Watching a CNN investigative report about...what else....child abuse by priests in the catholic church....and i wonder how many people/victims have no faith in God because of the demons who were allowed...no allowed is too easy...who were sustained under the protection of the catholic church. How many lives...victims, parents of victims, brother and sisters of victims, spouses of victims, friends of victims...and on and on it goes, have left the church and maybe faith as well. I sometimes feel that the punishment for anyone involved in protecting thereby perpetrating these crimes should be victimized themselves but it wouldn't be the same unless the power ratio is right. But they obviously have no empathetic or intelligent understanding of what happens to a child when they are assaulted...and it is sexual assault...we make it sound almost like having fudge brownies with father fry when we say "molested"...it describes NOTHING that haunts a victim for the rest of their lives. They are permanently altered in their innermost parts....their souls, their spirit, their self worth is gone and everything that happens immediately following this assault will shape this individuals abilityy to remould their psyche so as not to have their being destroyed. Who these people were before these assaults, is not the same as who they are now...but you may say, people are victims of car accidents and can't walk but they get on with it. Thank God they do, and I pray for that for all victims...but it is different for sex abuse survivors...it's not so easy to heal from deep within, where even you yourself may not immediately understand all that is going on in your own head, why you feel the way you do, the difficulty in relationships, trust, expectations. I myself didn't confront my molester per say, he told me off after my Mother told him to stop. I'll never forget that day. I knew Mom had spoken to him and was pretty sure he would find a way to confront me even with my grandmother there and he did! I rang the buzzer, and granny answered (I went there for lunch). Mom had said I only had to go if Granny was there, so I went up, but granny was now in the kitchen around the corner making lunch...he pulled me in and pinned me up against the door and pulled my head close to his ear and hissed at me..."I hear you've spoken to your mother"...and that was all he had time for as granny rounded the corned he released me. It was all I could do not to vomit all over the floor! I had lunch (!!) while trying not to see him masturbating behind the opened newspaper directed towards me. I kept my lunch down until I walked back to school. It took me awhile to get up the nerve to say anything again and after that I lived a life parallel to him in order to keep peace. It probably would have been better for my self esteem if I had taken back control from him in a formal way....but hindsight is a wonderful but useless tool. I should perhaps write him a letter describing to him exactly the enormity of the damage he perpetrated, along with the collateral damage in the rest of my remaining life...he's dead, and was also a staunch Catholic. At least I got over my anger with God for not answering my pleas to make it stop...complete with a kneeler made out of library steps and holy water given to me by my priest!!!
If you haven't been sexually/assaulted/molested, I ask you to be sensitive to those who have this journey to make, and get help for yourself too, someone to talk to and bounce things off. Trying to ignore it probably won't be as helpful to you as dealing with it head on.
As a final note...the Pope knows what he should be doing, and isn't. He'll lose a large following for the Catholic Church and I don't think Peter would or is pleased!!
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