Fighting abuse by protecting church's victims

Dallas Morning News ^ | 2/16/2005 | Diane Williams and Stephen Galebach

[sinkspur]

In a recent Viewpoints column, Rod Dreher asked why Catholic laypersons aren't doing more to fight the sex-abuse crisis inside the church. Here's what our Catholic family has done. We recently launched a Web site – www.VictimPower.org – that makes it possible for victims of abuse or harassment to remain anonymous while communicating back and forth with authorities.

VictimPower enables crime victims to create a totally Safe Place – a private account on the Web site that only the victim can access, like a post office box. From the Safe Place, the victim can report what happened and ask VictimPower to forward the report to a prosecutor or police department.

VictimPower will show to those making the report the name and contact information of the law enforcement authorities for the jurisdiction where the offense occurred. Victims can always report to the authorities by telephone, mail or personal visit. But if they feel a need to remain anonymous, they can use VictimPower to file reports.

With VictimPower, anonymity is a fact, not a promise. VictimPower never asks for a victim's e-mail address or any other identifying information. Our Web servers and our Web hosting company do not retain Internet routing information from a computer. The bottom line: If identifying information and routing information do not exist, the information cannot be hacked and cannot be subpoenaed. You remain anonymous to VictimPower and to the world.

We started VictimPower when we became troubled by the epidemic of abuse in our church and became informed about the need of survivors to tell their stories.

[Dog Gone]

The fact that this was instituted by the Catholic laity speaks well of them. The Church is not interested in a real purge, in my opinion, because of the potentially enormous financial liability, although I think it recognizes the problems it must face with new clergy.

I know it's impossible to ignore liability issues, but I think it's critical to the Church to restore credibility for its long term survival. I'm not Catholic, so I'm not going to offer suggestions without being asked. The Catholic church in America is not in any immediate danger, but unless something changes within the next generation, it might be.

[Orca]

Your website seems to be a good response within a fractured system that severely limits what the lay person can do.

A larger problem is the Catholic hierarchal system of church government. In most Protestant denominations, if a pastor misbehaves, the local congregation can dismiss him fairly quickly—-he is accountable to them.

As I understand the Catholic system, all such decisions are made by higher church authorities. If a "special interest group" becomes entrenched at higher levels of authority, they tend to quietly but obstinately defend their own. Then, to the detriment of the whole church, it is almost impossible to remedy the situation by either discipline or dismissal.

Within your system, your lay website is to be commended, but I don't see it as a promising solution. Somehow your church government has to change and become more responsive to its people who, in turn, seem to be closer to God and His values than many in the hierarchy.

[AAABEST]

I'm not Catholic...

stating this and showing up on the religion forum Catholic threads, which shows you have a healthy curiosity. If you can separate the churchmen from the deposit of faith you would be very surprised at what you will discover.

The Catholic church in America is not in any immediate danger, but unless something changes within the next generation, it might be.

It is in fact in very grave danger. In most Western societies the faith is being mercilessly trampled underfoot to a degree not seen in all of history. America is reaching a point where these societies had been not very long ago.

The devolution of the Church means the devolution of the surrounding society. That's not abstract philosophy either, it's just what happens. Natural law if you will.

[Dog Gone]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the number of Catholics isn't on the decrease in this country, even after this scandal, (for lack of better word), is it?

I recognize that church memberships in every denomination are routinely inflated, but has attendance really dropped off?

I wouldn't doubt that contributions to the church had dropped off, simply because people might feel that they're contributing to the pedophile defense fund or the awards being won in court.

And I understand the shortage of priests in the American church. In today's world, every priest is now looked at as a possible sexual deviant. Not very attractive for young folks considering the profession.

The Catholic Church will survive this simply because it's reached the level of "too big to fail" in economic and corporate terms.

I realize I'm not addressing any theological issues here, and your post was alluding to those more than I'm responding to so far. But I will say this. Even as someone with a strong Protestant background who now thinks that every organized Christian denomination has serious and inherent flaws, I would be greatly disturbed to see the Catholic Church in America become something insignificant.