As a former Catholic I have been struggling to come up with a post about the (most recent) accounts of horrible abuse by the Catholic church. Specifically, the abuse in Ireland. I know a lot of Catholics would prefer I differentiate between the diocese in Ireland and the church as a whole, but there is no difference. The minute the church became aware of abuses and covered it up was the moment they condoned what happened and became an accomplice.
I have struggled for days with this post. Not because I didn’t want to write it, but because I was trying to figure out a way to write it without it sounding sad instead of informative.
I will just tell my story about why hiding abuse is giving the OK to abuse.
This is a story I have told only a few of my closest friends… not even The Hulk has heard this story.
When I was growing up my best friend’s brother was a few years older than I was and he was a sexual predator. How do I know this? I was one of his prey. At the time I thought I was the only one, I could deal with it, so I never told anyone. I won’t go into any details. Honestly, they aren’t important. It lasted for several years, until finally as we got older and his parents got divorced, he moved in with his dad and wasn’t around much any more. I prefer to think of situations like this, this way…I wasn’t a victim, I was victimized. There is a difference. He wouldn’t get the control he wanted. He never got it. I didn’t let it figure into anything I became in my life. I didn’t become a pedophile, I didn’t become an abuser, I didn’t become a drug addict and I didn’t blame the abuse on any choices I made in my life.
What I didn’t know was that I wasn’t the only victim. He was abusing his sisters as well. When I learned that, the only regret I had was that I never told anyone who could stop it. I do know his sisters told their parents. What did the parents do? Blame the girls, it must have been their fault, they must have wanted it, because he was the eldest son, and could do no wrong. They were told to “ask heavenly father for forgiveness for making their brother do those things”. They were LDS. I could have told someone else who hopefully would have listened. But I didn’t… In a way I let the abuse spread to others. I will always feel guilty about that, but I know I can’t change it.
His parents didn’t stop him. That was permission enough for him to continue. Years later he ended up abusing his own step-daughters. He served a few DAYS in jail. His father was also a sherrif’s deputy, so he got out pretty quickly. I hope he has stopped abusing.
When people with authority over their charges dismiss the bad things they do, and in the case of the Catholic church, cover it up, they are in essence saying to the abusers, it’s ok, you’re good, keep doing what you are doing. And they are saying to those who were victimized that it was mostly their fault.
The worst part about all of the abuse shit that has been going on within the Catholic church is that nobody is punishing the church…Not the members, not the governments, not even the courts. The amounts they are awarding to the victims is piss change compared to the how wealthy of a business of the church is.
Here’s the thing, The Vatican is it’s own country. It’s time the UN take action against this country that is allowing it’s citizens to harm children. It’s time to go to war against the Catholic church. Time to take the country and the business away from the criminals that run it.
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