Should it be possible to sue the city of New York for sexual abuse by public school teachers that happened decades ago? How about doctors or hospital attendants? Police officers? Welfare workers? Playground attendants?Well yes. That's how it works. Have a chat with your local Bishop for the details.
The proposal was originally an effort to expand accountability for sexual abuse by Catholic clergy but has quite rightly extended to cover abuse by people in other walks of life. In this context, the NYT story is no longer one of cover-up and denial of responsibility but of "a collision of powerful civic values".
The excuses are all now tumbling out. The New York City Mayor is concerned about the potential impact for taxpayers. Welcome to the real world, Mayor. Catholics in the pews have seen billions of dollars, donated by them over decades, paid out in compensation to victims of clerical abuse and episcopal failure. It is tough but we have to recognise responsibility.
The State Association of Counties has issued a memo of opposition citing the problem of "significantly aged and clouded” evidence. Well, as we have learnt in the Church, extending the statute of limitations is necessary because the nature of the crime means that it may take a long time before a person is ready to confront the abuse that they have suffered in the past.
The New York State School Boards Association has said that the revelation of past misdeeds would provide no extra protection for children. They should talk to Safeguarding Officials and good lay Catholics who know that the revelation of past crimes is a very strong motivation to provide robust safeguarding procedures.
Although the bill revising the statute of limitations was not voted on last year, it has gained a new lease of life from the continuing coverage in the New York Times and elsewhere, of problems within the Catholic Church, particularly regarding the covering up of abuse.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, in Finland, the Lutheran Church Council is receiving dozens of contacts from people who were victims of sexual abuse within the Church or related revival movements. (These allegations do not relate to ministers within the Church but to other workers or volunteers.) The report in the international edition of Helsingen Sanomat says that the Lutheran Bishop Häkkinen believes that
the victims have felt encouraged to speak out now about their experiences in the wake of the extensive coverage in the press of pedophilia scandals in the Roman Catholic Church(Press reports of another scandal within Finland have also raised consciousness of the problem.)
The furore directed against the Church in recent months is having unintended but positive consequences. It is right that victims of abuse from people not connected with the Catholic Church should call for the same accountability in other walks of life. The abuse of minors within the Church is a shame and a disgrace for us. But those who have been abused in schools, care homes and other secular institutions have no reason to swallow the propaganda that this is an exclusively Catholic problem.
The standards by which the Church has been held to account are now well known and publicised. The standard excuses have been thoroughly trashed. We know what needs to be done and have set about the task. It is now time to apply these same principles more generally instead of fostering the myth that this filth is confined to the Catholic Church. The victims certainly won't buy it.
7 comments:
Indeed Father, the chickens are coming home to roost! While it has been the practice of the media and other prominent people to tag the abuse scandal as a particularly ‘Catholic’ problem, the facts are otherwise. But like the Global Warming phenomenon for many years, anyone who attempted to remind people of the facts was routinely shouted down. As Ab. Dolan attempted to remind the NYT not long ago, their own front page coverage of old cases singled out the Church and ignored the more current abuse in other areas of society. But the NYT wouldn’t publish his letter. No use letting the facts interfere with a good headline!
Child abuse in any sphere of society is scandalous. But it is hypocritical of people to seek to lay all the blame at the feet of the Holy Father while ignoring what is happening in their own backyards. Where is the outrage at public school principals and school boards which for decades have covered up abuse in schools and shuffled teachers from school to school to abuse again? Lawyers have latched onto the Church because of the obscene ‘settlements’ they have been able to secure, lining their pockets at the expense of victims and the Church – something they could not achieve with the educational establishment and other areas of society.
The Catholic Church is the only organization to have taken this seriously – granted, after media exposure – and addressed it thoroughly, as was appropriate. But the problem persists. Would that others were as diligent!
This sounds promising. I hope that the extent of this abuse outside the Church, finally takes the heat out of the claim that only Catholic priests were guilty of this crime.
JARay
An excellent post, Father Tim. Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon, writes in his latest weekly about the incidence of child abuse in his state:
'In great contrast to this sign of hope in the Church I need only refer to the state of Oregon. According to an April 22 headline: “Change needed in abuse investigations.” In brief, the story points out that in 2009, Oregon state workers screened 67,885 reports of child abuse and neglect. These 67,000 reports generated 28,584 investigations. These 28,000 investigations revealed 11,090 children who were victims of abuse or neglect. The story points out that nearly half of these children were under 6.'
He makes no excuses whatever for what has happened in the Church. But the clear evidence is that the Church, unlike wider society, is dealing with what has happened and ensurig that it is very unlikely to recur in the future.
Bishop Vasa's column is at http://sentinel.org/node/11019
I have been very busy in the past few months writing letters to the press pointing out
1) The level of child abuse in the RC Church is no greater (maybe less) than seen at the time in almost any other organisation which brought adults into private contact with children. Therefore the insinuations that this is a specifically Catholic problems are wrong.
2) Adult sexual contact with children was treated rather lightly until very recently partilcuarly in the 1960s and 1970s. Avant-garde sexual liberationists in the 1960s advocated it. It was considered something only silly prudes would object to, and that taking criminal action against it would cause more damage to the child than letting it go. Images of child sex were defended in the Oz trial, still held up as an example of liberation. Therefore it is a lie to insinuate that this was always treated as some great evil and that the Catholic Church alone did not do so.
3) It was absolutely the norm until very recently to treat child trauma by moving the child on and keeping silent about it. In tougher times, consider all the trauma of war and disease which people went through, this attitude made sense. Therefore, though the Catholic Church may have treated it then in a way which is not considered best practice now, it was considered best practice then. Therefore it is incorrect to single out the Catholic Church as if it alone behaved like this.
The point is not to say our Church always did things correctly or never contained any bad people, but that the line that is being pumped out by the press and the commentators and by almost everyone who has a voice that child sex is some peculiar Catholic problem caused by our Church is a lie, provably a lie from easily obtainable evidence, and is an indication of a gross prejudice amongst the establishment against what we stand for.
I have found it impossible to get these points published, even in reply to grossly prejudiced articles in the supposed quality press. They are allowed to insult and abuse us, they don't allow us free platform to reply.
One of the nastiest pieces of anti-Catholic abuse recently was an article by Hugo Rifkind in The Times, in which he stated that the Pope "passionately believes" that child sexual abuse is not a great evil. My reply to that was one of many not published and no-one else's was as well.
Given the anti-Catholicism in that newspaper, isn't there one thing Pope Benedict should do in his visit to our country? Publicly strip Rupert Murdoch of his papal knighthood.
Fr. Finigan,
This post of yours is excellent; the perspective you give is just right.
I wonder myself if this societal revaluation of the former prescriptions of the "best and brightest" in the social sciences might lead to a re-evaluation of their strictures in other areas, such as "no fault" divorce, etc.? Perhaps too much to hope for?
As the saying goes, where there is one cockroach, there will be others....
Let's not have government agencies hide their abusers and liability behind claims of sovereign immunity, either!
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