Question time. I'm tackling a difficult subject today and I hope you'll stick with me through to the end to get my thoughts on the matter.

‍Question:  How you can overlook the long, long history of Church authority figures (sexually) abusing children?  How do Catholics move past this horrific thing?

‍Right off the bat, let's be clear--I've never overlooked it. I think it's important to realize that just because I am Catholic, does not mean I ever turned a blind eye to this matter. In fact, because my background deals with sexual crimes, I take it very, very seriously. Before I became Catholic, I struggled with this whole sex abuse scandal in the Church. Believe me, I never overlook this topic no matter where the sexual abuse comes from, which leads me to my first point on this matter.

If you are going to ask me this question, I must first ask you one. Do you, in addition, recognize the long, long history of sexual abuse in schools, colleges, sports, clubs, churches, and families? I'm going to assume that if you are someone that is greatly concerned with sexual abuse then you are also a person that vehemently opposes pornography and sex-trafficking, because such things promote objectification, coercion, and degradation of another human being in sexual ways. These things all end up leading to sexual abuse. If you're outraged by the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, then I'm sure you're also furious about these examples, as well. With that said, let's continue...

I have counseled and advocated for victims of sexual abuse from all walks of life. I've heard stories from victims being abused by their coach, their teacher, their neighbor, their brother, their father, their dad's best friend, their cousin, police officers, pastors, state attorneys, and politicians. You name it, I've heard it. So, if I was to keep myself and my kids away from all the places that people can possibly be abused, I'd never go anywhere. Ever. At all. Sexual abuse happens all the time in schools and we still send our kids to schools. Rates of sexual abuse are even higher in schools and barely anyone highlights this fact. People's outrage tends to be focused towards the Catholic Church on this subject...and it should be...as well as all places.

I'll be the first to raise my hand and say that the Church had an extremely poor response to the sexual abuse scandals. Their response was unacceptable, but not unique. I've dealt with mothers, knowing that their children were being sexually abused, neglected to remove them from the situation. They embraced denial and swept it under the rug. This is a completely inappropriate and horrific response, but it's a very common response to sexual abuse. It's such an abhorrent topic that most people simply can't believe there is such evil so close to them. So, they turn a blind eye to protect themselves.

The cover-up is also particularly disturbing, yet, this also is not unique. Please don't take this as excusing, but I think it is important to understand that cover-ups are very common. I've dealt with and studied cover-ups from all institutions. It's not an excuse, but it's not a unique response. As a world, we do an extremely shoddy job of responding and handling sexual abuse--across the board. The stories that I have personally dealt with involving cover-ups are maddening. I'd share them, but time doesn't allow for it.

I definitely appreciate people's concern over this scandal when looking at the Catholic Church, because, well, they hold the Catholic Church to a higher standard...and they should. When atheists ask me about this topic, I sometimes respond with, "Sexual abuse happens in schools, too, and you still send your kids there, do you not?"

Every single time they answer back with, "Yes, but it's the Catholic Church. They should be held to a higher standard."

I completely agree. Even atheists understand that the Church founded by Christ should look different. Sadly, though, we live in a fallen world and even people who claim to be Christians commit terrible sins. For me, I have to look at something different: Does the Church teach that sexual abuse is okay? Does it encourage, as an institution, the abuse of children?  No, it doesn't. If it did, I'd leave before the door could hit me, because that would be opposed to God. In fact, I would never take myself or my children to any place that promoted, encouraged, and taught that sexual abuse is okay. The best I can do as a mother is equip my children with knowledge on this topic, speak to them about it frequently, and constantly be on my guard and try to discern the character of the people I let into their lives. I cannot lock up my kids and keep them from living because this danger is out there. Trust me, there are times when I would like to do that.

I am grateful that people hold the Catholic Church to such a high standard. It's the biggest organization for good in the world and it should always be striving to shine that light of Christ. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes scandals to wake people up and show them that they should be doing a better job. It's heartbreaking that so many had to suffer before people took this seriously. The Church is working to fix this problem. If you want to see what they are doing, go here. If I saw that they were doing nothing and continuing on in the same fashion, this would be cause for great concern. I do see them working to fix policies and defrock priests that have committed abuses. I know it isn't moving at the speed of light, as many in our culture would want, but things don't just happen overnight. When I was writing policies and procedures for the sexual abuse program I was in charge of, it took me years to finish, and this was just one little organization. The Catholic Church is quite large and working out all the kinks will be a process.

Lastly, I think it's wise to remember that the media in our culture is highly, HIGHLY biased against the Catholic Church. Though, I am grateful that the media shined a light on this matter. However, they do tend to jump at the opportunity to say anything bad without checking all facts and engaging in proper journalistic methods. For example, article after article talks about the priests being pedophiles. Pedophilia has a very distinct definition. It is the attraction to small children and sexually preferring them over adults. This is extremely rare. Most of the priests that sexually abused, abused post-pubescent boys. This is no less awful, but there is a difference. The term pedophile has been thrown around in an effort to make it sound even MORE heinous. It's important to be very exact and truthful with the facts otherwise you can't really fix the problem.

Am I saying that this didn't happen in the Church? No. What I am saying is that it's important to examine both sides and read all the information. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did enlist the services of an outside group--the John Jay College of Criminal Justice--to conduct an unbiased study on this matter. You can read about that here.  I encourage you to look at the bibliography if you desire to go deeper into the subject.

In many ways, the knowledge and experience I have in sexual abuse is a curse. I am very jaded. I used to go into Wal-Mart and be fairly certain that every person in there was a child molester. I constantly have to hold myself back from never allowing my children to go anywhere or do anything. It's hard to live this way. But, not everyone is a child molester. Most people are, for the most part, decent human beings. To be sure, there are bad priests out there. However, there are bad people in every walk of life. There is no place safe and free from sexual abuse and we must understand that. So, the goal is to never overlook it. We must educate on the proper response to this crime which I have spent hours and hours training many institutions on. We have to drag it out into the light and expose it for the dark, evil atrocity that it is and not sweep it under the rug. We must educate our children from early ages on this topic. We must empower them with knowledge. No matter what we do, the bad guys will sometimes still find a way.

Abolishing the Catholic Church is not the answer. It will not fix the problem. Nobody makes the argument that we should stop sending kids to public schools even though sexual abuse happens there at higher rates and nothing is currently being done to fix the problem. Nothing. I would hope that we hold schools to a very high standard, as well. After all, they are entrusted with the care of our children for much of the day.

So, how do we move past this horrific thing? We must talk about it, drag this crime into the light, be loving to victims, stop supporting things that promote and encourage abuse, educate our children and ourselves, and look more to Christ.

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