Responsibilities of Faith-Based Groups Regarding Child Sexual Abuse

 

By Jaime Romo, Ed.D. Dr. Jaime Romo is an educator, consultant and author. He promotes healing from abuse and the prevention of child sexual abuse, particularly abuse by religious authorities or in the context of religious settings. You can visit his website at http://www.jaimeromo.com

A General Context

During the last 20 years, we have seen an explosion in the number of revelations and lawsuits related to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse by clergy, teachers, coaches, therapists and others in roles of authority. Protecting and caring for children and vulnerable adults is a role that is clearly at the center of religious organizations’ missions. But what are churches really doing effectively with respect to this?
Every day the revelations about Jerry Sandusky’s history of child sexual abuse during the many years he ran his ‘Second Mile’ non-profit in which hundreds of vulnerable boys were exposed to his care infuriate the public, and rightfully so. Adults saw, told other adults, reported to police, reported to university administrators, received formal complaints as far back as 1998 and Sandusky was allowed to continue to act with full authority and access to more and more vulnerable children.

The dynamics of his grooming that led to the rape of countless youth and the betrayal of all. Some writers have offered thoughtful parallels to clergy sexual abuse and sports as religion. Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live cast seem to have expressed more outrage than church leaders or members. But what seems to be missing from this discourse is what is missing from discussions of childhood sexual abuse by clergy, teachers, coaches, therapists and others in roles of authority. We are responsible, particularly churchgoers. This may sound a bit harsh, so I’ll explain.

My experience with churchgoers when the sexual abuse revelations and lawsuits surface is that they see and treat as “then and there” problems of individuals, both perpetrators and victims. They see the following statistics as awful and shocking, but as something unrelated to them or as something they can’t do much about:

• One out of four girls and one out of six boys will be sexually abused by their 18th birthday (Finkelhor, 1990).

• The rate of child abuse is ten times the rate of cancer (Sadler, Chadwick, & Hensler, 1999).

• Ninety-three percent of sex offenders describe themselves as “religious” (Abel et al., 1987).

• Offenders known to have abused many children who maintained significant involvement with religious institutions “had more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims” (Eshuys & Smallbone, 2006).

• In a survey of 2,864 church leaders, 20% knew of a sex offender who was attending or serving as a member of their church (Liautaud, 2010).

• Many victims suffer significant emotional and spiritual damage.

Sandusky groomed: bought gifts, gave special attention, took kids on trips, took kids to church.  He took his victims to church! Many sex offenders see themselves as religious. Many carry on grooming behaviors with the knowledge of church members. Protecting and caring for children and vulnerable adults is a role that is clearly at the center of religious organizations’ missions. Yet it is one that most church goers have yet to take up effectively.

Institutional responses to sexual abuse have generally ranged from “one size fits all” Safe Church policies or clergy boundary trainings to the use of on-line videos and quizzes -- with little assessment of their impact on congregations or individuals. Safe Church Policies created by a few people on behalf of a congregation do not protect children or create an environment in which those who are being groomed or sexually abused can find support and healing.  Too often, parents and church members take comfort in the practice of implementing background checks to discover registered sex offenders. Sandusky was not on a sex offender list, but he was gaining access to vulnerable children and grooming them right under the noses of parents and church leaders and members.

I think the lack of outrage by churchgoers about sexual abuse may relate to guilt, shame and anger turned inward (depression) by those who saw and did not act. It may relate to the self protective reaction of many who have experienced sexual abuse to shut down, rather than intervene. This ineffective behavior must stop.

It is difficult to know how many people carry the experience of sexual abuse in this country, as the majority of sexual abuse cases are not reported. Groups like the Rape and Incest National Network (RAINN) provide statistics from other sources, which conclude that every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted in the United States.2 In short, an estimated 39,000,000 people in the United States have been sexually abused in some way. Parents, church goers must learn enough to act now to prevent future abuse and to help those twenty percent of their congregations that carry abuse experiences, unbeknownst to others.

A Congregational Case Study

In January 2007, Pilgrim United Church of Christ Church in Carlsbad, California experienced a time of great upheaval when a registered sex offender came to our door and asked to be included as an active member. We were completely unprepared for what followed. The denomination had just launched a campaign entitled, “God is Still Speaking” that announced: “Whoever you are and wherever you are along life’s journey, you are welcome here.” Pilgrim is a proud and well known Open and Affirming congregation, welcoming people of all sexual orientations and those with HIV. However, we had never had a test of the extravagant welcome of God quite like this.

Members whose past sexual abuse experiences had been buried or kept quiet were re-traumatized by this person’s presence.  These and other members believed that their rights were being violated by the inclusion of someone whose presence made their participation impossible. Other members were committed to our church being open to all, even if it meant someone who represented vile and abhorrent behavior would be welcomed.

Within days, word spread to non-member parents at the Church Children’s Center, and some threatened that unless the individual was banned from the area, they would enact a boycott that would have bankrupted our preschool. Suddenly television cameras and newspaper reporters from across the country were at our church doors, while talk show hosts (and their callers) weighed in on a congregational matter as if this was a reality show.

On May 7, 2007, Good Morning America broadcast an interview with the pastor live from the sanctuary in anticipation of a vote on the Safe Church Policy by the congregation. The congregation overwhelmingly (75%) approved a Safe Church Policy that allowed, on a case by case basis, for persons who were registered sex offenders to participate in the life of the church. Those who felt that no such person should ever be allowed to participate in church life were able to accept that the church had an obligation to make its best efforts to create a safe environment even for everyone. Still, some members left the congregation.

As a result of my direct participation in the policy development and implementation, I began the process to be called as a Commissioned Minister for Healing and Healthy Environments. This process took two years and involved the pastor’s hard work to convince the congregation not to retreat after this crisis had passed, but to “double down” and formalize our shared ministry by calling me as a commissioned minister. As a result of these efforts, this Commissioned Ministry was formalized on August 19, 2010.  As the Commissioned Minister in this position, my charge is now to reach out to other congregations of any faith tradition to assist them to become healthier and safer environments.

Context of Abuse

The pervasive silence about sexual abuse in most religious organizations perpetuates the kind of vulnerability and victimization that are reflected in the statistics reviewed earlier. This silence also leaves those who carry the traumatic experiences of sexual abuse without voice or a shared language in places of worship that are charged with supporting the vulnerable and healing those who suffer. Therefore, even if all sexual abuse ended today, there would still be at least twenty percent of any population that has been profoundly harmed by abuse -- and who may remain invisible within their own churches, temples, synagogues, or mosques.

One kind of sexual abuse, sexual abuse by religious authorities, has garnered great attention in recent decades. However, sexual abuse is certainly not limited to the Catholic Church. One blog, Abuse Tracker, serves as an extraordinary warehouse of daily news articles from around the world related to sexual abuse by religious authorities.3 The recent Warren Jeffs case highlights what scholars have noted, that religious people may be  disabled by their beliefs from seeing that sexual abuse is being perpetuated in their midst. The ongoing Penn State revelations indicate that the problem of child sexual abuse is worse than anyone wishes to consider.

Current Practices

For the most part, training about abuse prevention for clergy is new. The National Child Protection Training Center has created a curriculum, When Faith Hurts, to be used in seminaries, and it has begun to be incorporated in some Lutheran schools. Debra Haffner’s work through the Religious Institute has also influenced seminaries in the past two decades regarding religion and sexuality. For active clergy, one-day boundary trainings, primarily led by the Faith Trust Institute (with a program called A Sacred Trust) are widely used. 

In congregational or local control religious settings, there seems to be little coherence related to effective policy and practices. In more hierarchical settings, there tends to be a “one size fits all” approach to policy development and implementation.  It is clear that clergy within the Philadelphia diocese, for example, exhibited an ongoing failure to protect children and intervene with known perpetrators. Moreover, a recent John Jay College of Criminal Justice report commissioned by U.S. Catholic Bishops appears to have completely mis-diagnosed the failure for ordained and lay church member to have protected children in its conclusion that the social unrest and norms of the 60s led to clergy sexual abuse.

Synagogues, temples, mosques and churches appear to be in different stages of understanding and creating safe churches and healing communities.  However, many seem to be in compliance mode (e.g., clergy boundary trainings), at best. Furthermore, it is irresponsible that these approaches do not address the elephant in the room that twenty percent of any congregation carries past abuse experience; it is likely that the same percentage of religious leaders also carry that experience, yet there is little being done to break the silence about abuse so that members can heal and others can understand how to take up healthy roles in supporting them and preventing future abuse.

For example, current on-line programs are typically based on videos and provide information that is related primarily to abuse prevention. Checklists designed to prevent internet abuse, on the other hand, relate primarily to risk management practices.  Both types of information are important, but they do not necessarily translate to competency or compassion, let alone a group’s ability to talk about healthy sexuality or abuse.

In summary, risk management practices and safe church assessment are the norm, yet they often represent a “one size fits all” approach that leaves the local context, training, implementation and evaluation unaddressed. This context makes it very unlikely that the outcomes of current interventions will be any different than what we are learning about in the Sandeski case. Whether you consider yourself religious or secular, we as Americans have effectively looked the other way while this happened and did practically nothing to prevent this ongoing abuse of power, this betrayal of confidence, and erosion of trust in our very culture.

Characteristics of Healing Communities

Faith communities, in my experience, must have four basic requirements in order to be seen and experienced as healing communities. These four characteristics are all important, as sexual abuse can fragment a person at a profound level and damage a person’s sense of trust or ability to work with authority figures. 

1. They need to be stable enough to deal with difficult topics and various identity issues or experiences that shape people’s identities.

 

2. They need to be trustworthy, so someone coming there will find people with clear boundaries and a healthy understanding of authority and how it is appropriately used.

3. They need to be places where people experience compassion; therefore, there needs to be a level of competency and comfort in dealing with painful issues. 

4. They must be grounded in hope -- not a general, disembodied hope -- but one that is rooted in the shared community life, living through adversity.

What is also needed is a shift from “stranger danger” abuse prevention programs or practices to recognize the current woundedness in any group and working intentionally to become healing communities.

Recommendations for Best Practice

At a larger organizational level, I suggest that religious bodies commit to developing, assessing, and sustaining:

1. “Safe spaces” policies at the congregational, regional, and national levels

2. Healthy and healing church communities and environments, and

3. Coordinated safe, healthy and healing communities support networks.

At local levels, I suggest that congregations have the following characteristics:

• An educated and effective leadership team (e.g., a Safe Church Oversight Committee) that can “train the trainers” to implement safe church and healing community practices;

• An active response team that engages effectively with the congregation on a variety of issues affecting their well-being (e.g., sexual abuse, elder abuse, domestic violence, etc.);

• A living, congregationally developed safe church policy that is tailored to congregational culture, and that helps members become active participants in promoting safe church life;

• Active, meaningful educational programs for all members related to abuse prevention, intervention and congregational well being;

• Meaningful methods and context based standards for members to assess and become healing communities.

Based upon research and our collective learning at Pilgrim UCC in Carlsbad, I currently lead seminars to help groups develop the abovementioned practices.  Readers are encouraged to contact me if I can provide more information, resources, or guidance in this area.

Conclusion

There’s a saying -- that wasn’t intended for this particular issue -- from the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. that says: "Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” Religious groups have too long housed victims and perpetrators without addressing the harm in their membership.  It is time to actively and effectively promote healing and end sexual abuse everywhere.

End Notes

1 See, for example:  U.S. Department of Justice (http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/183781.htm), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/sexualviolence/index.html), National Center for Victims of Crime (http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=35474 ), and

2 See, for example:  Rape and Incest National Network (http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of-sexual-assault).

3 Abuse Tracker (blog)  http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/
4 See, for example, http://www.richardsipe.com/reports/Doyle-%20The%20John%20Jay%20Document%202011.htm

 

References

Abel, G., et al (1987). Self-reported sex crimes of non-incarcerated paraphiliacs. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2(1), 3-25.

Eshuys, D. & Smallbone, S. (2006). Religious affiliations among adult sexual offenders. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 18, 279-288.

Finkelhor, D. (1990). Is child abuse overreported?: The data rebut arguments for less intervention.  Public Welfare, 48, 1-31.

Liautaud, M. (2010).  Sex offenders: Coming to a church near you.  Christianity Today.  Retrieved from http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2010/fall/sexoffenders.html.

National Victim Center (1992). Rape in America: A report to the nation. Arlington, VA: 
National Victim Center and Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center. 

Sadler, B., Chadwick, D. & Hensler, D. (1999). The summary chapter -- the national call to action -- moving ahead. In Child Abuse & Neglect, 23 (10), 1011-1018.

Terry, K. (2011). The causes and context of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in the United States, 1950- 2010.  http://nccbuscc.org/comm/archives/2011/11-105.shtml

Vieth, V. (2006).  Unto the third generation: A call to end child abuse in the United States within 120 Years (revised and expanded). Hamline Journal of Public Law & Policy, 28, 1-74.