What would you have us say regarding abuse...

I would have you say many things about abuse.  Truly the root of sexual abuse is because we live in a sinful world, but its prevalence has not been stopped because, in very large part, of silence.

As I have posted before, Tennessee has started a stop the silence campaign across the entire state.  Such campaigns exists elsewhere in smaller efforts, but they need to be in every school, every church, every city, every state.  

The first post I ever made was about the video of those adults who were hurt as children by a priest.  It is hard to watch but as necessary, in my opinion, as watching Schindler's List.  In the video, you see how adults are still impacted, you hear from a pedophile how he excuses his behavior, you learn how easy it was to abuse both child and mother in the same home, you learn how pervasive is the response of learning about such things be to cover it up.  It is not a condemnation of the Catholic church, but an intimate look at sexual abuse from both sides of the equation.

I would like to have people watch and respond to watching it by publicly stating they did, something they learned, reposting the video to their own walls and encouraging others to learn.

There are many ways to discuss sexual abuse, again from both sides of the equation.  For example, the article I posted about Sandusky being labeled as a likely pedophile back in 1998.  That such was ignored all those years is horrible, but the article gave good instruction about the patterns of pedophiles and gave a glimpse of how their own victims will excuse their behavior or defend them.  It is a remarkable article for the opportunity to learn about both sides of the equation.

You can talk about the spiritual care needed for those who are wounded in this manner. You can talk about patterns of behavior of sexual abusers, from pedophiles to spousal abuse.  You can talk about the patterns of response conditioned in those who have survived sexual abuse that can set them up for re-victimization as they age.  You can talk about the long-term physical and mental effects of sexual abuse.  You can talk about the need for education for all adults and children, again on both sides of the equation.  You can even talk about what makes it so darn uncomfortable to talk about as you do so.  

With regard to the recent revelation that a lay minister in the LCMS was hurting parishioners, so much of the discussion was about background checks.  But we do not background check parishioners and abusers exists in that segment of the church probably more so than staff.  And even if a background check process has failed, perpetrators could be caught by an education campaign, by those who learn to actively look for the signs of sexual abuse...on both side of the equation...and those who talk about it.  On one discussion thread about the matter, when someone who had been sexually abused tried to refocus the discussion/blame not on a failure of administrative processes but rather on the perpetrator, one responder basically accused his experience of being raped as clouding his thinking on the matter.  When you peel back the words, the man was dismissed because of his experience when his experience gave him greater insight as to the heart of the problem at hand.

In a sense, it is an easy matter to solve in part.  Having the topic no longer be uncomfortable, having it be regularly discussed openly and honestly, can made a tremendous difference.  These are not just my thoughts.  They are the thoughts of those who have been on the battle front for decades.  Evil really does flourish when good men/women remain silent.

Children whose parents/relatives/teachers/pastors hurt them often do not understand that adults can be wrong. They do not know they have the right to say they do not want such things to happen to their bodies, to question adult behavior, and that telling is a good thing.  Pedophiles often use that ignorance against them.  So, again, talking is a way to fight and reduce such evil. 

But we do not talk about such things in our society or in our churches.  I know from experience. I also know from research.  At best, the topic is discussed in part if it is in the news, but only distantly so, kept at arms length, and not brought into our homes, our schools, our organizations, our churches.

I guarantee the Catholic church is not the only church on earth where this problem has been and still is rampant.  It takes places in schools, too.  And homeschooling is no real protection because it takes place in homes as well.  Many, many, many homes.  Homes filled with, as Pastor Riley would say, Good Christian People.

And example I have given before is something I personally witnessed.  There was a foster child who raped his foster sister, the daughter of his foster parts.  It took the girl a year to speak about what happened.  Then, in the weekly staff meeting, the boy's social worker spoke about what happened.  She was silent about the girl. I was horrified the girl was still having to live with her perpetrator.  Yet when I said so, I was lambasted for having termed the boy such.  He was no rapist.  All the effort was to keep private what had happened.  Even the mother did not want to have the boy removed from her home.  When I asked how the girl was doing, the social worker replied that she did not know, that she had not talked to the girl yet...and this had happened some days before.  Another social worker actually said that since the girl waited a year to tell, the rape obviously had not bothered her much.

I was horrified.  Grown women rarely find the courage to tell.  After all, look what happens when you do.  You are blamed.  You are hushed.  You are ignored.  The room was filled with people supposedly trained in dealing with this problem, but the go-to response was to blame, to hush, to ignore.

At the staff meeting the following week, when hearing the boy was still in the home and the girl still had not received any help, I announced to no one in particular that if the incident was not reported immediately, I would do so myself.  I was the only person in the room who was not a mandatory reporter.

It was reported.  The county removed the boy from the home immediately.  A couple of weeks later, the boy felt safe enough to finally tell that he had been raped repeatedly by the foster mom.  In his words, she had been having a relationship with him.  It was no relationship. It was rape.  It was abuse.  While it is no excuse for his choice, the boy was simply doing to the foster sister was was being done to him.

All the while in the home he where he was placed to be safe.

All the while being visited regularly by a social worker who was there to keep him safe.

Another way to look at this is to consider heart disease in women.  Heart disease is the number one killer of women, more than all the cancers combined.  The signs of heart disease in women are most often very different than the signs of heart disease in men.  So, even those who do know the most commonly known symptoms (pain in the chest that radiates down the left arm) would not be of help with women, whose symptoms are more often fatigue, indigestion, nausea, back ache or pain in the jaw.  

There is all this education about cancer in women, especially breast cancer. There are buddy check programs and plastic guides you can hang on your shower, but there is a virtual silence about the warning signs of heart disease in women.  Even in the hospitals, often women in heart failure are misdiagnosed because the prevailing discussion and education is about the signs of heart disease in men.  So, silence on the matter has allowed this result of sin in our world to be worse than it is.  Discussion and education, having the signs and symptoms and the problem on every tongue would greatly reduce the number of deaths of women from heart disease because it can be treated, catching it early can have a profound impact on prevention, mitigating damage, and fostering healing.

So it is with sexual abuse.  Discussion and education can have a profound impact on preventing sexual abuse in the first place, mitigating damage, and fostering healing in those bearing such wounds.

But what do such wounded people find?  Silence.  Blame.  And the most prevalent excuse being that hearing about sexual abuse, talking about sexual abuse, watching videos like the one I posted...all of those things are too uncomfortable, too difficult.

Well, be that the case, imagine, then, what it is like to live with sexual abuse in your life, in your past...knowing that no one wants to see, no one wants to hear, no one wants to be burdened with facing a difficult, uncomfortable thing?

It is a convenience of society to say that such wounded people need counselors.  This is most certainly true.  But not only can many not afford counseling, nor are there enough counselors trained specifically to deal with the aftermath of sexual abuse, but psychological healing lies in being able to speak about your experiences with friends and family and having your feelings and thoughts be accepted and heard.  And, more importantly, psychology cannot heal the spiritual wounds of sexual abuse.  Only the sweet, sweet Gospel can do so.  Not law. Not what you should be doing, how you should be thinking, how you should be feeling, how you should be responding in faith.  But Gospel.  Gospel given not merely in Divine Service, but also given specifically through pastoral care and through the care and support of members of the body of Christ. Gospel given even more freely and fully than the prevalent lies and assaults of the relentless foe who widens and deepens the wounds of sexual abuse through doubt and despair and shame and silence.

Sadly, though, with sexual abuse, for the most part, the only words spoken on the matter are the words of the world.

Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy.