BishopAccountability.org
	39,000,000 and Counting By Jaime Romo Healing and Spirituality January 25, 2010 http://jjromo.wordpress.com/ In the wake of the massive disaster in Haiti, we have seen a worldwide supportive response to the people of Haiti. Fortunately, religious and other groups and agencies are doing all they can to save lives, rebuild the infrastructure, and even improve the quality and safety of homes in the future. What a wonderful example of public and private, inter-faith cooperation to help those impacted by this event. At the same time, another disaster is unfolding around us. It also brings negative mental and spiritual trauma that can stay with and impact victims negatively for years if not treated. The trauma can infect the capacity to live in the present, and function well; paraphrasing the words of 2nd century Iraneus, the trauma can keep a victim from being the glory of God by being fully alive. There are parallels between earthquakes and sexual abuse. Many sexual abuse victims' lives have already been lost. Many survivors' careers demolished, and relationships buried under the rubble of the toxic impact of religious authority abuse. Daily news reports from every continent provide ample evidence of the ongoing pandemic. Bishop Accountability tracks Catholic offenders. StopBaptistPredators tracks Baptist offenders. The Awareness Center tracks Jewish offenders. I believe these are important efforts. There's a saying, "To name the disease is to be able to cure it." But those are just the religious tips of a societal iceberg. I'm not particularly interested in finding out if one religious group has a higher percentage of sexual abusers, or if sexual abuse is more prevalent in religious groups than in general. I've been searching for an accurate number to describe how many people in the United States have experienced sexual abuse in some form. Not just victims of religious authority sexual abuse, but anyone in society who has experienced sexual abuse. And that has been a difficult process. Studies from justice departments and the National Crime Victim Center, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention are over descriptive and not inter-connected. Even recent studies note that the majority of sexual abuse cases are not reported. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center reports that every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted in the United States. The most conservative numbers give us a base of 39,000.000 people in the United States who have experienced sexual abuse in some way. 39,000,000, and I believe the reality is much higher. I imagine that many readers may be approaching this topic with some distance or detachment, as neither an abuser nor as a person who has been abused. I imagine that it is difficult to see value in taking up such a tragic and toxic topic, especially when there are other disasters that call for attention. It may even be seductive to dismiss this issue as only involving a few individuals who did some very serious damage to some vulnerable children. But whether you consider yourself religious or secular, we as Americans have looked the other way while this happened and did practically nothing to prevent this ongoing abuse of power, this betrayal of confidence, and erosion in trust in our very culture. What's at stake in this issue? In a word: civilization. A society where children mistrust adults because children are abused and because other adults allow this to happen, and do not believe or protect children, is no civilization, certainly no democracy. Instead of our society benefiting from the vast gifts of these persons, their gifts are often lost to us along with the abuse they endured. So is it any wonder that church or education or other important values driven organization leaders or groups are not believed and not trusted? What's the solution for an organization, particularly a religious one, which is no longer credible or trusted by those we intend to serve? It's simple, but not easy. If we want to be trusted, we have to be clear with our boundaries, our roles, and how we understand authority. And if we want to be believed? If we want people to believe in us– we have to be active and consistent in our actions to prevent abuse and live up to our visions or missions. So, if we cannot trust churches or church leaders to protect children and vulnerable adults from sexual abuse by religious authorities, no wonder we have so much sexual abuse in society. Two years ago, California church leaders agreed, as part of legal settlements in order to avoid the public humiliation of victims reporting lurid details of their abuse and to avoid the threat of even greater civil settlements determined by juries, to release documents. And we still do not have them. 42 years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said the following about the Good Samaritan parable, "And so the first question that the priest asked — the first question that the Levite asked was, If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me? But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him" It seems that the documents about sexual abuse are only partially available, just like the documents about religious authority sexual abuse—even though the release of church documents has been one of the conditions of the 'settlements' with many churches. Survivors of religious authority sexual abuse have been fighting for these documents to be released for years. We know that to be able to name the problem is to be able to solve it. We know that the problem is much worse than has been reported or than many imagine. And if we cannot get information about sexual abuse from organizations that have the information and have agreed to release them, how can we diagnose, let alone treat, this cancer of sexual abuse in particular organizations or in society? Survivors' trauma and healing will be best discovered and then affirmed in a healthy and responsible community, where people ask If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? If you and others can face this deep, shameful, and unspeakable reality and find in yourself the outrage and compassion necessary to correct systemic perpetuation of clergy sexual abuse, then the more than 39,000,000 survivors can begin to know justice; then you will have taken up your role, as adults, to address crimes against humanity, and to do no less than save civilization. As with the Haiti disaster, it's not about us feeling better about ourselves because of what we believe or even because we've done something for someone else. It's not about me or you individually. It's about ending Child Sexual Abuse; everyone working together in whatever way is most helpful to survivors.
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