CARELESSNESS?

Child Sexual Abuse rife in one Christian denomination may be regarded as unfortunate, but for it to be common in more than one Christian denomination begins to look like carelessness.

Apologies for misquoting Lady Bracknell’s line out of “The Importance of being Ernest”[1], but it sums up the thrust of this paper fairly well. If it had happened once in one church, it could be regarded as a horrible one-off event. But for it to happen over and over again in church after church, in denomination after denomination seems to imply that there is something in the organized Christian church that does not provide the care that she should for our youngest and vulnerable citizens…that somehow we have become care-LESS.

The Roman Catholic Church has had a fairly bad reputation in the press about child sexual abuse, but figures from at least one provider of church insurance suggests that the Catholic Church is of no higher risk than any other U.S. church. Since child sexual abuse claims count for 80% of all church-based sexual-misconduct insurance claims, the factor identified as a major risk factor (having impact on insurance premiums) has been identified as: how many children’s programs a church was conducting?[2]

According to the Victorian Department of Human Services, there is a pattern of factors which emerge describing the kinds of people who perpetrate sexual violence on young people.[3] Sometimes, abusers were themselves abused. Abusers often have proximity to the young person they are abusing – either by being connected through family, friendships, or some other position of trust. While woman abusers are not unknown, most sexual abusers of children are male, and their victims can be either boys or girls.

In addition to these factors, mental illness comes into the equation. Paedophilia[4] is one of those psychological disorders describing sexual interest which falls outside of the statistically normal patterns of sexual interest.[5] Such a condition often comes with deep-seated and intrinsic distress about this abnormal interest, and/or takes advantage of people who by virtue of their age are unable to give consent.

Victims of abuse

We know that child sexual abuse sometimes comes in a cycle – the abused becoming the abuser and so on. As a descriptive phenomenon, this may explain why this cycle of horror continues in churches, but it does not explain why the cycle begins in church spaces in the first instance.

Proximity & Trust – putting girls and boys at risk

In the past, churches held a stronger and deeper role in society than they do in more recent years. This allowed ministers, pastors, priests or other leaders trusted access to families, including children. In the past many families attended church or Mass as a family and attendance at institutions such as Sunday School were commonplace. Other church-run institutions were also commonplace – residential homes and boarding schools for children, for example. All of these offered perpetrators both proximity and a place of trust that could be easily exploited. It set the scene for potential abusers to ply their damaging trade with both boys and girls. Statistically boy victims are more likely to be older when abused and this abuse is more likely to happen outside the home. Girl victims are more likely to be younger when abuse occurs and this abuse is most likely to happen at home. Perhaps these point to why so much sexual abuse of boys has happened in places like orphanages and boarding schools.[6]

Abuse by Males

Of course in those days where the church was a more valued building-block of society, and when ministers, priests, pastors and other leaders were esteemed and recognised by society, most of them were men. If men are somehow more likely because of their gender, it further set the scene for abuse to happen in the church.

Psychopathology e.g. paedophilia

Murray (1998) advances four main reasons that sexual abusers of children act out in the way they do[7]: Some seem to have developed inappropriate patterns of sexual arousal; Others seem to experience a lack of sexual and emotional gratification; Some have their sexual interests impacted by some agent of dis-inhibition (e.g. alcohol) that permits them to act out internal thoughts and fantasies; And other abusers claim they themselves were sexually abused as children. No one reason gives causal effect to all sexual abusers of children, but these four reasons, taken together in some combination, seem to provide some insight into the background of most perpetrators.

Musings

The notion that the Catholic Church doesn’t represent any greater insurance risk than any other church running children’s programs suggests that this matter has little or nothing to do with celibacy in the priesthood. The Catholic Church however is one of only a few branches of the Christian Church who only ordain men. This could be a risk-factor in the matter of child sexual abuse, but would also apply to other churches that still have a male-dominated ministry.

We do know that those who perpetrate sexual crime on young people will exploit proximity and the concentrate on the development of trust (called grooming). We also know that despite all the ‘stranger danger’ messaging that has been going on for decades, children are at more risk in their homes OR with people they ‘know/trust’ than they are being kidnapped on the street by some unknown criminal. Because proximity and trusting relationships are implicit in ministry generally and children’s ministry especially, churches need to have very strong accountability and monitoring procedures in place to provide a safe place for children.

Inappropriate sexual arousal; sexual and emotional gratification; dis-inhibition; abusers with a history of sexual abuse…Are these factors any more prevalent in churches than in the general population? Most of the research conducted about the moral choices and sexual activity of people in churches suggests that churches are, for whatever reason, little more than microcosms of the society in which they exist. What sets churches apart is that they are sometimes male-dominated, with access to children, and depending upon trusting relationships and closeness – all risk factors. And if a church has a history of unacknowledged, un-treated or even sanctioned[8] abuse then any cycle of abuse is likely to accelerate unabated. And of course there is the big question – How can all of this be happening within the community that supposedly represents Christ? There’s no point in saying that the Church cares unless we in the Church show that we care through child-safe practices, accountability and transparency.

Jesus Wept!

[1] “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/priests-commit-no-more-abuse-other-males-70625

[3] https://www.dhs.vic.gov.au/for-individuals/children,-families-and-young-people/child-protection/about-child-abuse/what-is-child-abuse/understanding-child-sexual-abuse-and-responding

[4] To be diagnosed with pedophilic disorder (paedophilia) the DSM-5 requires that people with these interests: feel personal distress about their interest, not merely distress resulting from society’s disapproval; or have a sexual desire or behavior that involves another person’s psychological distress, injury, or death, or a desire for sexual behaviors involving unwilling persons or persons unable to give legal consent.

[5] https://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Paraphilic%20Disorders%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

[6] https://rzukausk.home.mruni.eu/wp-content/uploads/Psychological-Profile-of-Pedophiles.pdf

[7] Ibid

[8] Even by omission