Dissecting the lamb of god: the other devastation of clergy sexual abuse.

What is truth? Truth is something so noble that if God would turn aside
from it, I would keep to the truth and let God go.
--Meister Eckhart

In October 2003, a group of psychotherapists from Male Survivor (the National Organization Against Male Sexual Victimization) prepared for a weekend of recovery for 15 men from four Christian denominations who had been sexually abused by religious leaders: priests, ministers and nuns. We were five therapists coming from California, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts who facilitate weekends for male survivors of sexual abuse across the country. It took countless conversations and endless meetings with clergy abuse survivors to make this particular event happen. We had contacted other support networks for clergy abuse survivors of every faith: Protestant and Catholic Christians, Hasidic and Orthodox Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus. There were no networks we could find for Muslims.

After months of research and interviews, we found a site that was not affiliated with any religious organization. We knew that most retreat centers have too many artifacts, statues, smells, and confinements that are reminiscent of both the Church and the sexual abuse. And, for many men, just going to a remote site in the woods was a reenactment of their past. There were some of the facilitators on the team who had to take extra personal care as well. We had our own personal histories with clergy sexual abuse.

We had spent a year networking with survivor groups, negotiating with the fear and rage of potential participants who did not trust that there could ever be a safe enough space or community to do the work of recovery. Many had not only been abused by clergy and revictimized by their Church's neglect or disdain, but also violated by the therapeutic community as well, either by bad boundaries, incompetence, or outright sexual violation.

It was our goal to make the weekend affordable for any participant who wished to attend. None of the facilitators were compensated for the work. We also asked men to have their churches pay for the weekend, but most of the churches refused to do so. However, every single man who wished to was able to come, with scholarship funds and help from past weekend participants.

Before the retreat, as we prepared for the weekend, one of the Jewish therapists wondered aloud, "Why will this weekend be so different than any other weekend of recovery for survivors?" His question was reminiscent of Jewish Passover, when the youngest child of the house is supposed to ask "Why is this night different from all others?" Were these individuals and their experiences any different from all the others who had experienced a mutation in their rite of sexual initiation--the loss of trust and safety in relationships, loss of the sense of body, of boundaries, the confusion, the self-destruction, the numbness, the deadness, the despair, the shame?

We would realize soon enough that this particular weekend was quite different. For these men, their deepest sense of spirit had been contaminated. The family of the family, which is the Church and the culture that supports it, had often betrayed in action what it had spoken in word. Western notions of suffering, sin, and God, and the Eastern concept of karma, had been bastardized to fit the needs of the perpetrators. Frequently, families sided with the Church, which is not supposed to fail any of the people of God.

For Judeo-Christian survivors of clergy abuse, the inherent theology of God as father and Church as protector seems a sham of in the light of one's unwordable experience of self, and of soul. The Catholic catechism, for example, indicates that a child is responsible for his actions at seven years old, the age of reason. This means that a child who has barely begun to read should know how to stave off an assault. He should be able to comprehend the complexities in a skewed relationship with one the world said was most trustworthy. The concept of the "age of reason" suggests that this child should know better than to be an object of temptation in the first place. He should understand the coercion of sexual violation or the confusing pleasure that might ensue, which can confound love and shame, familiarity and self-contempt. In the black-and-white reality of a child, the one who represents God himself could never be responsible for evil. Yet, for the perpetrator, there is no constraint necessary, no age of reason, no responsibility.

The men who came to that October weekend had mixed reactions to their perpetrators, to their Churches, which did or did not stand by them, and to their God. Some of the men were still part of their collective church communities. Some were ministers and priests. Others were as far away from that space of Church and God as they could be. These men could not conceive of, or possibly forgive, a God who would have let such a betrayal happen to them.

Every one of the men experienced debilitating shame in some measure: shame about their bodies and shame about their participation in the abuse, whether consensual or not, as if they were somehow responsible. Many felt deep shame about their response to the abuse, because they might have experienced pleasure or simply connection. For those speaking out about the abuse, their shame was for not speaking sooner. Many felt disgraced by the rest of their lives since that experience: their sexuality or their sexual identity, their sexual confusion, their secrets, their addictions, their obsessions, their souls.

There was such a confluence of conflicting emotions, such rage, such despair, and so many mixed messages from within and without, that it was amazing that these men took the risk to participate in the weekend at all.

Even from the first telephone contact, the facilitators were explicit about what our boundaries were. We prepared each man for what to expect during the three days they would be with us, and asked what each would need to do the work. Emotional and personal safety were key to the success of the weekend. This is what we would do for any man who would wish to participate in a retreat for male survivors of sexual abuse. We also carefully asked these men about their relationships with their churches, and, if they felt like telling us, what their present experience was with faith, or prayer, or God.

From the beginning of the weekend, we saw that much would need to be reclaimed: physical and spiritual space, simple rituals, music, and a sense of the sacred, whatever that meant and however that would manifest. For those who were victims of satanic ritual abuse by clergy, this was even more precarious.

Children are most frequently the victims of all types of ritual abuse, largely because of their vulnerability and lack of power. If a person was victimized in the midst of a ritual, like Mass or the sacrament of penance, the sacred signifiers are turned inside out. So activities performed over the weekend--drumming, candle lighting, or campfires, for example--had to be deconstructed and processed. We knew that each man would need to reject or reclaim them individually, with consideration for one another's differences.

Safety had been the first negotiation and the most important element. Men asked one another for respect and to be heard without judgment, no matter where they stood with respect to their beliefs or affiliations.

So the weekend proceeded. Men established safety, told their stories in small groups, did profound work surrounding their abuse and all of the elements of loss, abandonment, and sexual confusion, free to speak or not speak, to express by words, by movement, by art, and by writing. They laughed a lot. They sang and danced. They played drums. They raged and cried and formed community. And, when it was almost over, these men created a reclamation ceremony of their own making, which was truly sacred. They enacted a space that gave expression to their souls and to their connection with the sacred. They were able to sing together, and create something akin to prayer, each in his own way and according to his own fashion.

But the most important restoration that remains for them and the one that is truly most difficult to recover is the healing of the soul. How would one reconcile oneself to restoration from the powerful elements of shame? What would cure someone who had experienced a profound impasse in the flow of his spirit at such a critical juncture, not only in his psychological but spiritual development?

There are libraries of information from every scripture and religious literature about the difference between the inner journey of the soul and the external proprieties of religion. And there are rules and stipulations that safeguard those who are in the hands of the officially sanctified.

Imagine for instance, if the Christian Churches had taken seriously the words from the Gospel of Luke:

       Obstacles are sure to come, but alas for the one who provides
       them! It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a
       millstone put around his neck than that he should lead astray a
       single one of these little ones. Watch yourselves. (Luke 17)

Or a variation to the Rule of Compludo in 11th century canon law:

       A cleric or monk who seduces youths or young boys or is found
       kissing or in any other impure situation is to be publicly
       flogged and lose his tonsure. When his hair has been shorn, his
       face is to be foully besmeared with spit, and he is to be bound
       in iron chains. For six months, he will languish in prison-like
       confinement, and on three days of each week, shall fast on barley
       bread in the evening. After this, he will spend another six
       months under the custodial care of a spiritual elder, remaining
       in a segregated cell, giving himself to manual work and prayer,
       subject to vigils and prayers. He may go for walks but always
       under the custodial care of two spiritual brethren, and he shall
       never again associate with youths neither in private conversation
       nor in counseling them.

The gravity of sexual abuse by a representative of God and the subsequent violation of the soul is difficult to discuss in words. The Church, with all of its statements of concern for victims, has rarely or significantly addressed the moral horror of it. Concentrating on the legalities, protecting the abusing clergy, or debating the characters of the victims demoralizes and diminishes the most pressing issue.

Sexual violation by a member of the clergy effects a profound disruption in the development of the individual's inner life. The abuse may or may not thwart one's hunger for God, but it surely will alter the journey.

When the abuse occurs, sexuality and spirituality are confused and contaminated. This is not simply a matter concerning priestly celibacy. Although continence appears to be a core problem for Catholic priests, it is possible that there has never been consistent overall support in the hierarchy, or in rectories and monasteries, for those who would actually want to practice the vow of celibacy. The freedom of celibacy must be based on healthy, not shame-based, sexuality. Celibacy is supposed to release a person to a deeper spiritual life and the freedom to practice the commitment to the people of God, not to cover sexual fears, gender confusion, or one's own trauma history.

Homosexuality (and the hypocritical homophobia that is inherent in most Church communities) is another complex issue. Sexual perversion and pedophilia have less to do with sexual orientation than with sexual deviation.

It is up to seminaries, religious bodies, and monastic communities not to participate in secrecy and the protection of perpetrators in the name of support. The hierarchies must provide not only meaningful spiritual direction, profound psychological support and emotional safety for clergy, but real consequences for perpetrators who violate any child or adult. And clergy must be accountable like any other criminals for crimes committed.

The lack of spiritual, psychological support; the pitiful exchange of true spirituality for pious persona in the position, costume and expectations of religion; and sexual shame--relentless skewed secretive shame--have created a sick and twisted system that masks the real issues. Imagine for instance how it must be for a child to go to confession to make atonement for his "sin" and have that very sacramental act or place be another opportunity to be molested. Imagine the "body of Christ" defiling a child and then blaming him for it.

So where is, what is, God in all of this? Is "God" the judgmental patriarch watching the child who should have known better? Or is "He" the doublespeaking double-crossing entitled greedy abuser who confounds good with evil?

Until recently, the Church has all too often carried on its tradition of ignoring the blatant signs of abuse, its compulsive repetition of crimes against children, its defiance and noncooperation, even as it insists it is doing otherwise. Even now, selling its manors and investments, making settlements and engaging in negotiations cannot begin to compensate the victims for what has happened to them. And it still may be too dreadful, disintegrating or dangerous for many of the victims to still come forward.

Sexual violation of a child or adolescent by a priest or religious IS incest. It is as devastating as abuse by a member of the family because the perpetrator is the representative of the One who is closer than blood. The effects of trauma like this often take many years to come to consciousness. In the meantime, the survivor may only manifest his or her distress by self-mutilation, dangerous behaviors, sexual confusion, rage, addiction. The survivor may also remain split off from the self: greedy or grandiose, manipulative, insatiably needy, violent. No financial payoff and no archbishop's statements of sorrow for the victim can compensate for such emptiness of the soul.

Even if administrators made good on their promise to protect, report abuse, and send their perpetrators to prison like any other pedophile, it would only begin the road to recovery for survivors of religious abuse. Beyond the violent rage, self-destruction, soul-numbing pain, profound grief, and all the years of indoctrination, there would seem to be no recourse. Even if the clergy apologized personally face to face with each victim, if church communities responded with authenticity instead of arrogance or indifference, the survivor soul's journey would be extremely difficult terrain. Beyond the legal proceedings and compensation packages, the Church must address the moral bankruptcy of its system of secrecy and perpetration.

In that weekend in October, many of the men reclaimed light, ritual, music, laughter with sacrilege or gentle humor; some re-experienced for the first time since their abuse that which one would call prayer. Some were able to stand on their own sense of truth: to find safe community, new words, new ways of making sacred that which is life, fledgling ways of reconstructing a spiritual self.

For others, it was but a small respite.

   Heart

   Perhaps you remember how it was
       then
       in the clear lucent liquid
       of beginning

   Perhaps you remember how it was
       before robes
       the piety of lies
       the droning litanies

   Perhaps it would appear that
       the One who had a Name
       disappeared so long ago
       and you have been left clinging to air instead of words

   Even now they ask that you drink the old blood in a new chalice
       and leave you
       to clutch the thinnest vines
       that grow on cliffs

   But
       hold the heart
       that relentless engine
       and listen again

   Hold the heart
       and remember something
       from longer then ago
       that clear lucent liquid of a beginning:

   the color unimaginably blue
       the sound unimaginably still
       the space unimaginably safe
       the One unimaginably

   there

Suggested Readings

Berry, Jason, (1992) Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children. New York: Doubleday.

Boston Globe Investigative Team, (2002) Betrayal: Crisis in the Catholic Church. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Davies, J.M., and Frawley, M.G., (1992) Treating the Adult Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse: A Psychoanalytic Perspective. New York: Basic Books.

Frawley-O'Dea, M.G., (2002) The Long Term Impact of Early Sexual Trauma (paper presented to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, June 13, 2002, Dallas Texas.)

Gartner, Richard, (1999) Betrayed As Boys, Psychodynamic Treatment of Sexually Abused Men. New York: Guilford Press.

Kimball, Charles, (2002) When Religion Becomes Evil. New York: Harper Collins.

Lisak David, (1994) "Psychological Impact of Sexual Abuse: Content Analysis of Interviews with Male Survivors" Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 7. No. 4.

Rahner, Karl, (2002) What It Means to Be A Priest Today, The National Institute for the Renewal of Priesthood.

Smith, Huston, (2001) Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Unbelief. San Francisco: Harper Books.

Wills, Garry (2000) Papal Sins: Structures of Deceit. New York: Doubleday.