UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
As longtime Bilgrimage readers will know, I’ve been a longtime supporter of the group Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests (SNAP). I’ve persistently defended SNAP when some of its detractors came to this site to attack the organization and its leaders and work. Like Ruth (but not to such a great extent, I suspect, as in Ruth’s case), I’ve contributed financially to SNAP. I’ve also very gladly assisted in SNAP’s work in a variety of ways, when I have been called on to do so.
I’m publishing Ruth’s fine essay about what has happened recently at SNAP because I very much agree with what she says — and because I want to see SNAP remain a viable organization addressing the needs of abuse survivors. A chilling line from Ruth’s essay that stands out to me: [As I tried to obtain information about what had happened to split SNAP’s leadership], “[i]t was like, I felt, encountering the silence of the Catholic bishops in obvious situations of injustice vis-à-vis abuse victims.”
An organzation calling on church leaders to be transparent has to be transparent itself, if it’s to be taken seriously when it issues that call. This is why I’m publishing Ruth’s essay now — the essay follows.
Reflections Vis-à-vis Today’s SNAP
Silence Implies Consent
There is an ancient principle I learned in my early childhood: if you disagree with something, the onus is on you to say so. In my birth family, pouting and passive-aggressive acting out simply were not tolerated. To have integrity, one needed to speak one’s own truth to the best of one’s ability. On one memorable occasion when I was eight or nine years old, my father took me aside and said something like this: The way you are behaving — this rudeness towards your mother, your pouting and your anger — is not acceptable in this family. Say what you have to say but say it politely. Do not treat your family in this mean and rude way. If you disagree, tell us why you disagree. I promise you I will listen to you and hear you out. But right now in your life your mother and I have the final say about what you are allowed to do. The short form of this message was that I was not expected to agree with all of the day-to-day parental decisions and I could argue for another outcome. But mean-spiritedness and rudeness towards others would not be tolerated. In my family, at least, these rude behaviors were counter-productive. Power struggles with my mother about expected behavior did not yield a desirable end. In fact, I both could and did get grounded for intra-family rudeness and general bitchy disagreeableness.
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