Tag: Discontent

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#ChurchToo revelations growing, years after movement began

FILE – Dresses donated by sexual assault survivors from Amish and other plain-dressing religious groups hang on a clothesline beneath a description of each survivors’ age and church affiliation, on Friday, April 29, 2022, in Leola, Pa. The exhibit’s purpose was to show that sexual assault is a reality among children and adults in such groups. Similar exhibits held nationwide aim to shatter the myth that abuse is caused by a victim’s clothing choice.

By Peter Smith and Holly Meyer

A withering report on sexual abuse and cover-up in the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

A viral video in which a woman confronts her pastor at an independent Christian church for sexually preying on her when she was a teen.

A TV documentary exposing sex abuse of children in Amish and Mennonite communities.

You might call it #ChurchToo 2.0.

Survivors of sexual assault in church settings and their advocates have been calling on churches for years to admit the extent of abuse in their midst and to implement reforms. In 2017 that movement acquired the hashtag #ChurchToo, derived from the wider #MeToo movement, which called out sexual predators in many sectors of society.

In recent weeks #ChurchToo has seen an especially intense set of revelations across denominations and ministries, reaching vast audiences in headlines and on screen with a message that activists have long struggled to get across.

“For us it’s just confirmation of what we’ve been saying all these years,” said Jimmy Hinton, an advocate for abuse survivors and a Church of Christ minister in Somerset, Pennsylvania. “There is an absolute epidemic of abuse in the church, in religious spaces.”

Calls for reform will be prominent this week in Anaheim, California, when the Southern Baptist Convention holds its annual meeting following an outside report that concluded its leaders mishandled abuse cases and stonewalled victims.

The May 22 report came out the same day an independent church in Indiana was facing its own reckoning.

Moments after its pastor, John B. Lowe II, confessed to years of “adultery,” longtime member Bobi Gephart took the microphone to tell the rest of the story: She was just 16 when it started, she said.

The video of the confrontation has drawn nearly 1 million views on Facebook. Lowe subsequently resigned from New Life Christian Church & World Outreach in Warsaw.

In an interview, Gephart said she’s not surprised that so many cases are now coming out. She has received words of encouragement from all over the world, with people sharing their own “heartbreaking” stories of abuse.

“Things are shaking loose,” Gephart said. “I really feel like God is trying to make things right.”

For many churches, she said, “It’s all about covering up, ‘Let’s keep the show going.’ There are hurting people, and that’s not right. I still don’t think a lot of the church gets it.”

Hinton — who turned in his own father, a former minister now imprisoned for aggravated indecent assault — said the viral video demonstrates the potency of survivors telling their own stories.

“Survivors have far more power than they ever think imaginable,” he said on his “Speaking Out on Sex Abuse” podcast.

#ChurchToo revelations have emerged in all kinds of church groups, including liberal denominations that preach gender equality and depict clergy sexual misconduct as an abuse of power. The Episcopal Church aired stories from survivors at its 2018 General Convention, and an archbishop in the Anglican Church of Canada resigned in April amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

But many recent reckonings are occurring in conservative Protestant settings where a “purity culture” has been prominent in recent decades — emphasizing male authority and female modesty and discouraging dating in favor of traditional courtship leading to marriage.

On May 25 reality TV personality Josh Duggar was sentenced in Arkansas to more than 12 years in prison for receiving child pornography. Duggar was a former lobbyist for a conservative Christian organization and appeared on TLC’s since-canceled “19 Kids and Counting,” featuring a homeschooling family that stressed chastity and traditional courtship. Prosecutors said Duggar had a “deep-seated, pervasive and violent sexual interest in children.”

On May 26 the Springfield (Missouri) News-Leader reported on a spate of sex abuse cases involving workers at Kanakuk Kamps, a large evangelical camp ministry

Emily Joy Allison, whose abuse story launched the #ChurchToo movement, said the sexual ethic preached in many conservative churches — and the shame and silence it breeds — are part of the problem. She argues that in her book, “#ChurchToo: How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing.”

Allison told The Associated Press that addressing abuse requires both a change in church policy and theology. But she knows the latter is unlikely in the SBC.

“They need to undergo a transformation so radical they would be unrecognizable at the end. And that will not happen,” Allison said. Reform work focused on “harm reduction” is a more realistic approach, she said.

Some advocates hope the front-burner focus on abuse could lead to lasting reforms — if not in churches, then in the law.

Misty Griffin, an advocate for fellow survivors of sexual assault in Amish communities, recently launched a petition drive seeking a congressional “Child’s Rights Act.” As of early June, it had drawn more than 5,000 signatures.

It would require that all teachers, including those in religious schools and homeschool settings, be trained about child abuse and neglect and subject to reporting mandates, and would also require age-appropriate instruction on abuse prevention for students. Griffin said such legislation is crucial because in authoritarian religious systems, victims often don’t know help is available or how to get it.

“Without that, nothing’s going to change,” said Griffin, a consulting producer on the documentary “Sins of the Amish.”

The two-episode documentary, which premiered on Peacock TV in May, examines endemic abuse in Amish and Mennonite communities, saying it is enabled by a patriarchal authority structure, an emphasis on forgiving offenders and reluctance to report wrongdoing to law enforcement.

The Southern Baptist Convention, whose doctrine also calls for male leadership in churches and families, has been particularly shaken by the #ChurchToo movement after years of complaints that leadership has failed to care for survivors and hold their abusers accountable.

At its annual meeting, the SBC will consider proposals to create a task force that would oversee a listing of clergy credibly accused of abuse. But survivors criticized that proposal and are calling for a more powerful and independent commission to perform that task and also review allegations of abuse and cover-up. They’re also seeking a “survivor restoration fund” and memorial dedicated to survivors.

Momentum for change grew as survivors such as Jules Woodson, who went public in 2018 with a sexual assault accusation against her former youth pastor, were emboldened to tell their stories.

“I felt like, ‘Thank God there’s a space where we can tell these stories,’” Woodson said.

Such accounts led to the independent investigation, whose 288-page report detailed how the SBC’s Executive Committee prioritized protecting the institution over victims’ well-being and preventing abuse

The committee has apologized and made public a long-secret list of ministers accused of abuse.

Woodson said seeing her abuser’s name on it felt like a double-edged sword.

“It was in some ways validating that my abuser was on there, but it was also devastating to see that they knew and yet nobody in the SBC spoke up to warn others,” she said.

Woodson added that she is still waiting for meaningful change: “They have offered minimal words acknowledging the problem, but they have offered zero reform and true action which would show genuine repentance or care and concern for survivors or the vulnerable people who have yet to be abused.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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With bishops like these, it’s hard to be Catholic

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone leading a service in San Francisco. His stance against Nancy Pelosi will alienate others who are tired of U.S. clerics’ rigidity.

By Jackie Calmes

To flip the famed line from “The Godfather Part III,” just when I think I might return to the Catholic Church, they pull me back out.

“They” are the church’s archbishops and bishops, in particular those in the United States, who not only advocate for the church’s teachings against gay rights, contraception and abortion, which is their right, but also repeatedly enforce them in ways that often seem un-Christian and downright wicked. All the while, the church’s pedophilia scandal persists into a third decade because of the clerics’ coverups.

What would Jesus do? Not act like these guys.

On Monday, two weeks after the archbishop of San Francisco, the archconservative Salvatore Cordileone, ordered that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not receive Communion because of her support for abortion rights, leaders of the Colorado Catholic Conference sent an open letter condemning state lawmakers who’d voted for an abortion-rights bill.

The Denver archbishop and three bishops admonished the lawmakers not to take Communion until they performed “public repentance” and confessed their sins to a priest. In contrast, they praised four Republican legislators who opposed the bill. Increasingly, church leaders overtly ally with the Republican Party, despite its general hostility to policies beneficial to needy people once they’re born, to immigrants and to those on death row.

The clerics’ “pro-life” actions in California and Colorado came even as Americans were reeling from news of one mass shooting and then another, including the massacre of fourth-graders. Four bishops wrote a letter to Congress calling for “reasonable gun control measures,” but where’s the muscle and outrage comparable to that against abortion rights?

Seven months ago, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on the sacrament of Communion that stopped short of singling out the pro-choice President Biden for sanction, but only after much debate. While conservative bishops are often critical of the progressive pope, uncommonly so, Biden had just enjoyed a warm meeting with Pope Francis, who blessed the rosary the president routinely carries and urged him to keep taking Communion.

As Francis says, the Communion wafer that Catholics believe incorporates the body of Christ “is not a prize for the perfect.”

With the Supreme Court expected to soon issue a decision overturning abortion rights after a half-century, the divide between Catholic bishops and most rank-and-file church members is likely to widen. A majority of the justices, five, are conservative anti-abortion Catholics.

The U.S. church hierarchy isn’t exactly playing single-issue politics. Opposing gay rights as well as contraception also remain the bishops’ preoccupations, at the expense of attention to poverty, social and racial justice, and nonviolence. Those latter issues are the ones that “my” church emphasized during my first 18 years, including 12 years in Catholic schools. Then came Roe vs. Wade in 1973, and the peace-loving church turned culture warrior.

I recall Masses during which the priests directed us church-goers to use the small pencils and postcards provided in the pews to petition lawmakers against abortion. There were parish convoys to Washington to protest on the anniversary of Roe. And there were the periodic sermons, including one so graphic when I listened from the front pew with my preteen daughters that I switched parishes — and took another step in my walk away from the church.

Yet from early on, even as I accepted the church’s teachings and its authority to preach them, I privately questioned why those positions should bind the state, public officials (including the Catholics among them) and citizens of other faiths.

Again to quote Francis, speaking in this instance about LGBTQ people, “Who am I to judge?”

I’m hardly alone in my estrangement from the church. While Catholicism remains the nation’s largest religious denomination, the church has declined in membership from about a quarter of the U.S. population to roughly one-fifth. Polls consistently show that the hardline positions of so many bishops are anathema to most of their so-called flock.

The bishops may be known as shepherds, but we’re no sheep. A poll of Catholics in mid-May from the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 63% of Catholic adults said abortion should be legal in all or most cases; 68% said Roe should stand. Both percentages are in line with the views of the overall U.S. public.

Two-thirds of Catholic adults said Catholic politicians who are pro-abortion rights should not be denied Communion, and even more — 77% — said that Catholics who identify as LGBTQ should be allowed to receive Communion.

Still, a Catholic diocese in Michigan recently said its pastors should deny the sacraments, including baptism and Communion, to transgender, gay and nonbinary Catholics “unless the person has repented.” That’s rich coming from “leaders” of a church in which a disproportionate number of priests are gay.

Thank God, literally, for the dissenters like Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, Iowa, who recently said that “protecting the Earth, our common home, or making food, water, shelter, education and healthcare accessible, or defense against gun violence… these are life issues too.”

It’s priests like him, and the sentiments they espouse, that entice me to return to the church. Yet there are just too few like him among the men in charge. The self-righteous Cordileones are setting the tone, in religion and politics. And they keep pulling me back out.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Dioceses find ‘urgent desire’ for greater role for women

College students, other young adults and ministry leaders during a synodal listening session.

by Sarah Mac Donald

Synod synthesis reports from dioceses in Ireland have expressed a strong desire for “urgent change” and a fear that once the synodal process has finished, the decline in priest numbers and young people will continue, and there will be no change in the role of women in the Church.

A total of 173 parishes hosted gatherings for 10,500 participants in the Archdiocese of Dublin. The synthesis of those consultations revealed that more than half of parishes believe change has to happen or “the children of tomorrow will never experience Church”.

Hope was expressed that women will have a meaningful role in the life and governance of the Church and that priests would have the option to marry and enjoy family life.

Concern was expressed over the current workload of priests and the age profile of both priests and people. “Many priests are over-stretched and the current model of parish is no longer sustainable. There is an urgent need to develop new ministries,” the report states.

A key concern for young adults is the lack of “relational warmth” in many Church settings. Young participants in the synod consultations stated: “The church is a cold place for young people.”

The effort to renew the Church must be marked by urgency and an openness to the new. This will include much more significant roles for laity, recognition of the role of women and expanding the criteria for who can be ordained.

“The continued treatment of women as less than co-equal with men is a source of anger as well as of sadness in the majority of the parishes. Across the vast majority of the parishes, there is great hope that women will have a meaningful role in governance and ministries, including becoming deacons and priests.”

The declining numbers of clergy can be viewed positively as an opportunity to develop new ministries, parishes suggested and urged the Church to facilitate and promote lay leadership at a local level immediately.

However, concern was expressed that lay people who respond to the call to serve in the near future would not have the support or formation they need.

In relation to marginalised groups, the report noted the call to develop Church teaching and to find ways of welcoming and becoming more inclusive. There was a strong plea that the Church should become genuinely inclusive not only in word but also in deed, by reaching out to unmarried couples, divorced, remarried and LGBTQI+.

It also underlined that a clear strategy is needed to support young people and young parents, with a particular focus on catechetical accompaniment in the parish.

In the Diocese of Limerick, one of the strongest points raised in the responses from parishes is that the Church is often not as inclusive and relevant as it should be.

The acid test of parishes, parishes said is “how they connect with people on the margins. Broken people need to be included, not judged. The Church needs to become more accepting of difference.”

An issue of concern highlighted by parishes was how to give lay people a voice and how to empower them. “Our present structures are seen as too hierarchical and since we are all called by virtue of our baptism… we are co-responsible and this needs to be enabled,” the report stated.

According to the report, the issue raised repeatedly by parishes was that the voices of women are not heard in the Church’s present structures. “There is a sense that little thought has been given to the role of women in the Church. Church leadership is overtly patriarchal, and the hierarchy do not adequately value, appreciate or meaningfully listen to the voice of its female members (either lay or religious).”

Referring to the Diocesan Synod held in Limerick in 2016, the main focus of hurt named then was clerical abuse cases in the Church. However, the synthesis report noted that the hurts named in this consultation were more focused on exclusion and the sense of being silenced, stifled and alienated, particularly amongst women and the LGBT community.

In an open letter to his diocese last weekend, Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick said the Church needs to listen to those it “does not normally hear” and involve those who feel excluded or marginalised from the faith.

In its synthesis report the Diocese of Elphin included feedback from an LGBT+ focus group which called for an apology to LGBT+ people from the pope, bishops and priests. It also called for a review of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality to reflect modern scientific, psychological and sociological research and the lived experience and relationships of people.

The LGBT+ focus group of ten comprised four women and six men, all of whom either live in the Diocese of Elphin or have some connection with it. They also called for access to all sacraments, including marriage, for LGBT+ people and access to the priesthood for women.

The group drew up its report at the invitation of Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin. However, in their submission the focus group strongly criticised Bishop Doran over his comments during the marriage referendum in 2015 when he encouraged parishes to vote no.

Elsewhere in the focus report, participants hit out at the “breath-taking” hypocrisy of the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality, given it has a significant number of gay priests in its ranks.

“It is the lie at the heart of the clerical church and in plain sight. It is also a lie that sustains the architecture of homophobia in society,” the LGBT+ focus report states.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Treatment of women in Catholic church is ‘source of anger’ in Dublin parishes

Vast majority of parishes express hope that women will have meaningful role in governance and ministries, consultation finds

Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell launched the consultation process last October

By Patsy McGarry< The continued treatment of women as less than coequal with men is a “source of anger as well as of sadness” in the majority of Dublin’s Catholic parishes.

A “vast majority of the parishes” expressed “great hope that women will have a meaningful role in governance and ministries, including becoming deacons and priests” in the future Catholic Church, while they expressed “great openness to married men becoming priests”. They also favour optional celibacy for priests.

These are among the main findings of an extensive consultation process with people in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese as part of a synodal process being undertaken in the church worldwide in preparation for an October 2023 synod of bishops in Rome called by Pope Francis.

Catholics consulted in Dublin also made “a strong plea that the church should become genuinely inclusive not only in word but also in deed, by reaching out to unmarried couples, divorced, remarried, LGBTQI+. The church needs to explore how people can be included and stop looking for reasons to turn people away,” a synthesis of their views has also found.

The report, Synodal Pathway Synthesis: the Archdiocese of Dublin Report, has been published on the Archdiocese’s website dublindiocese.ie.

The consultation process at Ireland’s largest Catholic diocese involved 173 parishes which hosted gatherings for 10,500 participants. These were co-ordinated by 325 animators, with an average attendance at gatherings of between 35 and 40 participants. The largest gathering had 280 participants, while another 2,200 people took part, mainly through focus groups.

This process was launched by Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell last October and the outcome will be presented at a national pre-synodal meeting in Athlone on June 18th where findings from all 26 Irish Catholic dioceses, following similar consultations, will be collated before being sent to Rome next August.

Among Catholics in Dublin “there was a strong voice for urgent change. At the same time, anxiety was expressed that nothing might happen as a result or it might happen too slowly. In particular, there is a consciousness that change may face resistance to renewal from within the church and from clericalism,” the report found.

Fears were also expressed that “once the synodal process has finished, there will be a continuation in the decline that sees a drop in numbers of priests, young people in the church, and no change in the role of women in the church or the option for priests to marry and enjoy family life”.

Language

Many of those taking part also found that “the language in the liturgy is a barrier. The language needs to speak clearly to people, relate to laity and connect with people at Mass,” they said.

Older Catholics in Dublin spoke of their “sorrow, guilt and helplessness about their children not participating in the sacramental life of the church and grandchildren not being presented for baptism”.

In a homily last Friday, marking the feast of Dublin patron St Kevin, Archbishop Farrell invited “women and men who feel that they are called to ministry to come forward to train for ministry as instituted lectors or acolytes or catechists”. These, he explained, were “lay ministers, women and men who are publicly recognised by the church and appointed by the diocese to minister alongside priests and deacons in leading liturgies, supporting adult faith formation and accompanying families preparing for the sacraments”.

He also said he would appoint “pastoral leaders – deacons, religious and lay people – where necessary when parishes cannot have a resident priest, to support the priest who will have pastoral responsibility for that parish. Their voluntary service will be supported by the pastoral workers in the diocese.”

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Sexual abuse by prominent Catholic figure

— Superior did not make police report as victims insisted on keeping matters private

The Catholic Church also said that it had asked the Attorney General’s Chambers to partially lift the gag order on the case in relation to the identity of the offender, but AGC said it was unable to accede to the request.

By Gabrielle Andres

SINGAPORE: The two teenage boys who were sexually abused by a prominent member of the local Catholic community “refused” to make police reports after the incidents came to light in 2009, the Catholic Religious Order said in a statement on Sunday (Jun 5).

The boys were repeatedly told that they could make a police report and would be accompanied to the police station to do so, but they were insistent in wanting to keep the matter private.

As such, the superior of the Catholic Order, who initiated investigations on the case, did not make a police report at the time “out of respect for the stated wishes and requested privacy of the victims”.

“To our knowledge, there are no other victims and the offender confirmed this,” the Catholic Order said.

These details were revealed in a statement that was published on the website of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore on Sunday.

The offender was sentenced to five years’ jail last month, after being convicted of committing sexual offences against the boys between 2005 and 2007.

The Singaporean man, a member of a Catholic Order, had taken a vow of celibacy and has never married, according to court documents.

He cannot be named due to detailed gag orders imposed by the court, which prohibit the publication of his name, designation, appointment and a school he was linked to.

The Archdiocese also said on Sunday that it sought a partial lift of the gag order “for greater accountability and transparency”, but that the request was denied by the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).

TREATMENT, REHAB PAID FOR BY RELIGIOUS ORDER

The Archdiocese said it released the statement by the Religious Order in the interests of providing “as much information as possible, within the boundaries of the gag order” imposed on the case.

Religious Orders within the Roman Catholic Church are separately constituted and are governed by their own judicial proceedings and administration of law.

In its statement, the Order said that its local leader first learned of the incidents when one of the victims confided in him in 2009, after both had already left the school.

An investigation was immediately initiated by the superior of the Order for Singapore. During the investigations, only the local leader and superior were involved.

“The victims were interviewed, and provided with counselling support,” the Order said.

After they decided against making a police report, the superior focused on what to do with the offender, who was “remorseful and expressed willingness to accept all consequences”.

“The superior immediately removed the offender from his position and prevented him from returning to the school premises so as to ensure that there would be no further contact with the victims or minors,” it said.

“He sent the offender for treatment, therapy and rehabilitation beginning with an intensive six-month programme in the United States, paid for by the Religious Order.”

CNA has asked the Catholic Church whether any action has been taken by the church against the superior for not making a police report.

Following the treatment, the Religious Order abided by the recommendations of the treatment centre, including instructions not to place the offender in any setting that involves working with minors, it said.

“Hence, the offender had to be posted to different country, where he could undertake work that did not involve minors,” the Order said.

“The local religious superiors there were informed of his background and of the key restrictions of his recovery programme.

“The superior of the Order for Singapore also continued monitoring the offender in his subsequent posting, checking on his adherence to the restrictions imposed by the recovery programme and his commitment to continued therapy and recovery.”

In March 2020, the offender came back to Singapore to renew his missionary visa, which was expiring. However, he was unable to return overseas due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to previous court documents.

In late 2020, the offender’s history was brought to the attention of the board of the school to which he was linked.

The Religious Order informed the Archbishop thereafter in October 2020, and the Archbishop gave instructions that the matter be reported to the police.

Following an internal inquiry, the board and the Order decided that a police report had to be made and the chairman of the board lodged one on May 10, 2021.

The Order said it has “fully cooperated with the authorities in their investigation”.

“The Religious Order is deeply dismayed, ashamed and sorry for the incidents, and remains committed to supporting the victims,” it said.

“The Religious Order is committed to a zero tolerance for such behaviour.

“It has a safeguarding protocol with guidelines to prevent similar incidents. The protocol is reviewed regularly to ensure awareness and adherence. The protocol also states that all such incidents must be immediately reported to the civil authorities and the Archbishop of Singapore.”

AGC DENIES REQUEST TO PARTIALLY LIFT GAG ORDER

In a separate statement accompanying the Religious Order statement, the Archdiocese said it had requested for the AGC to partially lift the gag order on the case, in relation to the identity of the offender, the name of the Order, and details of the offender’s subsequent treatment and postings.

“The AGC informed that they had carefully considered our request but were unable to accede to it,” the Archdiocese said.

“The Church takes very seriously the provision of a safe environment, especially where children and young persons are present.”

The AGC said on Monday that it did not apply to lift or vary the gag order on the identity of the offender, as doing so would likely lead to the identification of the victims.

“It was not in any way sought to protect the interests of the accused person, or of the Catholic Order involved,” the AGC said in response to CNA’s queries.

It added that its “paramount interest was, and remains, the protection of victims”.

The Archdiocese noted that it regularly reviews the protocols for the protection of the young through the Professional Standards Office.

“Our Catholic schools and their governing boards/school management committees already adhere to MOE protocols and Singapore laws on reporting incidents involving sexual abuse of minors,” it said.

“The Religious Orders and all religious sponsoring authorities for Catholic schools have also been reminded of their obligation to report immediately to the police once they become aware of incidents involving alleged offences against minors or vulnerable persons. They are also to keep the Archbishop of the Catholic Church informed.

“The Church will not tolerate behaviour by clergy or religious that will put others at risk,” it added.

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