistreatment, I have spoken of those events with maybe half a dozen other people, including two shrinks and a few other people I was close to at one time or another. Let’s just say, I really don’t enjoy talking about much. And from adolescence until about age 40, a period of around 25 years or so, I pretty much blocked out the entire experience and all the events around that time in my life, so that the thing just was a dark blank space in my memory.
So, to the topic at hand, which I address here with some trepidation. Over all those years and some considerable therapy, I have come to only a very few conclusions. One of them is that I long ago forgave the person who mistreated me. I compared my own pain at being a part of his pain, with his, and decided that there was a good chance that he was more tortured by it than I was. Maybe, maybe not. I really have no way of knowing that for sure. But the point is, I don’t know, and I couldn’t see the point of carrying anger and resentment around with me for the rest of my life. Life is hard enough without adding to the inventory of painful things. I just let go of the anger, forgave the poor man, and over a not very long period of time my own shame and fear of the thing faded away too. A fairly effective pill, forgiveness, and for me, without much in the way of side effects.
I have no dog in the fight over what is happening the Catholic Church, but when it comes to the simple matter of how people treat other people, when it comes to the mysteries of sexuality, I refuse to be judgmental and carry grudges. At the risk of seeming odd and being unpopular in an age of triumphant sex police on every corner, I just don’t want to join in the condemnation of other people unless there is some really compelling reason to do so. The Church has its own work to do, and I have no advice for it on how to go about doing that work. I wish it well, I hope it turns out as well as possible for everyone under the circumstances. In my own experience, by far the most painful part of what happened to me was the hysterical reaction of adults around me to the events. If they had been okay with it all, I would have been much better off. A seven year old can’t understand much about sexual behavior, but he can sure understand fear and overreaction on the part of adult figures in his life. Whatever value there is in that message, I hope it helps somebody else. I’d have had no reason to feel horrified and ashamed of what happened to me if the adults around me hadn’t been so sure that horror and shame were what I ought to be feeling.
Eric U.
I almost feel comfort in knowing that these crimes were considered and debated at the highest level of the church hierarchy. Of course, they seem to have taken a rather evil approach to the whole thing. And I suppose after centuries of child abuse, they had a lot of practice and precedent.
And several million people owe Sinead O’Conner an apology.
Liberty60
I read, and argue with, the Anchoress a lot. Like her, I am a Catholic.
Her comments (on this issue only, perhaps) are not so different than my own.
Like her, I knew a priest who was spellbinding in his intellect, who had a tremendous energy to do altruistic work in imitation of Christ, who was someone I had deep respect and admiration for.
He also, in the years after I knew him, found to have forced himself sexually on a young adult man. he was exiled, and lived his last years alone, in public disgrace.
I don’t disagree with his punishment, it seemed fitting. But I do remember thinking, was his entire life defined by this? Was every good and noble thing he ever did in his life, a life filled with fine and noble works, to be swept away by this dark part of his soul?
I would give the very same answer that many Catholics give regarding the murderers, thieves and rapists in our prisons; that there is a part of our soul that still has redemptive value, that even guilty people have something about them that can’t be dismissed easily.
Again, I don’t think we should have any qualms about facing squarely the criminality and evil that has been done, and the responsibility that appears to be laying at the feet of the Pope. And forgiveness and redemption can only happen after honesty and confession.
But in answer to the Anchoress’s question of why we remain Catholic, the Church is not a cult of personality- when we attend mass, it is to resolve our own spiritual needs and desires, having nothing to do with whoever is sitting in the Vatican.
I think a lot of Catholics sometimes need to remind themselve that in the Gospels, it is Peter who is shown in the most shameful light- denying Christ while He is inside on trial for His life.
Peter, the shameful coward, is the first Pope- exemplifying the humanity and mixture of good and evil that is in everyone.
Linda Featheringill
To AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat:
I am sorry for your pain and injury. I admire the strength and the struggle you went through to reach the point where you are today. Congratulations.
Question: Are you really a thug of meat?
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
Linda, I am a handle shape shifter. The other night there was a thread that talked about jack booted government thugs, and I decided to grab the phrase for some tongue in cheek amusement.
I’m just a very ordinary farm animal, really.
But don’t tell the others here, it would blow my cover.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Three more days.
jenniebee
Wow, uh… Stockholm much?
It goes a long way to explain why she associates with a political philosophy that is obsessed with victimization (omg! ur playing teh victim card! omg! that makes me the victim automatically times infinity no takebacks!)
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
I am sorry to hear about this. Your thoughts are very eloquent.
Can I put this on the front page?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
He used to be a cow. And btw TZ, bravo for sharing this. really:)
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
DougJ: Sure. For clarity, you should probably mention that I am actually TZ. My handle shifts have been a little herky jerky lately.
gbear
OT, but someone has to do it. An intermission from religion. TBogg has created a xtranormal movie called Sexytime for Republicans.
Undercover FBI Agent DougJ
@TZ
Thanks. I will put this up tomorrow morning.
TuiMel
I personally would not question anyone’s decision to remain a Catholic. Faith (or the absence thereof) is a private matter. My opinion as an outsider is that the Catholic Church – as an institution – has a problem that it has failed to come to terms with in a way that would give me confidence (were I a Catholic) that the types of abuses that have come to light will stop. Or that the hierarchy even really understands the damage that has been done to many if not all the actual victims.
As to my inability to comprehend that Ms. Scalia feels shame for the acts of her men who were members of her Church’s ruling hierarchy at all levels, I do not believe that means I am incapable of ever feeling shame for the actions of others. Further, I am well aware of many of my own numerous personal failings. And, I own those failings without feeling any regret that I have never taken them into the confessional or otherwise found any comfort in an abiding faith that Jesus owns them more than I. Perhaps this is why I feel so strongly that the Church failed all the victims so egregiously by viewing offenders as above the laws of the communities in which they lived and ministered. Rather in many cases the just moved the “problem” around. The continuing rationalization and defense of the indefensible (in public, who knows what may be said in prayers or the confessional) leaves me cold.
Mark S.
Til what? The championship game?
(Are we getting our reply arrows back? Is this punishment for for all the paste eating in that previous thread?)
General Egali Tarian Stuck
April 2nd, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Mark S.
what else?
Brachiator
To Hell with the Anchoress.
Countless good priests? No mention of the priests, bishops, cardinals, popes who did not simply turn a blind eye to child rape by their brothers, but who aided and abetted them, who willingly sacrificed the lives and souls of those their were called to protect so that some shabby institution could endure, mired in the shit of its own hypocrisy.
Jesus supposedly threw the money lenders out of the Temple. Who has the guts to pull priest child rapists and their defenders into the light of day?
Clearly not the Anchoress.
The supposed faithful who cling to their religion, but do nothing to help the afflicted remind me of those coward angels in Dante’s Inferno who refused to take sides, who neither stood with God nor joined Satan. Doing nothing when they could easily help makes them all worse than scum.
Caccianli i ciel per non esser men belli,
né lo profondo inferno li riceve,
ch’alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d’elli.
The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened,
have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them-
even the wicked cannot glory in them.
— (Dante and Mandelbaum Translation)
Mark S.
Oh, duh.
Gian
I’ve cousins who were victims, in their home, the parents had invited the priest in.
the people in mangement who moved molestors from one location to another putting them into a a new hunting ground, to put it legally aided and abetted the molestation of children, and the Church needs to render under Caesar what is Caesar’s, and Caesar has rules and laws about where child molestors go. Caesar also has laws about aiding and abetting, in most states, if you hand someone a loaded gun and say “kill him” you’re just as much a murderer as the trigger puller.
I have hard time seeing a distinction in putting a child molestor into the midst of unsuspecting children and handing over the gun.
All that said, it’s easy to pick on one church for this, when the truth is the problem is much wider than that – the Boy Scouts have a rather similar problem in a trial now.
If you want to molest kids (outside the family), you’re going to look for a reason to be around kids a lot and a position that gives you trust. Look to your little league coaches, your boy scout leaders, your priests (and other denominations have similar issues) and don’t automatically trust anyone alone – as sad, and sorry as that sounds, the vast majority of child moletor types don’t kidnap in the dark a stranger, they befriend and groom a victim.
My cousins were raped as children with my uncle and aunt in the home, maybe 60 feet away downstairs.
(and in recent history the church did bring us south american liberation theology and was against the Iraq war and death penalty – agree with that or not, those are not part of conservative talking points)
the gist of it is that for a long long long time the leaders of the church have decided – like the Scouts – that it’s better to try and make the problem disappear for the good overall of the organization – than it is to stand up and do the right thing.
and, the folks in management who relocated a molestor to a new crop of unsuspecting victims are just as guilty of molestation as the molestor and need to be punished as such.
Karen in GA
Angus, wow. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
That’s some mind-boggling strength and wisdom you’ve got there. I’m glad you’re in a good place now.
bago
It was a tragedy in the 40’s when those good Germans said nothing about the when their organizations were doing: “things that could be considered bad”.
It was a tragedy in the 70’s when that holy German said nothing about the crimes his organization was doing: “things that could be considered bad”.
Ah crap, I godwin’d.
Mo's Bike Shop
Meh. Coddling codependency isn’t the way to break the cycle of violence.
The Anchoress’ career path of pious spite is no more healthy than the priests who fell into the trap of ‘do unto others what was done unto you.’
Warm thoughts of cheer to all of you who have been betrayed. It was not your fault.
The important thing is not to look the other way.
cbear
Linda Featheringill,
WTF?
Maybe you don’t get it, but some of us just don’t give a rats ass about the underlying causes of other people’s damaged pysches, when those same people advocate organizations, institutions and/or policies guaranteed to cause or perpetuate misery for more human beings.
For instance, I don’t doubt Karl Rove must have suffered some terribly traumatic childhood event that turned him into an amoral pyschopathic cretin who saw a political advantage to be had in the death and suffering of tens of thousands—and I know George Bush’s Oedipal conflicts probably caused him great pain and suffering that may have blinded him to the untold misery he so eagerly unleashed upon those same tens of thousands—but that doesn’t stop me from thinking of those two evil fucks as the monsters that they are.
Some of us take the pain and damage in our lives and develop tolerance and compassion for others, while some use (unwittingly or not) their pain as an excuse to deny tolerance and compassion to others.
Jerk? I’ll cop to that (although I prefer the more descriptive term “asshole”) but this jerk/asshole tries as much as possible to live his life by that tired old “Do unto others” credo.
That poor sad damaged”Anchoress” lady? Not so much IMHO.
YMMV.
Alex
I probably haven’t given nearly as much thought to this issue as I should. I was raised Catholic, and although I couldn’t be called devout these days, I’m closer to Catholicism than any other belief system, atheism included. What strikes me most is that these Catholics, the ones who are abusing people and lying about it, they’re not the people I grew up with at my church. What worries me is that “Catholic pervert” will become as much a part of the cultural lexicon as “greedy Jew”, or “Muslim Terrorist”. And who does that help? Not the Catholics, not the people Catholics will lash out at in anger of being affixed with such a stereotype, and not the uninvolved people whose brains will be clogged by another stereotype. I don’t see much of it here, but it seems some atheists are just gleefully using this as a great reason for a round of religion-bashing, something that, again, I don’t understand how it solves any problems.
Just my thoughts, I guess.
El Cid
Hey! Some dudes made a videotape about this group of black people called ACORN who try and help the homeless & stuff. Let’s go on a media binge of condemning those awful worthless negroes, and vow to cut off their funding, ’cause, you know, they’re black and stuff.
Hey, it was bullshit, but, you know, at least they’re dissolved and gone now. What does it matter? People got to learn to fight for themselves and stuff.
The whole ‘raping children for decades’ and its cover up and protection on pretty much every continent by the Catholic Church hierarchy?
Well, I mean, it’s bad and all, but, you know, there are still a lot of good people in the Church and we shouldn’t through the baby out with the protectors of lifetime child rapists.
librulcarmelite
I’m pissed at “the anchoress” because she is NOT an anchoress… if she was, she wouldn’t be blurting out crap for the whole world to hear/read (I didn’t know she had a freakin’ podcast ’till I just used teh google on her).
The fact that she is the member of a third order, which is called the “secular” order within the Church, makes me angry over her hate and bad theology.
Jesus said only one law when he rose from the dead: “Love one another”. He didn’t say “except gays, women, the poor, people from other countries” etc. Just “love one another”.
I think she fails on that one – and I wonder what her spiritual advisor tells her about that.
I’m not saying that I am all that, I am a third order Carmelite who left the Church after much struggle and prayer. I am now an Episcopalian, and much more at home. I can still believe in Catholic doctrine, but I have “updated” the sexuality and gender to include women, GLBT, and others who have been (and still are) excluded by the Catholic Church. I still struggle with the “love one another” – esp. in heavy traffic when I get cut off by a jerk – but I am at least trying.
I knew I made the right choice for me to leave when B16 got elected – my grandmother and mother were both Jewish, and I still identify with that part of my ethnic heritage, even though I don’t follow that faith-path… I just couldn’t have a “nazi pope”.
Sorry I’m rambling…
-librulcarmelite
russell
Ms. Scalia?
Just asking the obvious question.
Angus, that was a courageous and moving comment. Many thanks for sharing your experiences.
arguingwithsignposts
I have no dog in this fight, never experienced anything like AJBTOM, or the Anchoress. I find much that is compelling about faith, and yet don’t have any at the moment.
But I will say that the movie “Doubt” with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman made me weep. Several times. Not for the priest, but for the countless people who placed their faith in these authority figures, only to have it betrayed.
Ruckus
Angus
Sorry you had to go through that. And I’m glad you’ve come out the other side with compassion and humor. My sister couldn’t reach all the way there for 40 plus yrs, until she was dying from cancer. I can’t imagine the pain, even knowing someone trying to work through it.
Alex
I’m sure there are atheists who will take joy for the troubles in the RCC, and feel they can tar everyone who is catholic with the scandal. But that’s not joy, that’s bigotry.
To me this issue with the RCC is not about religion. It’s not about the innocent people who practice any religion. It’s about hypocrisy and trust. Hypocrisy, and trust. One easy and one hard thing, one of which a religion absolutely should not have and one that it must. The RCC has failed on both counts.
We have a legal system in which rape is not allowed, we punish for the crime and that may deter some of the crime, but it does not stop it. Had the priests paid actual penance, even if only inside the church and the church had even just tried to stop the practice of rape, that could have been seen to be like the legal system of most(all?) countries. But the priests and the church did not. And not just for decades but apparently for centuries. That failure is now so systemic that I don’t see any possibility to fix it.
gwangung
I may be wrong, but I think a lot of people WANT to forgive the Church and its hierarchy…but the power loving fools are throwing the forgiveness in the faces of the forgivers.
Lesley
The scariest, most damaging pedophiles are the clever “brilliant” ones who understand the manipulative value in being tender at the right moments. Nothing like confusing the hell out of the children you are raping to keep them in your grasp.
It saddens me she still sees a “good side” to a person who doesn’t have one. She doesn’t realize how shallow and self-serving those morsels of kindness were.
Cerberus
Now we now longer have the reply function either? Man, that’s unfortunate.
Ruckus @56
I, as close friend and partner to many survivors of many forms of rape and molestation (including a close friend who was raped by her father and brother as a small child) and as the victim of public molestation myself, not to mention being connected to a lot of anti-rape work, would argue very strongly that forgiveness for one’s attacker is neither desired nor always the best for the recovering victim.
It can be a moment of moving on, like with Angus, but it can also be a cage to continue to trap them with the damage, removing the blame from the one who deserves it so it falls only naturally to the only person left, the victim themselves. And that latter case is the more common. Called upon to recognize the humanity in their attackers, people they more likely than not knew personally, this can easily become weaponized, a self-destruction that absolves the guilty from blame and blames the victim for suffering it.
Because otherwise, life can seem unsafe and these life-changing attacks may need years to recover from.
Compassion towards one’s molesters can be part of the healing process or it can be part of the self-destruction cycle so many more victims find themselves in. It’s not always necessary that we feel it in the end for our attackers or attackers in general.
What matters most in recovery in getting the victim into a place where they can be free of their abuser in their own way, truly free from the scars left across their soul and free in such a way that they don’t let the heavy reality-wiping hand of denial drag them eventually down into supporting the most heinous wrongs and the like.
Retaining a faith in the world outside the cage one carries inside oneself, that there is life outside the rapes or molestations and that not everyone or even most one’s carry the face or life of the bastards who did it. That there truly is a bigger world than you dare to believe in when you have been victimized in that way (especially as a child).
As to your other point, I don’t think there are any atheists who are glad to see this, but their are non-religious people like me who do hope this will put a stake through the heart of the Church, but that’s because we have loved many a person who has come out of that Church, even in the leaving and carried so many scars impeding their very motions, their ability to think at all unimpeded by the whips and chains of Catholic bondage.
The Church is one of the most notorious organizations to leave, because it lays root in one’s mind. Even after one has left, stopped going to confessions and receiving communions, the marks on the soul still steer thoughts. Self-destruction of one’s sex life in the enjoyment and honesty of sexual self-expression. The constant steering of thoughts in Catholic political values so that even if one understands that a fetus is not a child, the emotional training says you must act like it is anyways and similarly reject life-saving things like support for gay rights or access to contraceptives.
And that’s before we get into the defining characteristic, that of shame and guilt.
People earlier in the thread were confused, why shame and guilt for a crime of the hierarchy. Because every action is shame and guilt in the Church. It is a Pavlovian response for any action of the self, of self-thought, of self-regard, of self-respect. It is a block against heresy.
And there is no other heresy greater for Catholics than thinking ill of the hierarchy. Thinking badly of the patriarchy, the Church officials, the priests and bishops and especially the pope. This for many of those indoctrinated by the Church physically hurts. Is an action that has been trained as forbidden. As akin to betraying family, of daring to speak as a victim. Realizing the moral depravity of those in charge is like those scenes in sci-fi movies where the shock collars go off on the prisoners.
I want to see this institution die so that future generations of me won’t have to watch in pain as the training and triggers deny people they love the full range of actions available to people like me, won’t have to see them struggling and twisting on the moral rust and bad habits picked up from child molesters and their defenders, from misogynists and dictator supporters.
I have grown to hate the Church over my life of picking up the pieces and learning psychology on the fly, more so than any other organization (and I have very direct beefs with Mormonism and the Republican Party).
The Church is uniquely evil and I want it off my planet.
I don’t wish the continued pain and abuse (and yes denying rape victims any sense of justice or closure for their rapes is a form of continuing the abuse) on the victims, but this was an outcome the Church brought on itself and was inevitable by its very ideas of the role of women and children and worshipper.
When an organization views its followers not as people, but as manipulatable puppets, objects of ownership, then crimes like these will happen and multiply and I for one hope they choke on it.
Cerberus
Lesley @58
It’s one of the oldest things about rape. The victims are always called on to see the humanity of their rapists, and often being people they know personally, that can be easy, even before the mind begins to try and rewrite the incidents to try and protect itself against the horrors being perpetrated on it.
My partner was raped by a person she was in love with. If she had not told her best friend after the incident, the real incident would have been lost by careful manipulation.
Her violator sold her a sob story afterwards and she bit, remembering all to well that this violator was someone she had loved and possibly still loved and that he had tried to kill himself not long before. So she suffered so that her rape at his hands wouldn’t “ruin his life” or cause him to relapse to suicide and buried it inside herself.
And with no one left to blame, she blamed herself, obviously she must have turned him on, done something wrong, been at fault and social conditioning and the rape culture we swim in did the rest.
If she hadn’t told someone the real truth, it would have been lost and all that would have been left would have been her self-destructive outlet of that immense pain, of betrayal and rape sent only against herself, an incident now “the worst mistake of her life”, “something to be atoned for”.
It doesn’t take much cleverness to manipulate a victim to blame themselves in the rape culture we live in. It’ll pretty much work like automatic by the very virtue that the monsters that rape us are so rarely total strangers whose only desire is to do the work of Satan, but rather people we thought we knew, who we trusted and perhaps even loved at a time.
And people far too often feel far too ashamed to destroy what they thought they knew about a person just for a “silly thing” like their rapes at their hands.
And it only gets worse for those attacked as children.
asiangrrlMN
Angus, that was beautiful. Thank you for writing that. As someone else who is grappling with said issues, much like the Anchoress, I have to say, I have some pity and compassion for her (note: I know nothing about her–never heard of her before this) as a person. It’s a horrible thing to have to suffer, especially if it’s from a member of your own family.
That said, I agree with cat lady. The Anchoress is mimicking her own abuse by staying with the Church. It shows in her sentence about feeling shame in the pews. Shame is the first thing instilled in a survivor of sexual abuse, and it’s really hard to eradicate.
The Church, like her abuser, has no interest in owning up to what it did wrong or to doing anything differently. If it hadn’t been caught, it would have happily continued moving the offenders from parish to parish.
asiangrrlMN
Cerberus, what you say about forgiveness is too true. It’s part of our ‘be positive’ society that is such a burden. In addition, forgiveness seems more like forgetfulness, if you understand what I’m saying.
I think one has to let go of the anger because that will kill you. But forgive? No. I have no reason to do that, especially since in my case, the person has no remorse and really, no ability to feel for anyone other than himself. The best thing for me was realizing that he could no longer physically harm me and that I no longer had to fear him in that matter.
I know how much I’ve been scarred by my past. The idea that one priest molested over 200 kids with the Church knowingly moving him from parish to parish (abetting) infuriates me.
El Cid
The past is in the past, the Church hierarchy has everyone’s best interest in mind, and, plus, who knew all the way back in the early days of 2006 that covering up sexual abuse and treating it like an internal church matter was wrong?
See? The Church knew how to handle this. No need to get all extreme with legal proceedings and whatnot — just treat the guy and let him keep working elsewhere.
I mean, what organization wouldn’t get away with simply retraining and transferring child molesters? I’m sure ACORN could have done the same.
2006 was a long, long time ago, yet also too short a time for Catholic Church officials to have learned from the sexual abuse crises exploding around them for the recent decade.
kay
I think it’s a little early to launch the defense. We don’t know enough. The Church has expended a lot of money and energy making sure we don’t know enough. The truth is, they’ve never voluntarily released anything. We know only what they have chosen to tell us, and what they’ve been forced to reveal through lawsuits. This may be standard operating procedure within the Church, but that type of stonewalling is not at all acceptable in the wider secular world.
A victim who was abused by a priest at a juvenile detention facility has come forward. I cannot determine from the news report if the detention facility was a church-run facility.
I’d be interested in whether it was also standard practice to send abusers into the wider community. If so, I think the Church has to meet the ordinary and expected transparency standards of the secular world, and release some information to the public ahead of a court order. I’d also like to know if any public funds were used in any of these ministries.
Linda Featheringill
AsiangrrlMN and others who have suffered rape and other forms of molestation:
Peace.
We are safe this morning. Perhaps we can spread that safety to other vulnerable souls.
I thank all of your for your open and honest sharing. Part of the stigma of molestation is the feeling of being “weird”. Well, maybe we are different, but we are not alone. We have each other.
Go out and play in the sunshine.
asiangrrlMN
Linda Featheringill, peace to you as well. Yes, it’s the silence that hurts the most. Together, we can be strong. Thanks for the advice. A little sun never hurt anyone.
Mino
I’m sure it will not surprise anyone, but that bastion of sexual rectitude, the Boy Scouts of America, appears to have a similar problem. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/30/eveningnews/main6348223.shtml
And to have behaved in a similar manner. It’s a pattern to uphold the organization at the expense of the ones they are supposted to serve.
Cerberus
Linda @65
Oh, the thing that burns in my gut is that rape victims, molestation victims, inc.-.est rape victims, we’re definitely not alone, not by a long shot.
If anything, we are freakishly, sadly, unfortunately common. From exceedingly low level stuff like what happened to me (J-train style public rubbing himself against me) to some of the things I’ve been reading in the herstories.
It’s not uncommon and it should be. It should be rare and odd and uniquely tragic if it occurs as all. The fact that such stories aren’t, that they are so commonly shared webs binding many of us together in trauma is pretty much one of the nascent reasons I became such a radical rabble-rouser.
We’re not alone, no, but hopefully, most of us, at least for the moment, are free, at least physically. Hopefully we’re all that one step closer as well to being rid of the demons and the bodily responses that linger from the seized autonomy and haunting “what-ifs”.
Cause spring does follow winter and the path of history is long but bends towards justice.
And as you say, the sun is amazing if you take the time to see it.
Cerberus
asiangrrl @62
Well anger can also bring passion and strength, especially for women who are so often told to bottle all their anger. Unexpressed anger can fester and sour and twist. Releasing it in a controlled manner or directing it towards an end can bring the closure that’s so hard to find.
But yes, never forgive but on your own terms for your own reasons, never forget but heal and make peace, and most of all, never apologize, cause it’s never your fault that someone made you into a victim.
And the rest is up to style and personal need. We all heal in our own ways and if our friends are any good, they often end up carrying most of the rage for us. I know my own stuff is more annoying than infuriating, but what happened to friends and my partner, that’s the fire in my belly that reminds me why I fight and why I’ll never apologize for being a feminist.
Neo
http://www.reformation.com/
asiangrrlMN
Cereberus, agreed yet again. I had to experience the anger, but at some point, I realized I had let it go. I didn’t try to let it go, but as I worked on other issues, it happened. My friends would beat the shit out of my abuser in a heartbeat if I asked, so I agree with you on that. I have several friends who have been abused, and I am enraged on their behalf.
MaximusNYC
I dare say I have a lot more use for personal and institutional religion than some posters and commenters here.
But the Anchoress’ NPR piece strikes me as 90% sacred, poetic baloney.
“There is great darkness in the Church, and also great light! They mix together like a wheat field blown by the wind!”
WTFBBQ?
I guess she’s making a rather unobjectionable point — that over the years, the Catholic Church has contained people who have done great things, and people who have done terrible things. But she cloaks it in a lot of grandiose gasbaggery.
That seems to be her schtick: pour a thick coating of mystical self-satisfaction over everything you write, and some people will perceive you as profound.
Cerberus
asiangrrl-
Of course, it’s not a battle between anger or no anger, only that either can be the means by which one moves towards healthy and free and it really depends on the person. Some end with a “I leave it with the fucker and move on”, others with a more “I just don’t care anymore”, still others more “I forgive and find a stable friendship or relationship on my own terms with the attacker”.
I guess what I’m saying is we all find our levels and there’s no one right way to heal or to be healthy.
Ruckus
Cerberus@59
I don’t think I was clear. I don’t think that forgiveness is what is necessary. It seems to work for some but I agree that it does not work for most people, because it effectively pushes the responsibility for the act back upon the victim. Absolutely Not where it belongs. And of course that’s what most religions ask a victim to do, forgive. You know, for the humanity. Oh the humanity. I notice there is the word man in humanity and given the RCC’s stance on women and their value, I’m feeling they noticed it also.
As for the RCC, as I said I see no way for this to be fixed, and I feel that any organization this screwed up can not be fixed because it can only be fixed from the inside and there is about minus zero chance of that.
I edited out a couple of paragraphs out of my rant before posting which may have changed your perception of said rant. So to clarify, I also know of people who were screwed up by not just the RCC but by other “religions” as well. The concept of a belief system based upon a higher power makes no sense to me and I’ve studied a lot of them. I get why some people like the idea and feel that if my understanding of what a true religion would be was the way religions were instead of how most of them end up, then it would not matter if one practiced religion or not. But religions are man made institutions and have all the flaws that humans can muster. Power, greed, corruption, delusion (and I’m sure this is not a complete list) and in an organization that is granted, if not unlimited, close to it, security from review.
Cerberus
Reading farther down the posts I see your answer @62 to asiangrrl. Your answer is very well stated and I agree 100%.
Lesley
I know this thread is old, but I’d just like to say, forgiveness can be, and often is, a racket.
As I said in a more recent thread, all of my support goes to the victims. I am not interested in “finding the humanity” in sexual predators, many of whom rationalize their crimes and play some variation on a sympathy card.
Alice Miller opened my eyes to the bullshit side of forgiveness. Children all too frequently sacrifice themselves to protect the adults who abuse them.
Only victims have the power to forgive.
Meaningful forgiveness can’t be feigned.
No one has the right to forgive a criminal on behalf of a victim.
Victims should never be pressured to forgive.
Forgiving isn’t a necessity.
If forgiving is any way condoning, it becomes crime-enabling, i.e. thinking pedophelia is one of those “mysterious” things that “shouldn’t be judged.” Uh no. Pedophelia is rape. It is a vicious soul destroying crime. Damning judgement is what’s called for to protect children.
Furthermore, there is nothing “wrong” with anger. Anger is often healing. Anger and rage is a necessary step. To tell a child he or she shouldn’t be angry or that being angry is a negative, is not supporting the child.