Coverings

By Shelly Bradbury, Peter Smith, And Stephanie Strasburg
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
May 20, 2019

https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/coverings/mennonite-amish-sexual-abuse-forgiveness-in-their-communities/

Part 1 in a 6-part series

Mennonites, Amish face growing recognition of widespread sexual abuse in their communities

Martha Peight stood in the first row of the courtroom, shaking yet resolute, as she held the printout of her victim-impact statement.

In the benches behind her sat members of area Mennonite churches, wearing the traditional plain clothing of a separatist culture she had left behind — the bearded men in work clothes or dark suits, the women in long dresses and head coverings.

Some had come to lend moral support to her father, Daniel R. Hostetler, who sat with bowed head at the defense table, where he awaited his sentencing for sexually violating Ms. Peight years earlier when she was a young teen.

Others had shown up to support Ms. Peight as she sought justice that had been long delayed, in part due to actions of the former minister of the family’s Mennonite church, who was also there in the courtroom Nov. 29 in this central Pennsylvania county seat.

Ms. Peight, wearing a modern long-sleeve dress over jeans and a plaid scarf, began to speak softly yet firmly about her father’s betrayal of trust. She told of how her pastor had persuaded her to keep quiet for years, but how she’s now speaking out in hopes of protecting other girls.

“I will stand up and break the chains of this generational abuse,” Ms. Peight, 29, told the court.

She was talking about her own family, but the words have been echoed by an increasingly vocal network of current and former members of the self-described “Plain People,” who include conservative Mennonites and the closely related Amish communities.

Many who turned out to support her in that courtroom — where Mr. Hostetler received a one- to four-year sentence for indecent assault — saw the case as a milestone in a wider effort. They hope to reform a church culture they say has too often enabled the sexual abuse of children, and covered it up with forgive-and-forget teachings and a shaming of victims.

“You’ve laid the foundation for a lot of victims that have no voices,” one woman in plain dress told Ms. Peight after the sentencing as they stood outside the Huntingdon County Courthouse in the chilly November sun.

As has happened in other religious groups, those victims are increasingly finding their voices, and they’re finding each other.

“Hundreds and thousands are rising up from within and saying, ‘We are done,’” said Trudy Metzger of Ontario, Canada, a former conservative Mennonite who for nearly a decade has investigated, advocated and agitated for reforms within the Plain churches.

“This has got to stop,” she said.

Such narratives can be jarring to outsiders who admire the plain-dressing Mennonites and Amish for their piety, simplicity, work ethic, community bonds and commitment to non-violence.

Plain communities dot the map across Pennsylvania and beyond, with tourists drawn to their large settlements in Lancaster County, Pa., and Holmes County, Ohio.

Nobody knows how widespread the abuse is. Nobody has done a study.

But “the first thing is to acknowledge we have a problem,” said Ms. Metzger, founder of the advocacy and educational group, Generations Unleashed.

“It doesn't have to be exaggerated,” she said. “You don't have to say everybody's the victim. But you do have to say we have a problem. And it is significant.”

Leaders in Plain communities themselves are increasingly acknowledging and responding to the reality of abuse, according to law enforcement and child-welfare officials.

“We don’t feel we Plain People should be exempt from the law,” said one member of a Lancaster County committee of conservative Mennonite and Amish men, formed to respond to the crisis and connect their communities with law enforcement and child-protective services. “We’re as guilty as anybody else.”

Steve Knowling, a former longtime Holmes County prosecutor, said the Plain community’s responses have “changed dramatically” since an early case he prosecuted decades ago, in which a suspect’s Amish community turned out en masse in court to support him against allegations by an excommunicated victim....