Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Jean Vanier: Desecration of women


The well from which we drink is poisoned
Dr Margaret Kennedy

Jean Vanier the founder of l’Arche, has now been revealed as a sex offender. This has been shocking and hugely painful for many women and men who for years revered him and learned from him. To know that your idol has clay feet is hard to compute.
To call someone a sex ‘offender’ is not to automatically place the person in a criminal context. The criminal law has not yet caught up with the whole notion that vulnerable women can be coerced into exploitative and abusive sexual activity from which they have no mechanism to extricate themselves. However these men are ‘offenders’.
In America there is a distinct statute of criminal law for any professional who sexually molests whilst in role as a professional. In some states clergy are included as professionals. The UK or Ireland has no such statute.  
Vanier, taking the role of spiritual director, mentor, counsellor, would and should be regarded as having a religious professional role.
We now know and understand the whole notion of ‘grooming’ that takes place when children are coerced, encouraged, manipulated into sexual activity with predatory sex offenders. These sex offenders skilfully silence the child. We understand that children cannot consent to sexual activity and when it does happen it is a criminal offence and not their fault.
However it is not the same for adult women. The first thing many people think is why did that woman apparently ‘agree’ or ‘acquiesce’ in the sexual contact. After all, she was not a child, but a grown adult. Was she not capable of consent or not consenting? Vanier was not a cleric, but to all intents and purposes he acted like one. What he did needs exploring in order to safeguard women.
I am now an older woman of 67 years, years where a lot of water has gone under the bridge since I was molested by an Anglican priest when I was aged 25. The horror and terror of those frequent assaults has never disappeared. I too, for years, wondered why I would ‘allow’ this priest enter my flat to do what he had aimed to do and planned to do. For his behaviour was predatory and I later found out I was not the only victim. There were at least three others; four of us.
He was the chaplain of the college I attended and he molested several women attending Christian Union. It took me years to deal with the shame and guilt of his serious sexual assaults and I did that by trying to learn about myself and about why clergy target adult women.
My learning began when I set up a group called ‘Christian Survivors of Sexual Abuse’ – CSSA, in the late 1980’s. A support group for Christian women who had been sexually abused as children.  When women started to come forward as victims of abuse as adults, I had to think deeper about what happened to me as well.
I then knew it was not my fault. I had believed I was the only person this happened to. How wrong I was.
None of us believed we caused our own abuse, but we did suffer shame and guilt and this was very difficult to deal with. We had no one to talk to except between ourselves. We had no literature to read, no groups to go to, no advice to obtain, no law to have recourse to. We were deemed adults able to consent. We were often blamed, thought able to repel – if we wanted to – predatory clergy. Even blamed for ‘seducing’ the clergy person. We made no headway asking our Christian denominations to challenge this sexual exploitation, to censure the behaviour, to deal with it. Much of this is still the same today.
If we did report it to church authorities it was conceptualised as a relationship, albeit a wrongful relationship. (Just to add to our shame and guilt). Some denominations even conceptualised this as an ‘affair’ or ‘adultery’.
It was deemed ‘conduct unbecoming the priesthood’ (Anglican Church) or breaking celibacy vows (Catholic Church) if it was deemed anything and mostly our cries were ignored.
Notice why it was ‘wrong’, and where the focus was…it was ‘unbecoming of the priesthood’ and ‘celibacy breaches’.
It was never viewed as sexual assaults on women. The focus was male behaviour in context of their priesthood. It was priesthood that was harmed, not the victim, the woman.  We were invisible.
In my PhD research I learned the definition of sexual exploitation;

Sexual exploitation occurs when a person in authority, in role, as Clergy, Minister or Pastor sexualises contact with female parishioners or those who seek his help for his own sexual gratification.

It constitutes exploitation whether or not women consented, if at the time they are a ‘client’ or parishioner.

The Pastor mis-uses power and role whenever they sexualise contact with someone to whom they have a duty of care.

Consent is compromised within a setting where the woman seeks the advice, counsel, teaching or spiritual direction of her Pastor.’

If women seeking guidance or spiritual direction from Jean Vanier had known all this they could have safeguarded themselves. If the Church believed it; the women would have been safeguarded.
Also as part of my PhD research I analysed language use in many articles concerning clergy sexual exploitation. There were constant deflecting euphemisms employed to ‘soften’ the reality. I called this ‘false naming’.
False naming is a major component of institutional violence, for it helps to accomplish denial. False naming means we can avoid responsibility and it protects the abuser. False naming creates false consciousness. It avoids assigning responsibility, thus cloaking the identities of the offender. This false naming sends a message to an offender that he has still not been found out and that the Church is not concerned. False naming allows women to continue to be abused by clergy.
I categorised ‘false naming’ under headings. Under ‘normalisations’ I found this language; Affair; (Extramarital/Clandestine), Sexual liaisons, falling in love, adultery/marital infidelity, infidelities, unfaithfulness, sexual relationships, relationship, sexual attraction, sexually intimate, sexual seduction.
Under misconduct I found: Sexual misconduct, sexual malfeasance, violation of forbidden zone, abusing intimate relationship, misconduct ‘mess’, Profession al sexual misconduct, sexual infraction, sexual misdeed.
Under pathology I found; Sexual addiction, acting out, intimacy deficit, boundary diffusion, sexual boundary violation, PSM (professional sexual misconduct) Non-paraphilic sexual interest.
Under minimization I found; inappropriate behaviour, become involved – involved sexually, inappropriately involved, involvement – emotional entanglement, inappropriate touching, sexual encounter sexual contact,
Under Euphemisms I found; the phenomenon, straying into dangerous waters, fallen, situation, the problem, male malady, get into trouble, delicate situation, trouble, clergy crises, this intimacy, dalliance.
Under misbehaviour I found; sexual escapades, naughty, transgressions, indiscretions, succumbs to sexual attraction, sexual favours.
Under morality I found; sexual impropriety, morally indefensible behaviour, moral failure, immorality, moral lapse, wrongful sex.
Under weakness I found: sexual temptation, personal failure, failure, intimacy failure, human frailty, and mistake.
Under theological I found; Sin, evil.
The only categorisations I accepted were under; criminal acts; Crime, Sexual offence, rape, sexual exploitation. However we are still light years away from criminalising professional sexual exploitation in pastoral settings.
It certainly seemed no author of the many articles I examined could name correctly what was happening. The offender was either out of control, immature, misled, encouraged, in a relationship, or committing adultery or in many other categories. He was portrayed as not particularly responsible nor causing much harm.
I knew this was all wrong. I knew I was neither in a ‘relationship’ or that it was an ‘affair’, (the man was married) or any other category other than it was a sexual crime against me. It took years to get to this point. 
I was a troubled young woman, already needing psychological help and had previously been hospitalised. Those early years of my adult life were torrid and marked by childhood trauma and abuse. This predator priest chose well! He had targeted me.
We had been manipulated, and mentally and emotionally trapped into something we did not consent to, we did not want and we certainly did not like. Finally, we did not know how to ‘get out’. But we were adults and no one wanted to know.
I wanted to know, I wanted to know how this happened, why it happened and what was the harm done and how recovery could be envisaged.
Realising that over the years of my CSSA work 200 women had contacted me to share clergy abuse as adults, I knew I had a pool of subjects for a doctoral piece of research on ‘clergy sexual exploitation of adult women’. 127 woman were interested to be part of the research, but 65 women were final subjects of the study.
My starting point was to only focus on situations where women had met clergy in the professional or pastoral setting. Women had not met the clergyperson on the golf course.  The beginning was not in the context of an equal friendship but in professional – parish work or pastoral care.
The clergy/pastor/religious leaders denominations [1] were; Anglican 25, Roman Catholic 25, Baptist 4, House Church 2, Methodist 2, Assemblies of God 1, Pentecostal 1, Quaker 1, URC 1, Other 1,Unknown 2. Interestingly the majority were married men. Celibacy was not the issue.
Most of the women had desperately traumatic or abusive childhood or adult circumstances. Which rendered them vulnerable. They had, already, before meeting the clergyperson experienced multiple forms of abuse; Emotional n27-71%, Sexual abuse n25 -66%. Physical abuse n16-42%, and neglect n8-21%. This makes clergy sexual exploitation the more egregious.

They were not abused, necessarily, because they were vulnerable, that notion posits the cause in the victim. Vulnerability is a risk factor, but cause is male power and choice. They were abused because they were women, and clergymen had male privilege, power, control and wherewithal to do it and get away with it.

Clergy abused because they could; because their Brothers in Christ did also, and because the Bishops or leaders chose to protect the Church from scandal and preserve the clergys ministry.

Women were targeted and groomed.  From early subtleties, to later assaults. Nine women were raped, one made pregnant (she had an abortion) and still no justice resulted.
The most painful part of the research was hearing from the women how clergy ‘hooked’ them.  For some there was no ‘preamble’. Listen to what some of them said;
He talked about his chastity and purity and how the cross he carried was so heavy that he needed me to mother him. (Q25/RC)

He came in and he seemed more excited than usual, and he scared me, because he was unpredictable, we were in the front room, and he immediately made a grab for me, and undressed me, and it was like when I said I felt like a doll, that I just stood there and he treated me like a doll.  And he was he was excited and out of control (nine second pause). (4/Ang)

I needed to know sex was beautiful and he wanted to show me, this was before he raped me. (Q82/Baptist)

He declared undying love.  I was the woman he should have married. He was also aware that he was leaning very heavily on me as his own marriage was very destructive and he had reached the end of his tether with it. (Q78/Ang)

Yes, to begin with he was worshipping, adoring, loving, and affirming.  He said he loved me.  Later, he resented the fact I expected to see him.  (Q74/RC)

He told me what he was doing and what had happened as a child was because I had a spirit of lust, and other unclean spirits that caused it all to happen.  He was, having to fight these spirits in order to help free me, but some days he failed!  So I was very confused and full of fear. (Q20/Baptist)

I had a spirit of enticement and that I needed deliverance, and that I should seek God about that. (26/House Church)

These clergymen focused on the most vulnerable trait of women, their strategies were deliberate, often planned. If women had been in a domestic violence situation, the clergyperson would show care, support and gentleness never before experienced. Often rescuing them from the violence, even finding accommodation. If the women were child abuse survivors and found all things sexual a horror or traumatic , clergy often argued they, being priests, could neither be wrong or bad, or that the sex they offered was ‘Holy’ therefore healing. Some clergy even said; ‘God asked me to do this’; it’s for your benefit not mine’. Others, so traumatised by childhood experiences felt the priest truly ‘loved’ them unaware they were being exploited only for sex. Only years later did they realise they were duped.
Some clergy sex offenders wanted and demanded ‘payment’ in kind – sex. One woman in Ireland was pregnant at a time when single women often had to have their babies adopted. The priest said he’d make her his housekeeper and she could bring the baby. In return he demanded sex and brought her to a gynecologist for the pill at a time when contraception was illegal. He had done this before, regularly securing ‘housekeepers’ from an adoption agency in Dublin.
Other clergy used women’s ignorance of sex , inexperience as excuse to ‘teach’ how sex worked, such as for the nun going to confession who was asked about masturbation and slowing drawn into alleged ‘loving sexual activity’, admonished to not reject it – at least with him – for her benefit.
This is part of what she told me:
We were talking he sort of looked around, dropped his trousers and gave me an illustrated lesson on the male genitalia I have the visual image Im not sure whether it was at that time or whether it was at other times when he asked me to hold his penis. It was always a suggestion well, this is not for me, it is for your benefit and growth [He would say] I think, I am sure you would like to hold my penis now. There were things being said like youre going to experience a lot of sexual arousal but thatll be good for you in the long run, and of course I am so completely in control that I dont feel anything ...I am beginning to feel angry now. [He said] You will feel so aroused that you will want to be raped.  He used to say that, he was always in control; a kind of a sense of Im doing all of this for your benefit. (73/RC)

MK: And what did he say? (about masturbation)

73/RC: I’m…stopping here.  I mean I can find myself stopping. [He said] “The right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you.”

MK:   If it was a sin for you to masturbate – then why is it OK for you to hold his penis?

73/RC: The logic of that never occurred to me.  I never actually saw the incongruity of it placed side-by-side before, even.  I do see it now.

Women were made dependent on the clergyperson, were told they needed him, would not cope without him, would fall apart if he wasn’t around or he’d fall apart. This frightened them, so they stayed.
In the research I identified distinct behaviours or rationalisations by the clergy abusers to groom, entrap, and abuse women. These were; blaming women; use of coercion, threats and fear; claiming male clerical privilege; the good deeds: rescue and gratitude causing dependency; emotional manipulations; isolation and forced secrecy; theological justifications; romantic deceptions and therapeutic deceptions. These men had a full armory to trap women.
Women dealt with their abuse in different ways. Some went into dissociative states whilst sex was happening

It felt like I was in a glass bottle looking at people but not really with them.  I panicked when I thought about it.  So I learned not to.  (Q22/RC)

[I] went into a world of my own which meant in my head it wasnt happening. (Q82/Baptist)

In the sense that it was never mentioned and I immediately went into a profound withdrawal (as when a child) until I could block it out isolate it. (Q33/RC)

Others tolerated sex because they desperately needed the money, home, clothes for children the clergy was offering, others did not know what to do and were very fearful.
How did they ‘get out’? Many compared their situation with other abusive scenarios thus recognising abuse and reflecting on their own situation; many realised they were NOT either in a relationship, or special by experiencing violence, threats, secrecy and finding they were not the only woman the clergy person was having sex with. (Most clergy perpetrators of abuse of women have multiple victims it is rarely a once off sexually abusive act.) They reflected on clergy behaviour towards them, often through counselling.
Most were severely harmed
I will never be normal. (4/Ang)

[I am] Severely damaged. (6/House Church) (73/RC)

It was a pivotal point of my degeneration as I call it, or disintegration. (9/RC)

I have been utterly shattered. (83/RC)

It’s blighted my life spiritually, mentally and physically. (6/House Church)

The past overwhelms me. (70/RC)

The toll on woman of clergy sexual exploitation is not just through betrayal, physical harm, emotional harm or rejection. It eats at the core of trust, spirituality, and the notion of a just Church, and a loving God.  Most had left their Church.

Most victims still face shame, for they have not yet been heard or believed in our Churches. Women are still blamed. We are Eve, enticing clergymen, it’s our ‘fault’ – still.
Living with the cross of shame or guilt for a lifetime is certainly not what we should, as Christians, allow, accept or want.
Many victims, leave Church because the way they were treated when they reported was ‘not of God’ and that destroyed all faith. Many leave Church whilst their very abuser is allowed remain in ministry with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
In my case, I later fought back. My abuser went to America. When strong enough I found him, reported him and the Anglican Church paid for me to go to America to confront him with a therapist present.  I took back my power, I told him how I felt. The therapist (Male), a specialist in professional abuse of woman told me; ‘Margaret, he was a predator’.
I knew he was not safe; he was eventually removed from ministry. The Anglican Church paid compensation and arranged that I could write a Service of ‘Remembrance & Proclamation’ for my healing to which many women and men, abused by clergy as adults attended. For it was not only for me, it was for us all. The Church supplied St Giles in London and an Archdeacon to facilitate OUR service.
The Archdeacon read out a letter;
In the Church, where we witness God’s love for humankind and celebrate the teaching of Jesus to love our neighbours as ourselves, abusive relationships are wholly wrong.   
We are gathered together here at St Giles for those who have suffered sexual exploitation, abuse and rape from the very people they should have been able to rely on for spiritual guidance and support.  Whilst we can be under no illusions that today will ease the suffering of those present, I hope we can at least serve to recognise the ordeal that Dr Margaret Kennedy and others have endured. 
 
I first met Margaret in February this year, and I was shocked to learn about the sexual assaults she had suffered. Whilst the events may have happened twenty-eight years ago, Margaret’s traumatic retelling of her experiences demonstrated the extent to which they are still remembered in her life even today. What happened to Margaret is indefensible and contrary to what the Church and Christian faith stand for. 
 
Much of Margaret’s adult life has been spent in seeking acknowledgment and justice for what happened to her. Fighting for that recognition will, I am sure, have added an additional layer of pain and suffering. I hope that now the Church has been able to provide some support and assistance, although clearly that can never remove the feelings nor replace the energy she has spent in addressing these issues.
In recent years the Church has taken steps to root out  the evil of sexual abuse of children by clergy and to ensure swift and decisive action is taken to deal with those members of the Clergy who have abused children. However, we still have some way to go in tackling the sexual exploitation of adults by clergy by implementing the good practice recommended in the House of Bishops’ Promoting a safe church: Policy for safeguarding adults in the Church of England. This will ensure that pastoral care is characterised by a clear policy, based on Christian ethical standards, and establishing appropriate boundaries and professionalism and  procedures for dealing, without delay, with allegations of mistreatment, spiritual, physical, emotional financial and sexual, abuse, harassment and bullying.

Margaret deserves great credit for the work she has done to support those who have suffered similarly traumatic experiences to herself. The organisation she founded in 1993 - MACSAS- has worked tirelessly to provide information and guidance, a helpline, conferences, website, educational material to victims of clergy sexual abuse, whether they have been abused as children or as adults, and for both those who have remained within their Christian communities and for those who have left.

I pray that Margaret’s own faith will grow and that this service will go some way to acknowledge the truth of her experience and the courage of her journey for justice.  
26 November 2011.
This letter was a wonderful affirmation and I welcomed it. It was indeed unique. (No similar service has ever been held since) I brought all the pain before God, before my fellow sisters in suffering….We supported each other. We knew it was NOT our fault. We did nothing wrong.
It was a ‘closure’ but it was not erasure. I live with what he did; but it was not my fault. I fully know that now.
Its time our Christian Churches say this and remove Clergy and religious leaders, similar to Jean Vanier,  who sexually assault, exploit, abuse, rape and harm women from ministry. The time is now.
To other victims/survivors I hope you’ll find strength to come forward. It was NOT your fault, you did nothing wrong, do not let guilt and shame consume you.
MACSAS – Minister & Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors’ is ready to help.
I’ll end with two very powerful quotes:

History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived
But if faced with courage
Need not be lived again
Maya Angelou

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding
I want the understanding that bringeth peace
Helen Keller

Dr Margaret Kennedy’s PhD thesis can be obtained through the British Library, UK: ‘The Well from which we drink is poisoned; Clergy Sexual Exploitation of Adult Women’ - 2009

UK ONLY: MACSAS contact details: 
General enquiries: enquiries@macsas.org.uk
Helpline enquiries: helpline@macsas.org.uk
Media enquiries: media@macsas.org.uk
Email support: support@macsas.org.uk
Free Helpline: 0808 801 0340

From anywhere in the world I'm at the end of an email: 

Dr Margaret Kennedy: magsken57@gmail.com


[1] All hereafter termed ‘clergy’ for ease of discussion

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