'Bout Time I Started Blogging Again

I just received an e-mail from someone who found my dissertation on the blog and asked me some questions concerning a radio broadcast that he had heard. (KPCC: http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2010/01/25/child-sexual-abuse-trauma-or-myth/) One of the things that he wondered was why Dr. Gail Wyatt was so upset, as well as what did I think about Dr. Susan Clancy's position as she discussed her book The Trauma Myth.

I haven't read Dr. Clancy's book but will probably send for it via inter-library loan during the spring after I finish teaching just to say I've read it. So the blog will be based on impressions from the radio show based on my own expertise.

My first comment would be God Save Us from Dilettantes!! I suspect that that is what Dr. Wyatt was also feeling.

What Dr. Clancy is saying is well known by any of us who are in the field. There are some people for whom the sexual abuse in childhood was a minimal event but, and its a big but, everything depends on what happened, and on the child's experiences up to that moment. The flasher can cause some children to giggle, for others it can cause trauma. Since most sexual abuse is caused by someone close to the child, the event is always accompanied by some trauma - confusion is trauma - children need to assign meaning to events and any "age-inappropriate sexual activity" requires meaning that a child does not have the experience to be able to find. The more traumatic the sexual activity is, the more likely the child is to block it at some level.

I have real suspicions that Dr. Clancy did not do her homework. She doesn't know Dr. Wyatt's work on child sexual abuse? (See the bibliography of my dissertation for Dr. Wyatt's early work) But that is being nice. I am more suspicious that she needed to be in the limelight again - alien abductees can only take you so far. Note the title of her book The Trauma Myth - makes for good copy in the media. Guaranteed to get her on those wonderful talk shows!

Dr. Clancy was talking about how the problem is that these people who are not "traumatized" still feel guilty. These means that she is deliberately avoiding what guilt does to a person - it can eat away at them - if that does not constitute part of trauma, what does? The callers on the show that wanted to support Dr. Clancy were, to my mind, doing just the opposite. Neither I nor Dr. Wyatt would ever suggest that to either caller, but it the first one is suspicious of babysitters and exerts extra caution when looking for someone to watch her children - if that is not trauma, what is? She has started thinking about it after she had children. Note how she said she never forgot it, she can remember every detail of every time the babysitter sexually molested her - that is trauma. It has changed the way she looks at other people, she cannot relegate it to the recesses of her mind (these are flashbacks and are seared in the brain). The second one is still angry and she is afraid for her little girls - that is trauma and the problem there is because she has not dealt with her anger and is overprotective of her daughters there is a good chance that if it does happen to her daughters then she won't recognize it (which is what Dr. Wyatt is trying very politely to suggest). It also begs the question: "If it wasn't a problem for her, why is she worried about it happening to her daughters?"

None of us want anyone to feel guilty about what happened to them as a child. However that is the norm. We know that children blame themselves when things go wrong (see my dissertation, probably best place is chapter 6 - section on guilt). Witness children whose parents divorce when they are young. They blame themselves for mommy and daddy splitting up and no amount of reassurance seems to change their minds. These traumas - big and small - are processed consistently as we age. As our experience and understanding grows, we re-evaluate our past experiences and put them in a different light. We seldom are able to go back and truly remember how we felt as a child, we tend to remember it through the veil of time.

Most people who are sexually abused as children survive fairly well. I suppose that I am a prime example. I have discussed this in earlier blogs. We manage, we get educated, we get married, we have children, we have jobs. That does not mean that we were not traumatized. In my case, it took a sexual assault when I was 27 to break open the dam that I had built around my memories. Even then I did not go into extensive therapy until I was in my early 30s. I was extremely resilient.

There is a lot of denial about the impact of sexual abuse in childhood. We don't want to believe that we were that impotent, that we were that stupid (witness the one caller who said it had taken her a long time to even talk about it - one of Dr. Clancy's supporters). I have heard so many survivors talk about how it didn't really have an impact on them - despite the lives that they are leading. It is not my place to push them; I no longer do any counselling. I just suggest that if it ever does start to bother them, then maybe they should find a counselor to just talk to for a bit. More often than not, they do. I have students who end up confiding in me when their lives are falling apart.If appropriate, I give them the odd tale from my life - it always helps to know that no matter how bad things seem, one can still succeed. It is not the end of the world, even if it seems like it sometimes.

To get back to Dr. Clancy. She talks about the New Hampshire university research centre and Dr. Finkelhor. However, she doesn't talk about the work of Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk and the research team that he works with at the same place.

I would suggest that everyone go to David Baldwin's Trauma Information Pages. Everything you ever wanted to know about trauma. From the sounds of it, Dr. Clancy should have gone there and read up on a topic of which she seems to have little grasp . When I read the book (not at the top of the pile), perhaps I am wrong about this, but somehow I doubt it.

And for the record, to relegate personal trauma to statistics is the biggest problem that we have. It is all part of just being a number. This is a subject that is almost impossible for people who have not been sexually abused as children, or who haven't spent a lot of time around people who were abused to grasp. Scratch any woman's surface and you will find a story, I suspect. I'll bet that there isn't a woman alive who hasn't at some point in her life been subjected to the unwanted sexual attentions from another person. As adults, these are seldom traumatic - unless there is an underlying childhood incident. They are just a pain in the butt. For children, they will cause some level of trauma; if dealt with immediately, there doesn't have to be a lasting negative impact and appropriate meaning will be attached to the incident.

To a better world - it's a long time coming. And people like Dr. Clancy and the media that support her don't help matters.

My Mother Died August 17th

It was a difficult death. My summer is a nightmare blur. Alzheimer's Disease takes away every scratch of dignity that one had during life. This was my second time going through it - my father-in-law had AD and lived with us for the last 5 months of his life. This was my mother and it was much, much worse. To see her trying so hard to maintain her sense of herself, to try and make herself understood was almost too much to bear. We got through it, but it was not easy for any of us. I may or may not write more about it at a later date, but for now, it is enough to know that my mother is much better off. It was a blessing when she finally died. We can now track the AD back to about 8 or 9 years ago at least. It was slowly disintegrating her mind. She had been such a vital, active person all her life and it was only in the last two years that it severely impaired her. But she was almost 92 and still didn't look like she was a day over 75. She had had one of those lives that was marked with one tragedy after another, yet she picked herself up and kept on going - sometimes with great difficulty - when my father died, it was a blow from which she almost didn't recover. She loved her grandchildren and got joy from her great grandchildren. She loved her daughters but was more afraid for us than we could have ever understood. As I have said before, we knew little about her past - we know a lot more now. Near the end, I spent over an hour with her in my arms; she was sobbing and wanted her mother. It was not easy.

If I could have taken this term off of work, I would have. I am feeling terribly non-social these days, but slowly as work starts to invigorate me, I am getting back on my feet.

I will try to get back to blogging - it should help refocus my energies. There is a lot of other writing to do that is not blog stuff. This is a start.

No matter how hard we try, we can't resurrect the dead

Christianity in all its forms is not going away anytime soon. I stay on the fringes of the religious system because it is/was my cultural heritage. My life experience meant that God died. It took me over 40 years to have the funeral – so I spent all those years grieving. If I can change even one small thing in someone’s life that helps them live with more peace, then that is good. People don’t interpret my Psalm of Anger the way I do – but their interpretations are valid because they are based on their own experiences – they bring to it their own past, and they take away from it, their own solutions. Sometimes those solutions surprise me, and I wonder how they got there. I spent too many years trying to get “god” back (or bring god back to life) to ever not understand that many people need to believe and do believe. My spirituality revolves around the on-going process of understanding the interrelationships in my life. These are what are critical to my existence.

I also hope that some of my writings will help those die-hard Christians understand that it is just not that easy. For many of us, God in his Christian guise died - maybe belief in any form of divinity died. Thomas Doyle understands and feels that it is one of the worst legacies of the child abuse scandal. (See his book on the 2000 year legacy of sexual child abuse in the RC church) We cannot go back. Our life experiences will not let us ever go back. We have to fashion meaning in this life differently. We do not even have the luxury that those brought up without belief have - we are haunted by the belief systems that we grew up in.

I no longer feel haunted by my religious past, but it took me decades to get here. I am looking forward to reading Ian Gurvitz' Deconstructing God: A Heretic's Case for Religion. Human beings seem to require belief systems to give life meaning. Look for a review once I have read the book.

CBC News - Health - Alzheimer's predicted by spinal-fluid test

CBC News - Health - Alzheimer's predicted by spinal-fluid test

I have not blogged in quite a while. My mother is now in the last few days of her life. She is dying from Alzheimer's Disease as is my aunt, her sister. The last few months have been difficult for the family. It is a horrible horrible way to die.

I will be writing more after she has died. For those of you who pray, wish her godspeed on her last journey in this life. When all is said and done, I will miss her.

Follow-up:

on My Favorite Sid Vicious Quote

I found it; I found it!!!!!!!!!!!

In the attic of a friend's house a few days ago.

Now, do I bring it into my new office - academic freedom & all - I'm sure my students will (for the most part) love it & ask who the hell Sid Vicious is :)

CBC News - World - U.K. archbishop upsets Irish Catholic leaders

CBC News - World - U.K. archbishop upsets Irish Catholic leaders

Jeff Anderson: One Man's Crusade Against The Catholic Church

Bravo, Jack Anderson.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Ratzinger, Kung, Schillebeeckx, and Jesus

There was this wonderful joke that went around religious scholar types in the mid to late 1980s. First, the info so that those who don't belong to this esoteric field can get the joke. This is my version of the story.

The Players:

Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was always considered to be entrenched in the (radically) conservative theological position of the Roman Catholic Church.

Hans Kung was a Swiss Roman Catholic theologian who was considered to have deviated somewhat from the "party line". For example, he wrote a book on the Priesthood that suggested that since a celibate priesthood was historical in development, it could be changed and priest should be allowed to marry. The hyperlink is the Google hyperlist of his books. He wanted change, but did not think that it needed to be as radical a other theologians. Mind you, I saw him Carleton University years ago (c. 1983), and then met him at the after-reception. I couldn't understand why he just didn't convert to Lutheranism. His talk was sooooo Martin Luther. I'll bet he never studied Luther, except from the POV of Roman Catholic "history".

Edward Schillebeeckx was a Dutch/Belgium Roman Catholic theologian. He was considered a radical liberation theologian (this link may have problems, but in general will give an overview of the issues & the issues between Ratzinger & Liberation Theology).

Saint Peter and Jesus: Do I have to explain?

The Story:

Ratzinger, Kung and Schillebeeckx all died on the same day. No surprise, they all ended up in the waiting room at the Pearly Gates of Heaven and were met there by Saint Peter. Saint Peter told all of them that they would have to have a discussion with Jesus to decide whether or not they had been good enough Christians to go straight into heaven, or whether they needed to spend a little time in Purgatory to ponder on their errors.

The first one to sit down with Jesus was Hans Kung. They had an amiable discussion that lasted about 2 hours. Then Kung walked back to the waiting room. Ratzinger and Schillebeeckx wanted to know how it went. Hans answered that he guessed that he hadn't been a good enough Christian because he was going to spend the next 6 months in Purgatory.

Schillebeeckx said that he would go next, and Kung said that he would hang around just to see what happened to him. After all, Schillebeeckx was the really radical one. Well, the three of them sat around for what seemed like forever waiting for Edward to come out. After about ten hours, he came out shaking his head saying "I guess I really wasn't a good enough Christian. I'm going to Purgatory for three years."

Now it was Ratzinger's turn. He went in to see Jesus while the others waited to see what would happen. They all thought that it would probably be a shoo-in. The first day passed; then a second. The three in the waiting room sat around discussing this in amazement. St. Peter said that this had never happened before. None of them could imagine what was going on.

About noon on the third day, a stunned Jesus walks out. They all look at him with various expressions on their faces. "What happened? What happened?" they clamoured. "Why are you here?"

"Well," said Jesus. "I guess I wasn't a good enough Christian. I have to spend the next five years in Purgatory contemplating my sins!"

Birds of a feather flock together

Pope Sexual Abuse Scandal: Benedict Implicated in Cover-up of Wisconsin Sexual Abuse Case



Just to reiterate. Why should anyone be surprised? All of these cases had to have gone through Cardinal Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict XVI under John Paul II. He was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (re-branded Inquisition), and, was PJP2s gatekeeper and adviser. Watch the trailer for http://www.deliverusfromevilthemovie.com/index_flash.php. One of the reasons that I was never surprised at PJP2s conservatism.

The Roman Catholic Church is hierarchical bureaucratic institution. As with all bureaucracies, it has a vested interest in its own survival. We know exactly how the "sexual abuse scandal" has come about. The cover-ups begin at the lowest bureaucratic levels. However, as with all bureaucracies, extensive records are kept. (Oh to get hold of those records!!) I have know of only one archbishop who said "the buck stops here": Archbishop Penny in Newfoundland, who took on the responsibilities for the cover-ups in Newfoundland and then resigned. Now to be fair, this means that Rome could deny that it knew anything about this. So Penny "manned up" and took the flak for the Church, and they let him.

Ratzinger came up through the ranks. There is absolutely no way that he did not participate in "cover-ups" in his parishes, etc. The s**t has finally hit the fan in Europe - it will be no different there than anywhere else in Catholicism. What happened in North America, happened in Europe and everywhere else. We just need to wait as the cases fall out of the trees. Ratzinger/Benedict truly believes in those "old-fashioned" values of Roman Catholicism and its theology. Check out Gregory the VII, Pope Innocent the 3rd & the Fourth Lateran Council, the Council of Trent, Vatican 1 and even Vatican 2, the J-P2's Humanae Vitae.

People seem to be so shocked at what's going on. However, basic history of Christianity would show that "so it was, so it is". The question should be "so it ever shall be?" History tells us that if there is some sort of Council held over this issue & reform is in the air, the solutions will never go to the heart of the problem. The Church has already begun to retrench into its past theologies that allowed this to happen in the first place. The Church has been covering up child sexual abuse since its inception - why change now? Again read Doyle, Sipe & Wall. Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse.

If people would just take off their blinders, things might get better.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Catholic Church Child Abuse Claims Sweep Across Europe

All I can say is that it's about time. The Vatican has tried to make this a North American problem and a problem related to the "moral laxity" of the west for the last 30+ years (when they lowered themselves to address the issue). Never forget that Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly, known as the Inquisition - a wonderful re-branding if there ever was one) when this scandal broke out. Cardinal Law (he of the Boston scandal) is still living in the Vatican, if I am not mistaken. The Roman Catholic Church has (NOT) been dealing with this issue since the inception of the church (see Doyle, Sipe & Wall: Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2000-year Paper Tail of Sexual Abuse). I published a paper back in 1993 in the Canadian Church History Journal that discussed the situation in one part of Canada. It was already clear that this had to be a worldwide problem. Getting rid of compulsory celibacy and homosexuals in the church is not going to solve the problem, as much as the RC Church and its laity would like to believe it will. These are red herrings. Easy to see and easy to blame.



My heart goes out to all those who have been abused. Their journeys are hard. May they be heard.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Oh, those well meaning pastoral counsellors & educators

And God bless them, they do mean well but most of the time, they really don't have a clue.

The earlier post brought to mind another incident from the 2002 AAR regional conference. I was delivering a paper called, "God Isn't Really like That! - Or is he? The Child, the Bible and the Patriarchal God". The woman who was chairing the session was so excited to meet me. She had read my articles and wanted to know if maybe, sometime, I would like to lecture in one of her classes. She also told me that Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza had mentioned me in her latest book, Wisdom Ways (which I ran out and bought, of course). I delivered the paper and there were lots of questions that continued after the session. The next day, while we were all in line for cafeteria-style lunch, she came up to me and said something like, I think I know why are so interested in all of this. You were in a sexual relationship with your minister when you were about 17. Where she got that age is beyond me. I stood in line and looked at her for a minute, thinking about how I was going to answer this. I did not, at that time, bring my personal history into these academic discussions, for what should be obvious reasons (at some point, I will do a blog on the horror show that evolved when I did about 3 years later). I looked at her and said, "No, I was sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest when I was 8 years old." I don't recall the rest of the minimal conversation, but it had something to do with how I didn't really think that the issues were well handled within the pastoral counselling department at St. Paul's, after she said that they had a course in the Canon Law (!!!) department that dealt with that. Needless to say, I never heard from her again.

What was sort of funny (not ha ha funny, but ironic funny) was that about 3 years later, as a peer reviewer for the Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion, I was sent a paper (on impact of child sexual abuse on some adult women) that came from the MA in Pastoral Counselling program at St. Paul's. St. Paul's is a Roman Catholic seminary and university with one of the best libraries in North America. After a first quick run through of a paper, the first place I go to for the review process is the bibliography to see whether the appropriate literature had been accessed for the review of literature. This review of literature should serve as the basis for understanding material, setting up the hypothesis and discussing the results. It was missing at least 6 critical books (and my dissertation). All 7 of these items were easily available at either St. Paul's or the University of Ottawa or Carleton University (the 3 universities are rather close together, so distance isn't an excuse & St. Paul's and the University of Ottawa are affiliated). I actually checked the on-line libraries at U of O & Carleton. All of these items would have answered the questions that the authors of the paper had in their discussion section of the paper. They would also have changed the structure of some of the questions that were asked of the participants. It was my recommendation to send the paper back to the drawing board, in large part because of this. I wasn't surprised, but it is so depressing to actually see how little things had changed. I should note that I would have been one of a minimum of three reviewers, so mine wasn't the sole decision maker on this submission.

We are finally getting a number of dissertation on the subject of god images, spirituality, psychology, child sexual abuse and religion (read Christianity - there is such a privileging of Christianity in most writings - they use "religion" when they mean Christianity). I will be reviewing them on the blog. From a cursory glance at a couple of them, it will not be a happy task. I love electronic databases - they make tracking these things so much easier that it was even 5 years ago, but it does mean that I don't have any reason not to keep up with the latest in my field! Maybe this will spur me to publish a book, who knows?