Monday, August 19, 2019

Review: Letter to a Suffering Church

Letter to a Suffering Church
A BISHOP SPEAKS ON THE SEXUAL ABUSE CRISIS
by Bishop Robert Barron

     This short book  seeks to strengthen the idea that the church needs the faithful to carry the message of Christ.  Bishop Barron emphasizes that despite failings of the church the message of Christ and the dispensing of the sacraments are critical to the lives of the faithful.  The bishop calls on his readers to help cleanse the church and survive another crisis as it has always survived in the past.   
    In the first chapter the topic of sex abuse of children by priests is examined by repeating the stories of accusers that have been publicized and settled.  In the second chapter the scriptural stories involving sexual topics and debauchery are examined and how the Lord dealt with these topics in both the old and New Testaments.  In chapter three the bishop discusses the past crisis the church faced and the unflattering sordid history of the church hierarchy that has existed in the past.  Chapter four makes the case for remaining faithful as those who have gone before us, the sacraments and the church's mission is to both preserve and shine the truth of Christ. In chapter five he discusses the "way forward" describing new and more effective transparent protocols that he thinks will help the church shed the evil that has befallen it. 
     I found his most compelling and informative chapter to be  "We have been here before" (Chapter 3).  Bishop Barron's summary of the chapter states with clarity:  "The Church, from the very beginning and at every point in its development, has been marked to varying degrees by sin, scandal, stupidity, misbehavior, misfortune and wickedness."  
     The chapter details examples of each of the behavioral characterizations in Church history and how the Church has survived them. Knowing Church history allows one to "more clearly understand that there is nevertheless something good, even indestructibly good, about the Mystical Body of Christ." (pg 44)    The church survived Papal corruption in the 10th and 11th centuries and it will survive this crisis also.
     My favorite quote in this book is:  "In the end we are not Catholics because our leaders are flawless, but because we find the claims of Catholicism both compelling and beautiful.  We are Catholics because the Church speaks of a Trinitarian God whose very nature whose very nature is love; of Jesus the Lord, crucified and risen from the dead; of the Holy Spirit, who inspires the followers of Christ up and down the ages; of the sacraments, which convey the Christ-life to us; and of the saints, who are our friends in the spiritual order.  This is the  treasure; this is why we stay"  (page 78)

    While I applaud the main idea in the book that the church will survive I am given great pause by a number of characterizations.  Is the story repeated in the text characterizing priests as sexual predators even true?   Is the church that characterizes a system that secretly pays off accusers as merciful and benevolent actually enriching and rewarding false accusers while punishing the innocent?  Is the church that depicts itself as standing with the innocent victims of abuse against the mobs true or is it possible that the church could be joining in the hysteria and a corrupted judicial system?  Finally I wonder how long will it take the church to discard the false psychoanalytical science that has misled it for so long?  The book offers little comfort to me about a commitment to the truthful transparency that will help this recent crisis fall away as other crisis in the past have.


“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." 
                                                                                                                          Joseph Goebbels
     I have been personally impacted by false accusations so the first characterization that priests accused are for the most part guilty rings hollow.  I have personally seen professionals in the church, professionals in law enforcement and the uninformed whipped into a frenzy by false accusations of a mentally ill accuser so I understand this phenomenon better than most. My accuser was later confirmed to be mentally ill and suffering from delusions and hallucinations of the most horrid and bizarre forms. I came to the realize an important fact:  False accusations are quickly accepted and the professional careers of everyone involved in such and investigation is enhanced if a resignation, disgrace and/or conviction results.  Those who act decisively and unjustly against the accused see themselves as heroes protecting the children and the innocence of the accused means nothing.  So this is my starting point which is unlike the Bishop who wrote this book.
         Four billion dollars is mentioned as a conservative estimate (pg 6) for what the church has paid out to accusers.  It appears that the accuser is automatically called a "victim".   What if the accusers are perpetrators of fraud gaining financially?  What if the accuser is twisted unknowingly by a therapist to believe in false memories of abuse?  What if falsely accused priests are truly innocent victims?  Why is this not discussed at all?
     The mainstream media, without much effort, has uncovered story after story of falsely accused priests.  The story detailed by the Bishop in this book resembles the story in depicted in a Newsweek expose that uncovered fraudulent convictions.  The title was "How four men in a lurid rape case were sent to prison by a scheming Altar Boy" (see notes 1,2).   The priests declined plea deals because they were innocent and trusted that the system would find the truth.  The altar boy was found not to be scheduled twenty years earlier (there we records of schedules and assignments) at the times he recalls being abused, there was no physical evidence, the polygraphs that found the priests truthful were not admissible,  the district attorney withheld admission by the accuser that some of his recalled incidences were made up, the accuser was not given a polygraph, forensics found no evidence of the stated physical abuse.  The accuser, a drug addict, blamed his poor decisions and persistent drug addiction on the "abuse" while in tears for a jury on the priests.  The church, in a desire to keep things quiet, settled the case for 5 million dollars which was immediately used to purchase residence in Florida (protecting it from civil seizure).  An innocent elderly priest, accused and convicted by a corrupted system, who was appealing this case died while handcuffed to a bed to a prison.  Why are these innocent priests slandered and then abandoned?
    Fr. Gordon MacRae is a false accused priest who declined a plea bargain and a 3 year sentence because he knew he was innocent. He was given a 67 year sentence with parole contingent upon his admitting to crimes of sexual abuse he never committed.  Fr. MacRae remains in jail writing about the continuing routine injustice to he and other priests.  The word is out to those in prisons.  False accusations can obtain large sums of money and this is now known (see note 3) among those who talk in prisons about ways to become wealthy.   The Pennsylvanian report on abuse publicized thousands of completely unverifiable accusations but it did stir up a political base for an politically ambitious state attorney.  
     Based on my experience and research false accusations are much more common than imagined and guilty verdicts in these emotionally charged cases are the cheapest and quickest convictions available to prosecutors.  Every trial lawyer knows that emotionally compelling testimony means much more than facts, physical evidence or truth to a typical jury.  I am not the only one who recognizes the frenzy and hysteria to protect children may be misleading.  There are many innocents languishing in prison because emotionally compelling accusations get convictions with little or no evidence.
        The Salem witch trials of the 1600's bears a resemblance to the present day hysteria about claims of childhood sex abuse.  The government assured that the convictions and executions of 19 people for witchery were just.   Examination by government doctors of the executed persons revealed skin flicks and warts confirming the guilt of those executed. That raised the confidence of citizens in their system of justice.  Confidence of citizens is important.  Should a church dedicated to truth also endorse such injustice?  Should the church join in the stampede to root out and severely punish those alleged horrid perpetrators of child abuse even if they are falsely accused with no other evidence but a testimony that profits the accuser?
    Compensation for accusers who have been verified as truly abused is just.  Allowing innocent priests to be slandered and discarded by false accusations takes no courage at all.   I would be more inclined to support a church that shows the courage to stand with innocents rather than making payments to secure silence.  I wonder if there are any others like me?


     "I encourage everyone to abandon the idea that psychiatrists know a great deal. I thought we should realize that we were working in a rather rudimentary medical discipline, one that has few natural correctives such as autopsy room or the laboratory to reveal its errors or restrain misguided enthusiasms.  We should look closely at what we are claiming in order that that we might abandon what impedes and seize upon what advances our enterprises."
                                                                   Paul R. McHugh, M.D.
                                                                   Former Chair of Psychiatry at John's Hopkins
   The reliance of the church on the psychoanalytical approaches to the counseling, therapy, insights and cures has done immense damage over the last century and it is time to discard the basic tenets of this errant approach.  The "Freudian Mannerism" (a term coined by Dr. Paul McHugh to describe memory based therapies in psychiatry Note 11) has dominated psychotherapy since the late 1800's has damaged our culture, torn families asunder and harmed our church in a variety of ways.  Evidenced based treatments are slowly eroding the influence of these outdated psychoanalytical approaches.  In "The Broken Brain" Dr. Nancy Andreason (Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Iowa) boldly claimed that biological pathologies alone underlie mental illness.  She points out that somatic  and cognitive therapies are the most effective ways to help those suffering from intellectual and emotional maladies. (Note 10)
     The church once relied on psychoanalytical experts who claimed to be able to change serial child abusers with appropriate psychoanalytical techniques.  Institutes with such treatments were created, served the church and consistently failed to reform the verified abusers.  Some of the institutions were corrupt themselves.  They failed often despite generous funding (note 9) and failed the church. The faith in psychoanalytical approaches still remain despite this horrendous outcome.
     Freudian mannerists used recovered-memory (1980s and ’90s) where treated clients were convinced by their therapist (or best-selling books on the subject) that their problems were caused by childhood sexual abuse but were not consciously aware of these memories and labeled these as "repressed memories".   It now seems bizarre to create imagined memories that are not there as an explanation for poor  behavior but the idea was once popular.   Dr.  McNally, an expert in trauma and memory  from Harvard, helped discredit the underlying theory that produced these types of false accusations thought to be real memories. “The notion that the mind protects itself by repressing or dissociating memories of trauma is a piece of psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing empirical support.”  This errant memory based approach is still being used to create victims who were never victimized under new versions with new jargon that invokes word like "neurobiology", "trauma informed therapy" or "trauma induced fragmented memory" but all of them lack researched and verified mechanisms.    Many therapists using memory based therapies still cling to these types of discredited assumptions and our priests face the products: clients with psuedomemories and false accusations.  The clients of such therapists may be both unaware that theses memories are false and come to believe the accusations themselves!  These memory based therapies fail to serve the clients and fail to help the church see the truth clearly.
      A mentally ill person may be seen as mentally ill due to the abuse by the priest and blaming the innocent priest for the ills of the accuser. Advances in psychiatry continue to unfold.  States of psychosis that produce delusions and hallucinations are known to have biological pathologies.  When a mentally ill patient, suffering from a metabolic dysfunction, makes accusations based on errant information, delusions or hallucinations the untrained professional investigator, child advocate or counselor may eagerly accept the accusation as true and seize the opportunity to "save a child" or "bring justice for the adult who was a child when they remember the event taking place".   It often furthers their professional standing to stand with the "victim".   Accusations while a person is in psychosis can and does happen. Does the accusation mean a priest is guilty?
        The idea that the mental illness has biological roots is often not a consideration because of the social determinism that guides much of our popular thinking.  In the early 1900's it seemed like blaming mental illness, delusions and hallucinations on poor parenting and traumatic events was an improvement over blaming innate moral character, demons and evil possessions.  Increasingly both psychological and medical science has been able to discredit the psychoanalytic approaches but it appears to me that the church still clings to the widely held errant notions of social determinism (and Freudian mannerists Note 11).  Treating the client who is mentally unstable with appropriate cognitive therapy and somatic techniques helps the client and helps the church.  Treating a client with memory based psychoanalytical approaches can generate false memories and a church willing to abandon a priest and purchase silence based on the false accusations of a mentally ill person.  The innocent priest is abandoned and the ill accuser remains untreated.  Is that just?  Is purchasing silence truly the way out of this crisis?

        The church needs to seek truth.  Genuine silence will emerge when there is justice. I think this crisis will remain one until truth us uplifted and sought.  There is no reason to hide truth and every reason to shine that truth for all to see.
     
9. https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/priest-who-headed-clergy-addiction-center-going-jail-fraud
10.  https://truthaboutpseudomemories.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-broken-brain-biological-revolution.html
11. https://truthaboutpseudomemories.blogspot.com/2018/11/book-review-try-to-remember.html


If you read this far...Wow!  Thank you!

You may want to read:  
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*** WARNING ***
If you are seeking help for personal struggles and a therapist, counselor or friend says that "recovering childhood memories can help you get better" then IMMEDIATELY get up from your chair (or off the couch), run to the door, open it and flee. Hundreds of thousands have lost families, years of productive living and squandered immense wealth with tragedy inducing therapy that produces horrid false memories, splinters families, isolates the client and is documented to cause decline in mental health.


OUR DAUGHTER BEFORE TREATMENT
MEMORY EXPERTS COMMENT
OUR SAD STORY OF THERAPY AND TRAGEDY

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Location: Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA

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