Culture of silence, culture of scared

Big news in the Catholic world the last few days: the LA diocese agreed to pay $660 million in abuse lawsuit settlements. Today, the Vatican released a statement that the

"problem of the abuse of childhood and its adequate protection certainly does not regard only the (Catholic) Church, but also many other institutions".

I personally thought that this was a little tasteless, since it smacks of blame-sharing at a time when the Church should be sucking it up to take responsibility. But it's also sadly true. The majority of Catholic and Protestant congregations don't have policies in place designed to protect children from abusers. This makes the church a haven for paedophiles and molestors.

Part of the problem with church sexual abuse scandals is that the church itself unintentionally creates an atmosphere that is hostile to abuse victims, and therefore friendly to abusers. Churches everywhere preach the 'wickedness' of sex in many forms, whether through pronouncements about abstinence, vilification of church members who are percieved as promiscuous, emphasis on modesty and covering up the (implicitly shameful) body, or crusades against gay people and types of sex outside the missionary position. By contrast, not many sermons are preached about the evils of child molestation. It's such an obvious sin that pastors and priests (rightly) don't feel compelled to mention it. Because of this, though, what children hear on a continuous basis is a message of 'sex is bad, and people who have sex are bad people'.

In a culture that stifles mentions of sex as shameful and ungodly, is it any surprise that victims are reluctant to tell a Christian parent or church leader that they're being abused? A child who's being told weekly that being gay is evil is far less likely to report his male priest's advances than one who knows that he himself won't be looked down upon for the revelation. A church that reliably preaches that non-virgins are sinful may have a lot of trouble convincing young girls to tell a pastor that they are no longer a virgin because their teacher has been abusing them. Despite the Church's good intentions, the messages it's giving about sex and sexual abuse are decidedly mixed, particularly to children whose reasoning capacities aren't developed enough to tell the difference between 'he's sinful for making me do this', and 'I'm sinful for having participated, however unwillingly'.

It's for this reason that every denomination, and every individual congregation, needs to formulate and enforce policies designed to protect children. In an ideal world, the Church would drop its unreasonable sex-phobia (nowhere in the Bible does it directly say anything about many of the stances that the Church has adopted over the years on sex). The optimist in me hopes that one day even churches will come to a more progressive understanding of human sexuality. But in the meantime, steps must be taken to protect children:

• Adults should never be alone in a room with a single child.
  
• Parents should provide teachers and caretakers with a means of identifying them as the parents of their particular child when the child is dropped off into church care, and children should not be released from care to anyone but parents, after the parents provide appropriate identification.
  
• All teachers should submit to criminal background checks, and known molestors should not be allowed to teach or supervise children (many states have programs that allow businesses to check whether a person is a sexual criminal for free). This may seem like an obvious step, but most churches have no idea whether the people who teach and watch over their children are criminals or not.
  

All of these are common-sense tactics to reduce the likelihood of abuse. In a culture where sex is a taboo subject, churches should be obligated to take proactive steps to protect potential victims. Too bad most of them, like the Catholic Church in the LA case, will only issue tepid apologies when it's already decades too late.