UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary (blog)
June 12, 2020
By Joelle Casteix
There are voices that have been silenced—or simply ignored—in the clergy sex abuse crisis.
We have known for years that “priest dumping” has been a common practice in the Catholic Church: bishops and other officials send white, English-speaking predator priests to indigenous, refugee, or immigrant communities, or communities of color. These communities are devoutly Catholic. These can be communities where language, fear, and cultural barriers keep children from having the words to tell their parents what is happening to them.
These are communities where poverty, food insecurity, language barriers, immigration fears, and/or flat-out racism ensure the silence of victims.
Because the church knows: when the Catholic Church is feeding you, helping you, baptizing and burying your family members, and keeping your family members’ spirits up, victims will learn quickly that no one wants to hear about them. And if they do speak, those who listen will punish the victim—if they bother to listen at all.
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