Clare’s blog, aka rantspace

So, the Pope’s apologised to Australian victims of clergy sexual abuse. So far, not so good. Because he didn’t tell victims it was going to happen (check out this page of my site for what should be the minimum requirements of such an apology, to see how the Pope fell short), thereby keeping them in quite unnecessary suspense. Secondly, he chose to do it during a mass for clergy! How inappropriate is it to be saying the apology – as part of a prepared speech – to the group of people who contain the perpetrators, rather than the victims?? The victims couldn’t even be there to hear it in person! Thirdly, he seemed to place equal or greater weight on mentioning the shame of (presumably non-perpetrating) clergy and the damage caused to the church’s witness, as to the needs of the victims. And fourthly, he referred specifically to sexual abuse of minors, thereby completely ignoring those many adults also abused by clergy.

So given that this apology falls well short of what he should have said, and where and to whom it should have been said, it will be very interesting to see just how much action happens when the dust from WYD settles. Let’s just revise the checklist the Pope imposed on his clergy for future action:
1) these misdeeds should receive unequivocal condemnation
2) victims should receive compassion and care
3) those responsible must be brought to justice
4) it is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment
5) the Church must work together to combat this evil

Isn’t it interesting that out of 5 action points, three of them (points 1, 3 and 5) are things that the church should be doing already – but obviously isn’t, or the Pope wouldn’t need to exhort them?

But I still think the most inappropriate part was to do it at a mass for clergy, thereby not only effectively offering the apology to the perpetrator group, but specifically excluding the victims who should have been able to be there to hear it.

Cardinal Pell is, as we all know, all over the pages of the press again – this time for a “badly worded” letter (his words) that just happens to have come across as denial of an abuse victim’s allegations and the ongoing problem with the priest in question. You can read about it in more detail here and here and here. Quite apart from the questionable plausibility of his claim that though church lawyers had the tape evidence of the incident being non-consensual from 2005 they didn’t happen to mention it to him, to have dismissed the claim a) on the grounds of consensuality, and b) on the offender’s word, is both stupid and immoral. By 2002, when Anthony Jones brought his complaint to the church for the second time, church authorities had absolutely no excuse for accepting an alleged offender’s word unquestioningly. (And it must have been unquestioning, because it was directly opposed to the church’s own internal investigator’s assessment.) Moreover, it would appear that to Pell consensual homosexual sex between priest and parishioner is ok – which flies in the face of 1) his own conservative anti-gay stance, 2) the clearly understood power imbalance between clergy and parishioners, and 3) the priest being supposed to be celibate.

(Aside: How come politicians who support homosexuality and/or abortion bills get threatened by Pell with denial of communion, but a gay priest doesn’t?)

But what we must not forget is that this wriggling out of negative publicity on abuse issues is not the first time Pell has had to do so. It’s only a few years since he flatly denied that the church ever imposed gag orders (confidentiality agreements) on victims settling abuse claims – a denial he also had to make excuses for when the Daily Telegraph printed a double-page spread showing photos of the very gag orders Pell denied existed. His excuses then had a similar ring: the lawyers didn’t tell me, I really meant well, look at all I’ve done for abuse victims.

I know of at least one other instance, in 1994, when Pell’s assistant wrote to a victim denying prior knowledge or earlier correspondence with a victim of a De La Salle brother, but the then-head of the De La Salle order said that Pell had previously contacted him after receiving the complaint.

And further back still, when Gerald Ridsdale was at the height of his abusive career (for details, see his entry in my perpetrator list), Pell declared he knew nothing of Ridsdale’s activities, despite the abuse being common knowledge, and Pell sharing the presbytery – where many of the abuses happened – with Ridsdale for a year. Ridsdale has been convicted of multiple counts against 47 boy victims. Presumably Pell was either blind or stupid, or he turned a blind eye.

(Note: A fuller treatment of the Pell/Ridsdale links can be found here.)

How many times can one man be proven to have lied when he said “I didn’t know” and “I meant well” before Rome decides he’s a liability?

I invite anyone who has clear evidence of Pell’s duplicity to post it here as a comment.

Following the recent brouhaha over Bill Henson’s exhibition of artworks including images of young naked bodies, Art Monthly has now published a photo of a 6yo girl, in a demurely naked pose taken by her mother 5 years ago (ie. the girl is now 11yo), by way of provoking debate on the issue. I wholeheartedly agree with the magazine reporting on, and discussing, the issue, though I think that such blatant publication as a means of doing so is unwise at best. After all, if the issue is as burning a one as the editor asserts, then discussion will happen with or without further examples to fuel the debate.

Yet it seems to me that the crux of the issue is – at what age is it appropriate to a) film, photograph or paint naked people (and does it vary depending on the literal accuracy of, and broadness of access to, the medium?), and b) decide whether you want your own body immortalised in such a way? And the answers to those questions probably depends a lot on exactly what people are worried about. Is it the possibility of children being manipulated into posing for such photos, or the potential misuse (by paedophiles, for instance) of the published images? Furthermore, at what age, and to what extent, is nudity ok in a general sense?

No-one seems to question the appropriateness of photos of naked babies and toddlers (think Anne Geddes, for instance, and see this and this and some of these), nor do they question the appropriateness of small children running around naked on the beach or at swimming pools. Yet there are many proven cases (proven by medical examination or other means, since young children are not considered reliable witnesses in court) of abuse of tiny children and babies. Youth and innocence is not sufficient protection against a predator, although it is taken as sufficient justification for nakedness in certain contexts.

So then one has to ask, at what age does it become not ok, and then at what age should it become ok again? At what age are children considered no longer innocent enough (or safe enough) to run naked? How can Kevin Rudd say it’s disgusting to see childhood nakedness in an art exhibition, but not on the beach? Do parents really think about the issues involved there, or is it somehow more confronting in permanent form? (And if so, what about naked cherubs in religious art?) Do parents merely assume that those who see their naked children playing are not eyeing them with sexual interest? (I’m prepared to bet that if they thought otherwise, they’d very quickly make their children get dressed!)

Yet to legislate against all public nakedness would see a return to the fears of the Victorian era, when even pianos’ legs were swathed in cloth rather than display nakedness! Heaven forbid we ever again get to that extreme!

And if one were to say that at such-and-such an age it becomes inappropriate, then when does it become appropriate again, and why then? There’s no magic enlightenment about the issues on one’s 18th birthday, so developing understanding of the issues has to play a role in the lead-up to whatever age is determined to be mature enough. However, the kind of education is also important. Children are taught at the moment that certain parts of them are “private”, and it is a concern if someone wants to touch them. But there’s no teaching, really, about someone wanting to look, let alone to draw or capture in a picture. And if children are taught to believe that “artistic merit” is sufficient justification, then how are they to deal with a paedophile who convinces them to model for photos “for artistic purposes”?

I think the debate throws up more questions than it can answer, and everyone’s slant (and therefore answers) is going to be different. I certainly don’t have any clear answers, although a respected friend of mine suggested that perhaps one solution would be to allow such artworks to be created but withhold them from public view until the child turns 18, at which time the child themself may decide whether the artwork may be released for public view or not.

Hopefully some of what I’ve said here will open up the issues from the perspective of abuse victims. There is also quite a well-balanced look at the issues here.

Apart from the quoted amounts spent on WYD by the church ($150M) and the NSW govt ($86M+), now we find that the Federal govt (ie. John Howard, just before the last election) threw in another $22M, which is being challenged as unconstitutional in the Supreme Court (see here). And new legislation especially to “protect the Catholic pilgrims from harassment” is in force. Has anyone stopped to wonder just what sort of political manoeuvering must have gone on behind the scenes to prompt all this? And Pell says the church didn’t ask for any of it!!! Yeah right!

So far I’ve been added to at least two other blogrolls that I know of. And I feel that common courtesy ought to return the favour. But I’m conscious that this blog is part of a wider website which is accessed primarily by clergy sexual abuse victims. Many of them are easily triggered by church-related and/or sex-related references, and I have always aimed to keep my site as a safe space for them, where anything likely to be triggering has a warning attached to it. It is in that spirit I have to refrain from including on the blogroll some blogs I otherwise would, so if yours is one of them, my apologies – it has nothing to do with my level of respect and interest in your blog.

This is still a very nebulous concept – as opposed to a fully formulated thought that I’m so indignant about that I have to blog But hopefully it will become more concrete as I type, or as people respond to it.

It seems to me that a great deal of the church insistence on correct doctrine (which – in conservative denominations – pushes against such things as the acceptance of gay clergy and the ordination of women) is caused by needing to feel that they can define who is a member, or is entitled to be one, and who isn’t. The benefit of this, for them, is that drawing such a hard line makes it easy to enforce the rules: you break them, you’re out. Or at least you get punished till you realise how bad you are. And the difficulty for denominations who don’t draw such a strong line, but allow their members freedom of conscience (no, the Catholic Church doesn’t really, whatever individual priests or bishops might tell you), is that they risk the edges of their organisation becoming so blurred that they cease to be a definite organisation.

And while I think that flexibility in religious belief and doctrine is desirable, I see that the end result might well be to cause that denomination to fall into the dust. This would then leave the conservative denominations self-righteously triumphant, claiming that “things that are not of god will fail” (Acts 5:38-39). So what is the answer to the fact that liberalism – by definition – doesn’t aggressively compel membership, yet is crucial to providing a balance to conservatism?

As part of my website, I have a list of literary references to clergy sexual abuse. The reason I began the list was because I was tired of devout churchgoers telling me it was a modern phenomenon, and rare. My contention was that it was not only longstanding, but so much a part of the social psyche that casual references to it abound throughout the ages. So then I had to prove that (for the sceptics, natch!).

In modern times, the ultimate example is undoubtedly The Thorn Birds, although arguments run rife as to whether it really constitutes abuse (see the above link to my site for further discussion of that). But I found references from Oscar Wilde’s era (1800s), Chaucer (1300s) and right back to 120AD. So now I’m inviting anyone who comes across such a reference in their reading to add it here as a comment, to help me build my website list.

Not a title that narrows it down very much, really, when we’re talking about the church! But in this case, it’s about the arrogance of conservative members of the worldwide Anglican communion (about 1000 in total, a quarter of whom are bishops), who are at present in a meeting in Jerusalem which will probably see them deciding to boycott the next Lambeth Conference. There’s a nice article in The Age which more than adequately demonstrates their arrogance. Here are some excerpts, along with explanations of the arrogance for those who aren’t attuned to seeing it:

1) Peter Jensen asserts that the conference members are “the true keepers of the authority of the Bible.”
Arrogance: To suggest that just because they think (oops, sorry – know) their interpretation of the bible is right, that they are somehow “the true keepers” of its authority! Surely it’s God who is the keeper of scriptural authority??

2) Jensen also says “the Christian church has a constitution which is the Bible…it’s as if you’re a member of a [club] and you decide to break the rules…That’s understandable to the man on the street, surely.”
Arrogance no.1: Jensen and his conservative cohorts, again, are asserting that the rules they decide are the right ones actually are.
Arrogance no.2: [Unspoken translation] “Even the idiots who are just ordinary people can understand this when I’ve explained it so clearly, can’t they?”

3) Jensen said the church would not reunite until the current divisions over human sexuality were resolved. “There is no reason why we should leave the Anglican Church because we have not shifted. It is others who have shifted.”
Arrogance no.1: Knowing that because they’ve believed it for years, they must be right. (Supporters of slavery justified that from the bible, too, until Wilberforce and others worked on persuading them to a new viewpoint, which they finally found more biblical.)
Arrogance no.2: The assertion that if unity is to be restored, it’s “those others” who will have to return to the conservatives, rather than finding ways to compromise or move forward amicably. (Even given their assumption that they’re right, it’s still not the way forward in a contentious issue to just keep telling the other party that they’re wrong and they have to change!)

This all leads to another blog entry (as yet unwritten) about the need (or not) for definition of who’s “in the club” and who isn’t, and – with regard to the church – who makes the definition and how.

There are two types of sceptics, I’ve decided. There are those who debunk claims of the “miraculous” by finding and offering a rational scientific explanation, and there are those who debunk any claim they don’t understand and/or that hasn’t been proven. And many of those in the second category will describe themselves as scientists, but I contend that this is a travesty of the fundamental nature of science. True scientists ought to be a) seeking knowledge (which is, after all, what the word science means), and b) acknowledging that there are things which science hasn’t yet been able to find an explanation for – which doesn’t mean there isn’t one! In other words, a true scientist doesn’t say “I can’t prove it, therefore it isn’t true”, but rather “I can’t explain it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true; research is necessary to find out enough to be able to decide”.

How does this relate to clergy abuse or the church? Well actually, I’ve been following the news articles about Pier Giorgio Frassati (deceased) being flown out to Sydney for WYD, and noticed a claim that when they exhumed him as part of the preparation for sainthood, his body was uncorrupted. A little internet digging on the conditions of his burial turned up not only what I was looking for (entombed in the family vault), but other claims of incorruptibility among “the saints” of the church. And on another site discussing it (comprising, let it be said, one obviously devout Catholic and many sceptics), I found a link to an article in The Skeptic journal (p.35) about the whole issue. Now having previously been exposed to those who run The Skeptic, I think many of them are so keen on being sceptical that they lose sight of being rational, so I was a little reluctant to follow that link. However, it was worth reading as a quite rational counter-argument to the devout and unquestioning Catholic on the discussion site.

And that was where I began thinking about what characterises scepticism, and how it overlaps or conflicts with a truly scientific enquiring mindset. Naturally, of course, the whole thing also bore out what I have previously argued about faith: that blind belief in what the church says is a recipe for disaster. Or at least for being thought an idiot!
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Oh, and by the way – if you had any thoughts of visiting Frassati’s dead body as it lies in state in St Mary’s Cathedral during WYD, to check out the claims of incorruptibility, don’t bother. The coffin will be closed.

I recently heard of an instance of adult abuse (not clergy related), which was particularly interesting to me because of the grooming dynamic that occurred. A woman in her early thirties was invited to a threesome by a colleague and his wife. She declined, not being in the least interested. Next thing was, she’d changed jobs, but the ex-colleague found out (not from her) what hours she was working and when she would be arriving home. He met her as she got off the train, walked her home, invited himself in for a drink and then urged her to draw him naked. She ended up with pencil and sketchbook in her hand, having not known at what point to stop this process (or more specifically, not knowing how to do it without being rude).

And this is the essence of the grooming technique – that the stages of boundary invasion come in small enough steps that the rudeness required to repel them seems extreme for the level of offence, yet by the time one is beyond all point of going along with it, one feels complicit for not having called a halt at an earlier stage. And all our upbringing and training is geared to politeness and avoidance of being rude, which effectively constrains us from acting self-protectively in such circumstances.

In this instance, the woman probably had the following options along the way (all of them rude to some degree):
1) when she saw the guy at the station, and he began to walk her home, to say “I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to walk with me.” And if he persisted, to walk to the police station instead and (assuming he followed) to accuse him of harrassing her.
2) When she got to her front door, and he invited himself in, to say “I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to come in.” And if he persisted, to say “look, I really don’t like you, and you’re not welcome here.”
3) When he suggested drawing him naked, to tell him to leave the house. And if he refused, to insist, with the threat of calling the police if he didn’t go.
4) And if he continued to the point of undressing himself (which, if she did the previous options, is fairly unlikely), the best option, in my opinion, would be to go to the fridge, get a glass of nice cold water, and throw it on him!

One further option, the threat of which could be used at any stage, but the actuality most certainly should be used afterwards, is to tell his wife. Naturally, though, if one has been drawn in by the grooming process, the feeling of complicity makes that an extremely difficult option. Groomers count on that, of course. And in this case, it is further complicated by his wife having been party to the original threesome suggestion. All the same, it seems quite likely that she wouldn’t approve of him acting independently, and probably didn’t know he did it. And the only way, when it’s a past event, to break the secrecy of complicity (and make it obvious that you didn’t want it or ask for it) is to tell.

But the point of this musing is that there is no way to repel grooming approaches without being ruder than seems warranted by the circumstances. So the training we give our children MUST include teaching that when the need arises to act self-protectively, rudeness is not only ok, it’s mandatory.
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Note: For more info on grooming and what we should teach our children, check out the “dynamics of abuse” and “protecting children” sections of my website.