Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. recently gave a scholarly and balanced assessment of the Catholic Church’s “unfinished work of responding to the sexual abuse crisis” at a conference marking the 10 year anniversary of the Boston Globe abuse stories.  Reese, no stranger to the issue or doctrinal controversies during his 7 year tenure as editor of America magazine, avoided his personal confrontations with church hierarchy in order to provide the conference with an historical overview of the crisis as well as an analysis of the root problem which prevent a healthy and final resolution to the problem. 

Reese clearly views the issue as an institutional crisis and holds accountable the Catholic bishops and Vatican hierarchy for the present quagmire.  Here are important excerpts from his talk:

“First, I think the church—and by church I mean both the clergy and the people of God—needs to re-envision its attitude toward the survivors of sexual abuse. In Latin America, liberation theologians developed the concept of the preferential option for the poor. The American Catholic Church needs to embrace a preferential option for the survivors of sexual abuse.

In too many instances the investigative process appears suspect because it is under the control of the bishop. Episcopal credibility here is nil. The process will only have credibility to the extent that it is seen as truly independent of the bishop. Only an independent process will have the credibility to say that, ‘Yes, this priest can return to ministry.’

We still do not have a system for bringing bishops to account. It is a disgrace that only one bishop (Cardinal Law) resigned because of his failure to deal with the sexual abuse crisis. The church would be in a much better place today if 30 or more bishops had stood up, acknowledged their mistakes, taken full responsibility, apologized and resigned. A shepherd is supposed to lay down his life for his sheep; these men were unwilling to lay down their croziers for the good of the church.

The bishops also have to step up and supervise their own. I know, “only the pope can judge a bishop under canon law,” but there are lots of things the bishops can do anyway. First, they must speak out and publicly criticize those bishops that are not observing the charter or are failing in their responsibilities. Bishops, including the president of the bishops conference, need to say, “Shame on you bishop, get your house in order.” This is not a canonical judgment; this is fraternal correction.

Speaking truth to power is not welcomed in the Catholic Church. Diocesan priests are totally dependent on the good will of their bishop for assignments and promotions. If a 60 year old bishop is appointed to your diocese, he is going to be your boss for the next 15 years. In practice, there is no appealing his decisions toward you nor can you escape by moving to another diocese. You are stuck.

In this corporate culture, few are going to tell the bishop “no.” The one pastor in Philadelphia, who refused to accept an abusive priest, got reprimanded and punished for challenging the archbishop. This is what happens when you speak truth to power in the Catholic Church.

The problem in the Catholic Church today is that the hierarchy has so focused on obedience and control that it has lost its ability to be a self-correcting institution. Creative theologians are attacked, sisters are investigated, Catholic publications are censored and loyalty is the most important virtue. These actions are defended by the hierarchy because of fears of “scandalizing the faithful,” when in fact it is the hierarchy who have scandalized the faithful.”

Strong words indeed, but words that need to be spoken, heard and heeded in the upper echelons of ecclesiastical power. 

The Washington Post published an excellent piece on the Catholic Church’s "passivity" toward child sexual abuse.  As long as they refuse to prosecute or discipline the bishops and bureaucrats who enabled and covered up the abuse, they are not serious about spiritual and moral repentance, cleansing and renewal.

Sadly,not only did McGuire abuse many, many boys, but as it turns out he abused a friend of man, a man who is now a fined and dedicated child abuse lawyer.

Mary Gail Frawley-Odea is a psychologist with expertise in child abuse cases. Drawing from her professional experience–including having been asked to speak to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 on child abuse–as well as her own Catholic spiritual history, here she offers an incredibly thoughtful reflection on the nature of the Catholic Church’s spiritual malady.  Readers may disagree with some or all of it, but rarely have I seen such an attempt to make deep spiritual sense of the failures of the institutional Church in responding to the sexual abuse problem.

We all know about the horrific stories of sexual abuse involving the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, and other non-profit groups and churches.  This article  reminds us that the dangers of abuse are also at summer camps and youth outings.   Patrick Boyle the author and a friend of mine writes about the “acquaintance molester”-someone because of his title or position of authority is assumed by parents and kids alike to be safe.  If this isn’t enough to cause parental anxiety, Patrick makes a salient point in noting that just because a volunteer or camp employee has passed a background check doesn’t necessarily mean he/she is not a danger to children. 

So, what should a parent do?  Here are some tips that may lessen the chance that your child becomes a victim of sexual abuse:  1)visit the camp yourself and talk to the counselors and staff, 2)make sure you speak with your child about inappropriate behavior including inappropriate touching or speech.  Any enticement to use alcohol or drugs must be a clear warning sign that there’s a huge problem.  Communicate this to your children. 3)have your child attend the camp with their friends whom you know (a buddy system may lessen the chances an abuser singles out your child).  4)make sure your child knows that they can talk to you about anything at any time. 

Childhood sexual abuse is a sad reality today.  It was a sad reality fifty years ago too.  But fifty years ago no one talked about it and the abuse was allowed to fester and grow like a cancer.  Honest, open communication and parental vigilance are keys to prevention

The Southern California Regional Director of the advocacy group Survivors of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) once wrote in a blog post that California is a “clergy sex abuse powder keg ready to explode.” Again, I might add.

Since a $660 million sex abuse lawsuit settlement was reached in 2007 with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California priest abuse news has faded somewhat into the background. Cases in Delaware and Portland, Oregon along with numerous diocesan bankruptcies have overshadowed the California priest abuse landscape. However, this may be about to change. The California Supreme Court is poised to decide in early April if the 2001 statute of limitations extension was intended to be “retroactive” or not, ie, whether it even applies to cases from decades past. If so, then expect a whole new round of abuse cases to be brought; if not, expect an interesting and significant legislative battle over a new statute designed to provide more time for victims to come forward. So, this is a hugely significant decision, and parties on all sides are watching closely to see what the Court does.

As the Catholic priest sex abuse crisis rolls into its second decade, it is not surprising that California would play a large role. Let’s examine some key factors. 1)California is the only state in the Union other than Texas with two large metropolitan provinces-Los Angeles and San Francisco. 2)California was and largely still is an immigrant state whose Catholic identity is still pronounced. 3)Many of the key bishops embroiled in the sex abuse scandal have roots in California. 4)California’s Catholic bishops depended upon Irish priests in the early 20^th Century to serve their growing congregation. Now, the Golden State’s bishops similarly rely on priests from foreign lands to serve the burgeoning immigrant populations from Asia, Russia, and Latin America. In the early part of the 20^th century, the immigration issue was part of the landscape of abuse in California.

Now, let’s look at some of these key factors in more detail. California boasts two sprawling Archdiocese whose most recent former Archbishops were intimately involved in the present abuse crisis. Both Cardinals Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and William Levada of San Francisco presided over cases in which priests who’d been accused of the sexual abuse of minors were transferred, hidden, and covered. Questions remain about how much each man knew, and when he knew it. Most observers think that Mahony may have more to worry about than Levada. But both men had histories that were far more extensive than just their large Archdioceses. Mahony’s sex abuse problems began when he was serving as a Bishop in Stockton, California in the early 1980’s, prior to becoming the Archbishop of Los Angeles. Levada was formerly the Archbishop of Portland Oregon, where a long line of serial pedophiles wreaked havoc on children, both before and during Levada’s tenure. Most significantly for the immediate future, Levada is now Cardinal and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, the number two spot in the entire Catholic hierarchy, and the position that now Pope Benedict XVI had when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Much depends on the ruling of the California Supreme Court, and any follow up legislative effort to aid victims. But don’t be surprised if California soon moves to the front stage, again, of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

This story comes just weeks after the BSA was being quoted widely to the effect that they have the best youth protection policies in the country.  But, as survivors know all too well, it does no good to have all these great policies if folks in the field aren’t trained or don’t know about them.

Attorney Kelly Clark filed a new Boy Scout sex abuse lawsuit in Iowa against a Boy Scout leader who abused the survivor in the late 1970′s.

Unlike other cases alleging abuse by volunteers, attorney Kelly Clark of Portland said the case was unusual because Bawden was "a big deal" who received two of the highest honors in scouting and served on the Boy Scouts’ national council.

Attorney Kelly Clark filed a new sexual abuse lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America.  The abuse occurred in the 1980′s and the Boy Scout troop leader has spent time in prison for other abuse crimes. 

Clark has partnered up with Cheshire lawyer Frank Bartlett to file the suit against the Boy Scouts of America.
 

Once again, we see that mental health science is confirming what child sexual abuse survivors, and those who work with them, have been saying for over a decade now.  The skeptics should take note.  There is really no way to describe the inner turmoil, chaos and permanent damage done to a child’s inner world by the betrayal and emotional invasion of child sexual abuse.

When the Canadian story first came out and the Scouts Canada stated that they had reported all cases to the police, I was skeptical.   Especially was I skeptical since in the Portland trial of Kerry Lewis v BSA in Portland in 2010, the testimony was that the Scouts, rarely, if ever, reported abuse to the police, notwithstanding that they had received nearly 1200 reports of abuse within Scouting from 1965-85.  Given that the average pedophile has between 5-20 victims, that means that somewhere between 6,000-24,000 boys were abused in Scouting just in those two decades–and that just represents the reported cases, and experts tell us that no more than 5% of all child abuse is reported.  So the numbers were staggering– and yet, almost never did BSA report any of this to the police.  So it seemed odd, to say the least, that Scouts Canada claimed that it had reported all abuse to law enforcement.

Happily, last year–I believe in large part due to our win in 2010–the BSA has begun to require all adult volunteers to report any suspected abuse to police, even if not in a state where such reports would be mandatory under child abuse reporting laws.  Once again, we see the power of civil litigation to force changes in institutions of trust that deal with children.

For men and boys, a silver lining amid sex abuse scandals

(CNN) — Advocates and therapists for survivors of male sex abuse say the recent scandals at Penn State and elsewhere may help men who were abused as children, and boys being abused today, step out of the shadows and get the support they deserve.

They also hope society can become better educated about the issue.

"The allegations have kick-started a public dialogue about sexual violence and the community’s responsibility," says Jennifer Marsh, who directs hotlines at RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. "It’s a conversation we have to have and can’t shy away from."

If increased Web traffic and calls to hotlines are any indication, the tide for men and boys may, in fact, be turning.

National organizations like RAINN, MaleSurvivor and 1in6 — a reference to research estimates that one in six men have been sexually abused as children — all report increased attention since the story about former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky first broke in early November, setting off what seemed like a domino effect of allegations at Syracuse, The Citadel, the Amateur Athletic Union and elsewhere.

RAINN saw a 54% increase in traffic to its online hotline in the week after the Penn State story made headlines. Though RAINN does not ask the gender of hotline visitors, Marsh says the organization has anecdotally seen "a significant increase of male visitors."

The experience of two organizations that specifically exist for the benefit of men and boys may be even more telling.

Words matter in Penn State perjury case

MaleSurvivor, which provides resources, information, discussion boards and recovery retreats, received nearly 135,000 online visits in November, a dramatic jump from its monthly average of 100,000.

Likewise, website traffic at 1in6 has boomed from an average 475 visits a week to as many as 1,200, according to a founding board member.

Calls to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) also have gone up, both locally and nationally, by 20% to 30% since the recent wave of stories broke, says David Clohessy, the organization’s executive director.

Both hope and desperation could be driving the increase, he says.

KTH: Mike McQueary testifies

Ex-Citadel counselor facing sex charges

AAU investigates sex abuse claims

Did Syracuse cover up sex abuse?

Survivors of clergy sex abuse who didn’t come forward before — or did but didn’t feel heard — may see the overwhelming attention and outrage and believe this is their time to talk. And they may be motivated by the realization that society has not progressed as much as they had hoped.

"There’s an assumption that surely, after all these [Catholic Church] lawsuits and payouts and scandals, surely no institution ignores child sex abuse these days," Clohessy says. "So when they see the stories out of Syracuse, Penn State and The Citadel, they might think, ‘My gosh, I better come forward.’ "

Another motivation to speak up now, Clohessy says, is thanks to the wonders of the Internet.

The stories in the news have prompted men, who may have put aside thoughts of their former abusers for years, to search online for their abusers’ names. Clohessy says these men are finding out that maybe the teacher who officials vowed would never teach again is now offering private music lessons in his home, or the coach who was ousted has a wife running an in-home day care center. Betrayed by false promises and outraged, some of these men are compelled to act.

They’re not alone

Coming forward for any survivor of sexual abuse is complicated, and it’s only more so for men and boys, experts say.

Men may have a harder time seeing themselves as "survivors" or "victims." Even identifying what they experienced as "abuse" can be a stretch for some, says Jim Hopper, a clinical psychologist who’s worked in the field for 20 years. And strolling into, or calling a hotline affiliated with, a "rape" or "sexual assault" crisis center? That may be years off, if that day ever comes.

It’s for this reason that 1in6, which Hopper helped found, avoids using labels. With pages like "Sorting It Out for Yourself," 1in6′s website offers a safe entree for men to explore whether something that might have happened to them as children is affecting them today — whether it’s fear of intimacy, drug dependency, pornography or sex addiction, Hopper explains.

The 1in6 stated mission is "to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthier, happier lives."

Jim Struve, a psychotherapist in Salt Lake City, has worked with male sex abuse survivors for 35 years. He helped organize the first conference exclusively for male survivors, which brought 450 people from 14 countries to Atlanta in 1989. He served on a committee that would establish the National Organization Against Sexual Victimization of Males, which later merged with and became known as MaleSurvivor. He’s facilitated 35 weekend recovery retreats for the organization since 2003.

Like Hopper, he says language matters.

"How males are asked about abuse influences their answers," he says. "If you ask most males, ‘Were you sexually abused?,’ they will answer, ‘No.’ But if you ask them behavioral/descriptive questions like, ‘What age was your first sexual experience?’ ‘How old was your partner?’ or ‘Was this sexual experience consensual?’ … men will often describe situations that are abusive, while not defining them as abuse."

One in eight rape victims is male. One in six men were sexually abused as children. These are facts that experts like Struve say need to be heard, repeated and accepted.

Male survivors "have been in the shadows," says Struve, who runs therapy groups for male survivors both at his private practice and through Salt Lake City’s Rape Recovery Center. His groups are filled to capacity with waiting lists.

"Most men think ‘I’m the only one.’ But that’s dramatically shifted," he says, as more men face their past and realize they’re not alone.

The surge of recent stories also has given hope to those not working exclusively with men.

"We feel very optimistic about the fact that we’re at a time in our history when so many male survivors will come forward," says Megan O’Bryan, president and CEO of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. "Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been in that place."

Why now?

It was nearly 10 years ago that the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in Boston blew wide open, spawning an abundance of similar allegations across the globe.

While that story certainly grabbed headlines, the publicity may not have spoken to men in the same way the allegations at big university sports programs have.

These recent stories reach a wider audience, including the sorts of men who flip first to the sports page, tune into ESPN or worship at the altar of football or basketball.

And that may help account for the increase in accusations and calls to organizations, SNAP’s Clohessy says.

"In my experience, many people, including many survivors, seek out the entertainment news and sports news and deliberately turn away from the horror that is often in the ‘news news’ section," he says. "Anytime child sex crimes make it into entertainment programs or sports programs, it does, in fact, bring more survivors of abuse forward and forces them to think about what they’ve experienced."

Another way in which men appear to be coming forward is through the legal system.

Take, for instance, the influx of calls to the attorney referral line offered by the National Center for Victims of Crime, a Washington-based resource and advocacy organization that helps crime victims rebuild their lives.

Requests for referrals in the area of child sex abuse have tripled since the Penn State story broke, says Mai Fernandez, the organization’s executive director. And while some callers have acknowledged that the statute of limitations in their states will probably prevent them from suing, she says men are adamant that they must do something.

They’ll say things like, "If I can’t sue the guy, I want to expose him in some way so he can’t hurt others," she says.

Kelly Clark, a Portland, Oregon, attorney specializing in child sex abuse cases, says he’s seen several significant developments specifically triggered by the news.

He says he’s gotten about 40 calls from people who want to explore their legal options. Of those, he says about a dozen live in states where they’re still within their statute of limitations. He’s also received a flood of calls from former and existing clients in need of emotional support. News reports showing people initially more concerned about the Penn State sports program and its legendary coaches than about the victims left them reeling, Clark says. And then they saw Sandusky’s denials.

"When child abuse survivors see denials of credible allegations, it tends to send them into orbit because the thing they’ve fought their whole lives to overcome is the fear that people won’t believe them."

Looking ahead

The spotlight has, indeed, stirred a wider conversation. Male survivors may be looking inside themselves and reaching out, just as advocates look and plan ahead.

Like so many other organizations, Childhelp, which helps abused and neglected children, has felt the fallout. Calls to its hotline have gone up, but so has the group’s determination to do something in response to what’s in the news, says Daphne Young, the group’s public relations director.

While initial conversations had already started with the Foundation for Global Sports Development – a nonprofit previously known as Justice for Athletes — Childhelp has ramped up the partnership to launch a campaign called "Blow the Whistle on Child Abuse," a crisis intervention and prevention plan for young athletes, their parents, coaches and educators.

The goal is to roll out the campaign in April, Young says. She also says the organization is taking on legislative initiatives, including one that would make it against the law to witness child abuse in action and not intervene and report it.

Other groups are also putting forth proactive measures. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website now has on its homepage links specifically tied to the Penn State scandal, including a collection of resources and articles on child sex abuse, including literature about prevention and risk reduction, answers to common questions and a piece about bystander training.

That men are calling hotlines and visiting websites in greater numbers also signifies an increased need for services tailored to them, such as additional male support groups, says Karen Baker, the center’s director.

"They’re examining things that happened in their own lives. … There’s a lot of soul searching," she says. "Men are calling in. They’re reading about it in the news, and it’s triggering them."

She and others say the swift and serious response from authorities, and from those who’ve come out in support of survivors, is emboldening men and suggesting that times are changing.

"When this kind of story broke with the Catholic Church, it was perceived as still being swept under the rug. This time, there’s outrage and heads are rolling," she says. "In that regard, maybe this is going to be a blessing for some people. Maybe it’ll be the tipping point."

Perhaps it was an inevitable result of years of litigation with the Catholic Church concerning the priest sex abuse scandal.  Yet, the news that David Clohessy, the national director of SNAP, will be forced to give a deposition in a case involving a priest accused of sexual abuse has caught some by surprise.  Others are outraged that abuse survivors’ correspondence with him about their abuse will be revealed during the deposition. 

The decision to depose Clohessy duces tecum (he has to produce documents in his possession concerning communications he’s had about abuse cases) is a high stakes gamble for Catholic Church lawyers who appear desperate to stop the flow of civil litigation that continues to erode the integrity and reputation of the Church.  While the move may indeed intimidate some survivors from pursuing civil justice, it may turn the tide of public opinion even further (if that’s possible) against the Church.  It reminds me of another bullying tactic employed by these same Church lawyers a few years ago when they tried to force “John and Jane Doe” survivors into publicly revealing their identities as if they were on trial rather than the perpetrators of sex crimes. 

It’s my sincere hope the truth will win the day against such bullying tactics by defense lawyers.  In the end, it’s a legal tactic that reveals desperation rather than any real desire to defend innocence.

Today’s news about the media reports concerning the Catholic Church in the Netherlands should not “shock or dismay,” despite what the Church PR people say..  As a sex abuse lawyer, I’ve seen similar scenarios play out in Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, not to mention the numerous occasions I’ve witnessed it with the Boy Scouts of America, the Mormon Church or the Seventh Day Adventist Church. 

An investigation has determined thousands (I’m talking tens of thousands) of children were sexually abused by priests, nuns, brothers, and sisters in the Dutch Catholic Church for the past sixty years.  Officials in the Dutch hierarchy knew about the abuse and turned a blind eye.  Now, they are “shocked, dismayed, and saddened” by the news.  That’s quite frankly a bunch of bull.

 The “sorry but” approach to dealing with this scandal by Church officials is way too little and woefully too late.  Certainly,  it’s what some PR spin firm told them to say, but supposedly these church officials are folks who are men and women of faith.  If they are, then they should remember the ancient prayer, wherein humble people of faith pray for “and for a good account before the fearful judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord."  Have they no holy fear?  Have they forgotten that, though they may escape our civil statutes of limitations, yet there is another, deeper and more eternal reckoning awaiting us all? 

Perhaps, I’m angry at this rote, mechanical response that shows no hint of belief or faith.  As a Christian struggling with my own defects of character and sinfulness, I am quite aware of Christ’s admonition that we take care the log in our own eyes before we point to the speck in our brother’s eye.  But I also recall that the Master also said:  “It were better for a man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble,” referring, of course, to little children, always and especially beloved of God.”

We have for a decade now heard various expressions of regret from Church officials.  I have written about this before, in a series on apologies and forgiveness.  But what we have not seen or heard is anything like biblical repentance—metanoia: an about face, a turning around and a complete change.  When we witness that, the Church will begin to recover from this terrible scourge it has inflicted upon herself, and upon thousands and thousands of children.

As so often happens in sexual abuse cases, more survivors come forward as they summon the courage to come forward and publicly face their accuser who sexually abused them.  This scenario is now beginning to play out in the Jerry Sandusky matter as he has been arrested again on two new charges stemming from the sexual abuse of two more minors.  These two boys were also involved in his former charity work Second Mile.  According to news reports, the boys were given gifts as part of the sexual abuse grooming process prior to Sandusky abusing them in the Sandusky residence.

The local ABC news affiliate reported, “The man, now 19 and identified as Victim 9, met Sandusky at a Second Mile swimming event when the boy was 11 or 12, according to new information in the grand jury presentment. Sandusky asked for his phone number, which he then used to ask the boy’s mother if he could spend more time with the boy, and then proceeded to pick the boy up from school and take him to Sandusky’s home for sleepovers.

At the Sandusky home, the boy said he was forced to stay in the basement at all times, and was even brought his meals there by Sandusky and told not to leave. He testified that he had little contact with Dottie Sandusky, Jerry’s wife, and that she never came to the basement. Sandusky allegedly sexually assaulted the boy in the basement bedroom numerous times, including forcible rape. On one occasion, the boy screamed for help, hoping Dottie Sandusky would hear him from upstairs, but she did not come downstairs, he said.

We will stay tuned to see how this all plays out, but those last few sentences tear at the heart, and should reignite our commitment to fighting child abuse and those who allow it.

Judge Teresa Sarmina has determined that 88-year old former Archbishop of Philadelphia, Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua is fit to provide testimony in the criminal sex abuse trial involving one of his former top lieutenants, Monsignor William Lynn.  Bevilacqua will not be required to give the testimony in a courtroom, a concession sought by his lawyers and granted by the judge due to his advanced age and fragile health.  The deposition is expected to begin today and should last for a few days.

The decision to compel the Cardinal’s testimony was a hard-fought victory for prosecutors who’d argued that Bevilacqua’s testimony is crucial in their criminal case against Monsignor William Lynn who is the first Philadelphia priest ever to be criminally charged with failure to protect children.  Lynn had been in charge of all sexual abuse reports as well as the investigation of such allegations.  In prior grand jury deliberations, Monsignor Lynn was the target of much grand jury criticism for his handling of sexual abuse cases against Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests during Cardinal Bevilacqua’s tenure as archbishop of Philadelphia. 

Monsignor William Lynn is charged with child endangerment for allegedly transferring priests accused of sexual abuse of minors. Three priests and a former teacher are charged with raping boys.

Pope Benedict XVI has named 52-year old Monsignor Charles Brown as the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland.  The somewhat surprising announcement comes in the wake of devastating Irish government investigations such as the Ferns Report that documented the corruption, cover-up, and institutional negligence that provided a fertile ground for sexually abusive Catholic priests to prey on minors, especially those attending boarding schools run by the Catholic Church but funded by the Irish government.

The scandal that ensued led to the closure of the Vatican Embassy in Ireland as well as a Rome-mandated apostolic visitation led by US Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. 

Brown’s appointment has been characterized as “convention-shattering” by a leading Vatican watcher because the post is usually held by a senior Italian prelate as a reward for years of faithful diplomatic service on behalf of the Vatican.  However, in this instance, the Nuncio will be English-speaking (something that hasn’t happened in the last half century) and has no previous diplomatic experience.  Rather, Monsignor Brown is a close confidante of the Pope and is widely regarded as affable, orthodox, and intelligent.  He’ll need all of these skills if he is to right the Irish ecclesial ship.  The appointment comes a few days before more sexual abuse reports are due from Ireland.

The Irish Catholic sex abuse scandal has been significant and relevant to those of us in the United States for a few reasons:  1)the scope and severity of the abuse is unprecedented and involved at least the tacit compliance of the civil government, and 2)many Irish priests and bishops emigrated to the United States earlier last century and brought with them the same dysfunction of abuse from Ireland.  One need only think of such notorious cases as Oliver O’Grady, Brendan Smyth, and Bishop Anthony O’Connell to recognize the extent to which the Irish sex abuse scandal affected and spread to the United States.

While the appointment of Monsignor Brown (automatically made an archbishop due to his appointment as Apostolic Nuncio) to the important post of traditionally Catholic Ireland has been hailed as a fresh start by some insiders, actions always speak louder than words.  I’ll take a “wait and see” attitude before making a judgment as to the relative merits of this latest appointment.

One of the more remarkable, and as of yet largely unanalyzed, developments arising out of the Penn State/Sandusky child abuse scandal is how quickly similar allegations elsewhere surfaced:  at the Citadel, at Syracuse University, at a  national gymnastics program,  and even in Congress, where a Michigan Congressman was accused of past abuse.

This is not unlike what we have seen before in different contexts: 

–in 2002, when the Boston Globe broke the story of widespread abuse and cover up in the Boston Archdiocese, very quickly after that we saw abuse survivors stepping forward around the country:  Chicago, Milwaukie, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, and other places.  Soon, so many victims—literally thousands of them—had come forward that, within two years, the bankruptcies started: Portland, Tucson, San Diego, and elsewhere, as Church officials struggled to comprehend and respond to the massive scope of the problem.  Representing survivors of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests all around the country, and then representing more than 40 claimants in the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy, I saw this first hand.

–last year, in Spring of 2010, when for nearly two months Paul Mones and I tried the Kerry Lewis case against the Boy Scouts of America in Portland—resulting in a nearly $20 million verdict against BSA for its decades-long practice of ignoring child abuse in its programs—my office received over 650 phone calls—yes, that’s right, 650 phone calls in about 10 weeks—from men abused as boys in Scouting, all over the country, from the 1960’s to the 2000’s.  And now, as we are handling cases against the Scouts in over a dozen states, I see the same thing happening elsewhere.

–any child abuse lawyer who does very much of this work will attest that as the scandal at Penn State broke over the last three weeks, more victims have come forward to tell their stories: abuse in the Mormon Church, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, schools, athletic leagues and elsewhere. Indeed, so prominent has been this dynamic that Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR’s fine religion reporter, did a story on it (in which I, along with Mitch Garabedian, a fine Boston lawyer, was interviewed), pointing out that the Penn State story was prompting abuse survivors in other contexts to come forward.

All of this is what I call “the Avalanche Dynamic,” and it is something I have thought a lot about.  I’m sure the mental health professionals in the child abuse field can explain the psychological dynamic, but what I have seen is that, for most child abuse survivors to come forward and break their silence, to tell someone—their spouses or parents, their counselors, a lawyer—what happened to them as children, there has to be some sort of a triggering event.  It can be, and often is, a news story about abuse, it can be an unexpected (and often unwelcome) confrontation with some reminder of the abuse, it can be watching a child, often their own, at the same age as was the victim at the time of the abuse.  But most child abuse survivors need some trigger, some precipitating event, to embolden them to come forward.

Now, cynics, of course, often assume something else is going on: that the survivors are “jumping on the bandwagon” or “reaching for the money” or other ignorant ideas.  To see these in action, just scroll down to the “comments” section anytime you read a new story about “more victims” coming forward to name their abuser, or anytime a new civil lawsuit is filed for monetary restitution and justice.

But what is actually happening is that survivors are realizing, in a flash, in an explosive moment, several things at once, things they might have vaguely known but never allowed themselves to consider:  “maybe I wasn’t the only one”; “I guess it wasn’t really my fault”; “maybe they’ll believe me now”—and similar sentiments.  Remember that when a child is abused, there is a kind of “splitting” that goes on in his or her mind, and the trauma and shame of the abuse often gets “parked” or “shoved away” into the recesses of the conscious mind, and some part of the child “decides” that the safest way to handle the fear, trauma, guilt and shame, is simply not to think about it.  And they don’t.  For decades, often.  And then, some triggering event happens, like the child abuse scandals in the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, or, now, Penn State.

Which brings me to the other fascinating thing I have noticed in “the Avalanche Dynamic: the closer to home is the triggering event, the more likely it is that the victim will break silence.  So I have had survivors come see me when their own abuser was publicly named, but not before, even if there has been much publicity about abuse in general. The Kerry Lewis case was one of those, where eight men eventually came forward to name their Mormon Church ward and the Boy Scouts for their abuse, after the first two brothers broke the silence of how they were abused by a Boy Scout leader in their Mormon Church troop.  One man came to see me in the midst of the Catholic scandals, when he took a job in a building across the street from the parish where he had been abused, and every day he had to listen to the churchbells ringing. He had been reading about priests abusing kids in Boston, and Chicago, and elsewhere, and he was not triggered.  But setting up professional shop across the street from the scene of his abuse, and he was jolted into breaking out of his silence. I have had Mormons come see me only when a story broke about abuse in the Mormon Church—despite any amount of publicity about abuse in the Catholic Church, or in the Boy Scouts.  I have had Boy Scouts call me, not when some event about abuse in Boy Scouts broke open, but when they read a story about their own abuser.  For whatever psychological reason, the fact is, that the closer is the trigger to their own story, the more likely survivors are to come forward and break their silence.  And so the Penn State story brought forward first, other Sandusky victims, then the victims at the Citadel, Syracuse, and the gymnastics context: all either related to sports, to academia, or both.  The trigger was close to home.

So, next time you read about an “avalanche” of survivors coming forward in response to a breaking new story of abuse in some new context—for instance, a major American University’s football program—don’t be surprised.  That’s how it happens.

We have seen this before:  a trusted institution, caught in and embarrassed by a child abuse scandal in which it is plain that top officials knew about and covered up child abuse in its midst.  Then, said trusted institution tries to regain its credibility by promising to clean it all up and to do right by the victims. 

Then, it hires a credible outside source to do an investigation and make recommendations.  And so now that Penn State has hired former FBI director Louis Freeh to investigate how Jerry Sandusky was apparently able to abuse kids right under Penn State’s nose for a decade, we have one more thing in common between  Penn State and the American Catholic Church.  Many will remember at the height of the Catholic scandals the Church hired the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to do studies on the extent of the problem within the Church, and the extent to which the various diocese and Archdiocese around the country were in compliance with the new “protocols” for child abuse cases created in Dallas amidst the media frenzy of the exploding scandals in 2002.  Fewer will remember that that project has foundered over and over again either because the Catholic hierarchy has not fully cooperated with John Jay—many dioceses failing to provide data—and because the questions that John Jay was asked were artificially narrow, something I have written about before.

So now Penn State has hired a certified tough guy with impressive law enforcement credentials—FBI Agent, Federal Judge, FBI Director—to come in and do an investigation.  But the devil will be in the details, again.  Buried deep in the stories about Freeh’s selection has been comments to the effect that “the scope and budget for the investigation has not yet been determined.”  Aha, I see.  We don’t know what Freeh will be allowed to investigate, or whether PSU will give him enough of a budget to do a credible job.  Well, until we know those things, no one should assume that Penn State is really serious about getting to the bottom of all this. 

After all, we’ve seen half-hearted measures like this before.  Just ask the folks at John Jay.

"When the family did not pursue the matter, we did not either. We should have. Regardless of whether the law said we were supposed to report or not, we should have reported this. We should have taken more action."

Sound familiar?  It should.  It’s basically the same excuse given by Catholic Bishop Robert Finn, the Boy Scouts of America officials, and Joe Paterno and others at Penn State.  Unfortunately, this is how institutional leaders explain their failures to report child sexual abuse. 

This latest report concerns a now closed summer camp at The Citadel.  It’s clear after more than a week of reporting on the Penn State scandal and now CNN’s report on The Citadel failure, our society’s institutions are experiencing a systemic failure when it comes to reporting child sexual abuse.  No one can claim that the tragedy is isolated to one institution or demographic.  It’s clear to this writer that the legal community has to step in and change reporting laws across the country.  The problem has become epidemic and the victims are our own children.

NPR Interview with Kelly Clark on Penn State Scandal