By Virginia Jones
Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing
October 13, 2010
http://web.me.com/virginiajones/Compsassionate_Gathering/The_Garden_of_Roses/Entries/2010/10/13_What_the_Chilean_Mine_Story_Can_Teach_the_Catholic_Church.html
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| Virginia working with joint Soviet/American peace group in Armenia to rebuild homes after 1988 earthquake. |
I opened up the New York Times website this morning and the top story was about the rescue of miners trapped in a mine in Chile since August 5. News of the trapped miners has come up regularly since then. When we hear of a huge crisis -- the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile earlier this year, Hurricane Katrina on America's Gulf Coast in 2005, the tsunami in Indonesia in December 2004....well at least for a short while we come together as a planet to care about the victims. But in the long run we tend to forget about the suffering of the victims. Many people displaced from New Orleans by hurricane Katrina remain unable to return to their former home.
And that though led me to the Catholic Clergy Abuse issue because we in the Catholic Church tend to forget about the sufferings of survivors when they are not in front of our faces. Let me explain....
Today the eyes of the world are literally transfixed by events in Chile as we watch video feeds of the rescue as it happens. In the little more than 2 months that the miners have been trapped, Chilean president Sebastian Pinera spared no expense to rescue those miners. And he has had much technological assistance from from the United States -- from NASA. The conditions of rescuing miners are not unlike the conditions of rescuing astronauts from difficult and dangerous situations. The rescue capsule was designed by a team of roughly 20 engineers from NASA. The lead NASA engineer, Clinton Cragg arrived in at the mine on August 30 along with two medical doctors and a psychologist from NASA, as the space agency also has lots of experience maintaining the psychological health of men confined to small spaces for long periods of time.
In addition, since rescuers drilled the first small bore hole reaching the miners on August 17, they have filled small PVC pipes three inches in diameter and constantly lowered supplies to the miners -- food, glucose drinks, vitamins, medical supplies and messages from loved ones.
President Pinera staked his presidency staked his political future on doing everything he could for these men and the country of Chile supported him with fervor in doing so.
But there have been many poor people in Chile in the past that the government did not care for.
We human beings can be sidetracked by greed or pleasure, but underneath it we care. We don't want to see suffering. We don't want to see despair. We don't want to see death. We want to see laughter, love, and life. The life of every human being is precious. And we are uplifted by outpourings of compassion like those today in Chile.
Except when the sufferings are less visible or less dramatic.
President Pinera is a billionaire businessman who is the first conservative president in Chile in 20 years.
Many some people who are less that 40 years old don't know Chile's history well.
At 51, I am old enough to remember.
Chile had a socialist government for three years from 1970 to 1973. It was the days of the Cold War and an aggressive Soviet Union and Communist China who invaded and controlled neighboring countries and forced an undemocratic and political system on them with the barrel of a gun.
I used to work as Foreign Fisheries Observer on Soviet, Polish and Japanese factory trawlers operating in US waters in Alaska during the 1980s in the last days of the Soviet Union. I loved my Soviet co-workers on the boats, but I did not like the communist system at all. Each Soviet ship had a political officer who watched over the political morals of the crew. You could get into trouble for speaking too much English of for being too friendly with the US Government Observer. I wasn't a spy. I was a biologist taking data on the fish taken by these boats in US waters so the fishery wouldn't be over fished.
One ship I was on was particular unfriendly. I could drink tea with the trawl crew or the factory crew while on breaks from work, but no one ever invited me to their cabins to drink tea after work.
The following year I met one of the that ship's crew members on another Soviet ship.
He told me "The captain and the Commissar told us that you were a spy and a drug addict. We all knew you weren't a spy or a drug addict, but we knew we'd get into trouble if we talked to you."
I also saw first hand the stupidity of central planning. Bureaucrats in Moscow decided what fish the boats would catch and what products they would produce. The boats had to fillet so much filleted cod and can so much liver, and they would be fined if they did fill their quotas of these products. So on fishing days which were good, the boat could not take all the fish they could get because they had to work to the quota instead of working with what the fishery was at the moment.
Cod season comes early in the year when storms made fishing in the Bering Sea a real life Deadliest Catch episode. No one is Moscow can determine what fishing will be like. Mother Natures does, and she is capricious.
So I am no fan of communism. I am also no fan of what the United States did to Chile in the 1970s. Salvadore Allende the socialist leader of chile that was overthrown with the generous assistance of the CIA, came to power through the ballot box and eschewed the coercive control favored by his Soviet Communist brothers.
The Chilean general, Augusto Pinochet, who overthrow Allende got advice from Milton Friedman, the American economist, who advised him to cut taxes, cut spending, privatize social services such as Chile's social security program, reduce regulation on businesses. This was supposed to bring economic growth for the South American country. It did. But it was not a rising tide that lifted all boats. A small number of Chilean became fabulously wealthy, but by 1987 46% of all Chileans lived below the Chilean level of poverty for a family of 4 at the time -- around $4000.
In 1980 Pinochet introduced a constitution that allowed him to remain president with up or down plebiscites. He won the first plebiscite, but in 1988 all the various political parties came together to vote "no" for Pinochet, and he was defeated.
For the next twenty years, progressive politicians reversed many of Pinochet's policies. guaranteeing minimum wages and rights to public education, health care and retirement benefits. Under Allende unemployment was 3.1 in 1971. Under Pinochet unemployment rose to 16.1 percent in 1981. By 1997 unemployment dropped back down to 6.1 percent. Other statistics follow a similar trajectory. Infant mortality was 19.5 deaths per 1000 births in 1985 under Pinohet. By 1993 with just a few years of progressive reforms, it had decreased to 13.1 percent. (see http://www.chipsites.com/derechos/chile_profile_eng.html).
So during a massive tragedy we care, and we care deeply, but when the crisis is past, we tend to forget. Today we care about 33 Chilean miners trapped under ground after a collapse -- a truly terrifying way to live and to die. But where we we for all those years while Chilean people were suffering under an American supported dictator?
The reason I am telling this story is because I see the same situation in the Catholic Church. The thought of a child being sexually abused by anyone is horrible to most thinking people.
Sexual abuse is an invisible crisis that we normally find out about only when the victim comes forward. Since so much shame and guilt are a part of child sexual abuse and since the perpetrator plays mind games with the child to keep them silent, it often takes many years for victims to come forward and when they do, they often have problems -- alcoholism and drug addiction, promiscuity, relationship problems, outbursts of anger, problems maintaining a job, and much more
They are not cute cuddly kids we want to wrap our arms around. They are often difficult and hard to deal with.
A small number of people are resilient and are able to recover from child sexual abuse on their own, but most people cannot do this. For some, just getting through the day without killing oneself through suicide or drugs and alcohol is all they can do.
I speak from personal experience having been in therapy for child sexual abuse on and off for around 30 years, having spent several thousand dollars on spiritual retreats, having spent another several thousand on professional mentors. I have also benefitted from countless hours of free mentoring from ordinary people who also suffered child sex abuse but had worked hard on their own healing.
I don't know what my total bill is -- $20,000 at least and most of it has been out of pocket.
And the abuse I suffered was not all that serious.
The most serious of abuses is clergy abuse, or as Jaime Rome calls it...Religious Authority Sexual Abuse.
And yet when people come forward they are not treated with love and compassion. If the church is not forced by the threat of lawsuits to pay for therapy, they rarely do.
I've met a number of women who had sexual relationships with priests. Every single one of them was a child sex abuse survivor and was vulnerable to the attentions of the male priest who was supposed to be supporting them and not using them for sexual gratification. These women suffer tremendously, but have a very hard time getting assistance with therapy.
I met another survivor who has been abused by both a priest and a family member. The Church argued that they were not responsible for many of her injuries and managed to pay her a very low compensation. After her lawyer took his contingency fees, the settlement offered several thousand dollars less than she had already spent on therapy.
I know of a similar case that has dragged on for years without a settlement. The family is alone is paying for therapy for their wounded child.
I met another survivor desperately in need of therapy. His lawyer was reluctant to help him find therapy for reasons I do not know. The Victim Assistant's Coordinator for the Archdiocese of Portland would not work with me when I told her about the man's plight. She said the approach had to be made through the man's lawyer, the same lawyer who was reluctant to seek therapy for his client. Eventually the client and the lawyer parted ways. The client pursued his case on his own without a lawyer and got a small settlement, but he was homeless and struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction. He sleeps in his car and every time I hear from him, I fear it is last time. I wonder if I will some day I will hear about this homeless man found dead under a bridge in north Portland. I guess rules are more important than people.
Is this what Jesus would do? NO! Emphaticaly NO!
In the book of Luke chapter 9, Verse 3 Jesus sent his disciples out to evangelize saying, "Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money; neither have two coats."
St. Francis was inspired by this verse to start a religious oder for which the Vow of Poverty was central.
No those friars don't live in poverty anymore. The world has taken over this Vow of Poverty.
But I do know good priests who also give from their modest salaries to help parishioners. My former pastor, Fr, Armando Lopez was always helping people with past due bills and money for food. A friend of mine Cec, a Native American woman who works for the Jesuit Order says the Jesuit priests who work in the mission parishes on Indian reservations are always dipping into their pockets to help their struggling parishioners.
Cec's connections to the Catholic Church are sometimes strained. Many Native children were abused in Catholic schools in the past. She remains Catholic because of the wonderful and giving priests she works with.
Yes, many Catholic schools and parishes have closed in the last decade of payouts for civil lawsuits over clergy abuse, but parishes and schools were closing in the years that preceded the scandal. Perhaps when the Church's control of the people's lives was loosened by Vatican II, people left because they were not inspired to stay.
But much more can be done with inspiration than with coercion.
Greg Mortensen, a mountain climber was helped by a village of friendly natives after survivor a climbing tragedy in a Himalayan Mountain. He was inspired to help the people of the village by opening a school for girls. He started a not for profit to open schools of girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Every time he starts a school for girls in a village, the village throws out the Taliban.
Greg Mortensen with his schools for girls appears to be much more effective in fighting the Taliban than the US military. We had this surge of fighting in Marja, an unincorporated agricultural district in Afghanistan last March. The US military threw the Taliban out, but within months they were back in the province. They had too much support from the locals
Another example is the Dalai Lama of Tibet. He was both spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet but was forced to flee his country in 1959 to escape persecution from the communist Chinese government, At first he cooperated with the CIA in supporting Tibetan guerillas. Eventually he abandoned these efforts --which did not work at all-- and embraced nonviolence which is much more suited to Buddhist beliefs. No he hasn't gotten Tibet back fro his people, but he turned Tibetan Buddhism from a regional sect of Buddhism into a world religion.
Similar examples exist in the leadership Catholic Church. Mother Theresa, from Muslim Albania, became beloved by founding a religious order to help the poorest of the poor in Hindu India. She transcended religion and nationality to inspire the world with her compassion.
It seems giving up one attachment to material things and devoting oneself to caring for the poor and the disenfranchised is very inspiring.
Closer to the clergy abuse scandal, there is the example of a Franciscan Friar -- Cardinal Sean O' Malley. Sean O' Malley is imperfect in how he has handled the clergy abuse issue, but he has done two very good things. He speeded the settlement of lawsuits in Boston and he sold the Bishops residence, choosing instead to live in a rectory with others priests.
All bishops should use Sean O' Malley's example. Moreover, the Vatican should follow Sean O' Malley's example. I would advise the Pope to keep the art in the Sistine Chapel and the public part of the Vatican. Everyone benefits from this art, but there is much art and opulence in the private parts of the Vatican.
Sell the art in the private parts of the Vatican. Replace gold fixtures with brass ones.
Certainly there are many deserving charities that could use this money, but there is one charitable cause I have a special place for in my heart -- the needs of clergy abuse (Religious Authority Sexual Sbuse survivors). These survivors whose stunning tragedy took place decades ago ( and sometimes recently) and now are still suffering -- silently and alone.
Like President Pinera of Chile, the Vatican leadership would earn so much praise and positive media attention, they would be very popular despite the actions not so reputable predecessors.
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