The dust barely settled from years of revelations about its pedophile priest coverup here in America, the Roman Catholic church now faces another round of public exposures: According to this recent NY Times story, a nine-year investigation points a finger of indictment at the church for covering up an "endemic" pattern of sexual and physical abuse took place from the 1930s into the 1990s in church-run reformatories and special-education schools in Ireland.
Patterns of religious abuse, historically, are by no means limited to the Catholic churches. Evangelical Christian groups and a number of charismatically inclined churches, along with a host of religious fringe groups, have been called out in the past, in books, TV exposes, movies and legal proceedings, for a variety of abuses of organizational power. In May, for example, the nephew of Warren Jeffs, a now imprisoned former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS, the LDS splinter group that still practices polygamy), has broken his silence about the inner workings of the sect in a much touted book, Lost Boy, in which he reveals the full extent of the religious abuse that led to Jeff's arrest and trial. (Hear the National Public Radio program about it here.)
An op/ed piece in the May 20 NY Times, penned by someone who experienced life in the Irish Catholic system indicted in the report above, opens a window for those too young to have lived through the middle part of the 20th Century into just how differently things looked back then. The writer's account reminded me of my own childhood, when what we today consider to be scandalous abuse was often tolerated and sometimes condoned.
When I was a kid, there was a family on the next block where the husband beat his wife and his kids. How do I know this? Everyone knew. What went on in the home across the street stayed in the home across the street. You didn't interfere. There was a conspiracy, but not one of silence. And as I look back, I wonder how much we didn't know.
This "open silence" was the way. But it was not the right way. How do I know? This is how: By all accounts, the oldest son from that family was a real nice kid. Respectful to adults, he was the only kid I ever knew who unfailingly called my dad Mr. Musselman. He dated my sister. Yeah, he smoked, but back then, except in front of the pastor or priest, almost everyone did. Years later, however, he was arrested elsewhere for the murder of a neighbor in a rundown apartment complex in which he had been living as a bitter, friendless man. Nobody could figure out why. I know why. Abuse breeds abuse. Anger breeds anger. Perpetrators create perpetrators.
In this case, that boy's father was not religious nor was he raised religious, but that makes my point: abuse, no matter what the motive or who the perpetrator, ultimately begats more abuse. Religious people (like my parents and our catholic neighbors) tolerated such behavior because authority figures had broad discretion in my father's world, inside and outside the church. The worst that happened to an abusive dad like that was that he would have to pack up the family and move because of the gossip. When abusive dad's actions were cloaked with a religious veil — in the pulpit or by membership on the church board — they were untouchable. Who would bring down the church, even to save it from a monster? Sadly, it was more important to keep up the appearance of respectability. Although I look back and wonder, who exactly were we trying to fool? God?
And there were plenty of religiously veiled perpetrators in my neighborhood: Everyone knew that the great guy up the block, a devout Catholic, was also an alcoholic and, when he had a few too many beers, could get abusive. No one was surprised when his wife finally got up the gumption to confront it and divorce him. But no one was there to help her, either, and many criticized her. Divorce, of course, wasn't the respectable thing. An interesting sidelight: The oldest son of that family had the guts to take his mom's side and later married a woman whose career and independence he has faithfully supported all these years. He's still married, and happily — and not an alcoholic. But not a Catholic, either. More importatntly ... he was an exception.
In our neighborhood, there were some Lutheran families. In one, the father, a altogether respectable fellow, was an ingrained racist. The word nigger was a common noun in his household when the Freedom Riders cruised the South. Another beat his son and told him he was worthless. That fellow's son, 40 years later, still can't hold a consistent job and is still overcoming that judgment on his life.
And everyone knew that the stern but biblically conservative pastor (he preached against homosexuality, I remember) who served in a nearby church for many years had at least once (that, we knew) beaten his wife in a rage.
Scratch an atheist and, all too often, you'll find someone who, in some way like those reform-school kids in Ireland, suffered at the hands (if not physically then, mentally and spiritually) of a religious authority figure, at home, at school, in a church. A personal example: I learned my catechism one summer at the hands of my racist Lutheran neighbor's pastor during a week-long barrage masquerading as Vacation Bible School. We were seated at tables with printed copies of the catechism. We were told to memorize it. Then we were called up, one-by-one to face the pastor and serve it up without looking at our notes. This man of God never smiled, not once. I was terrified of him ... and, as a result, terrified of God as well. Those who managed the catechetical feat were treated as if it was only to be expected. Those who, like me, were too terrified to perform, were held in barely disguised contempt.
Every time one Christian victimizes someone else, in the church or out, for any reason, it becomes an effective argument against the reality of the church's connection to God. So we shouldn't be too surprised, therefore, that there is a sort of general horror at the idea of the Pope or some other religious leader "calling the shots" in public life. You've got a couple of generations of people who suffered under those leaders, who now write, speak and live as journalists, teachers, lawyers, judges and politicians. They're bent on protecting another generation from what they suffered, and if I were in their shoes, I might do likewise. (In fact, I am. Here. Now.)
We can't forget that Jesus himself said, "The world will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." And if we don't love one another? If what the world sees coming from the church isn't consistent with Jesus' message of love, but rather a holdover from the church's unfortunately lengthy history of abuse of authority, then who can blame them for their unbelief?
We have to face an uncomfortable truth: People whose "map" of Christendom has been drawn by abusers, angry right-wing politicians, uptight latter-day Pharisees and the like are very unlikely, apart from the amazing grace of a loving God, to find the Way.
There are implications here, of course, for the current debate over whether or not "enhanced interrogation" carried out at Guantanamo and other locations by CIA operatives were "useful." The Obama Administration has taken the admirable tack of stepping back and looking not just at the immediate result, which (for all we'll ever know) might have secured information that stopped some terrorist plots from unfolding. Instead, he's looking at how this plays in the Big Picture. He's asking not only how such actions affect the way the U.S. is perceived and how we see ourselves but he's asking the more important — the critically central — question: How are terrorists created?
I know how. I've known from childhood. Abuse breeds abuse. Anger breeds anger. Perpetrators create perpetrators.
You look at the history of the regions that now breed terrorists and you will find decades of ill treatment by those who have abused positions of power. Some of it financed by American money, and perpetrated by people trained by American military operatives. Afghanistan and Pakistan come to mind. Mr. Obama, I think, was right when he said that Gitmo has probably created more terrorists than it has stopped.
At least one U.S. soldier has taken this historical perspective to heart and, in a remarkable act of courage, questioned U.S. policy on this point by stepping forward to defend the rights of a single detainee. A SWAT team member in his civilian life, Capt. Kirk Black now trains Afghani policemen in counter terrorism. At first skeptical that any detainee could be innocent, Black investigated and then took up the case of a man held in Bagram (one of our "offshore" prisons in Afghanistan) even helping him obtain legal counsel.
Capt. Black, previously assigned to Gitmo, has learned by experience to question the wisdom of U.S. policy in the region. He's too young to remember the time when taking a suspect to the police station basement and beating a confession out of them with a rubber hose was a all-to-common law enforcement procedure. (And yes, I have spoken with an older chief of police personally, who acknowledged that fact from his own personal experience. I'm not just repeating "liberal dogma.") The fact that it appeared to be effective caused officialdom to look the other way for decades until court decision after court decision established beyond a reasonable doubt that confession by compulsion was a way to get a quick conviction, but a very bad way to get at the truth.
Mr. Cheney and others who defend America's treatment of suspected terrorists are children of a generation that accepted abuse of authority as a normal, even necessary, part of life, laboring under the illusion that those so abused can flower, somehow, into moral rectitude. Like Capt. Black, we must all acknowledge that such assumptions are not born out by the facts.
History indicates quite the opposite. Authority unchecked, is inevitably abusive. And more to the point, is patently ineffective at accomplishing good ends. Gitmo is a product of what is still resident in our community heart: The residue of a cultural belief that force, compulsion, shame, disrespect, dishonor and rejection are legitimate or effective tools for moral people to use in moral redirection. Whether we are protecting Americans from terrorists or our own children from the fires of hell, compulsion, castigation and cruelty simply don't work. They feed the disorder they intend to end. They kill the faith they meant to instill. They drive underground the discontents that can only be addressed in the light of day, with understanding and compassion.
Mr. Obama also is right to look to the future and resist retribution for those who created Gitmo. Mr. Cheney is sadly mistaken. But he is not a monster. He, too, is a victim. You do not silence the Rush Limbaughs of the world with vitriol. It is vitriol that feeds them. Peace, forgiveness and reformation never rise from retribution and shame. Do we not have the witness of the Reconstruction era and the aftermath of WWI as witnesses to that? The one gave rise to the Jim Crow South and the other to Nazi Germany. Do we not have the witness to the wisdom of rejecting retribution in the post-WWII period, when the U.S. helped Japan rebuild and gained, to this day, an important ally?
Gitmo has given an ironic form of aid and comfort to fanatical jihadists, giving them ample fuel to fan hatred of America in the hearts of Islam's dispossessed. It has made a negative impact on our collective soul and further soiled our already sullied reputation in the global community.
What we do about it has serious implications for our future. What does it say about our decades-long refusal to extend a hand of conciliation to Cuba? The refusal to speak with leaders of Iran? And countless other decisions the U.S. has made, from its position of power, that have often unnecessarily alienated both foe and friend?
Indeed, what does it say about campaigns to prevent gay marriage? Or reverse Roe v. Wade? The lessons of Gitmo might have special relevance for those on both sides of the abortion battlelines, since the wounds of this particularly painful "culture war" were opened afresh this week by the murder of a Wichita, Kan. physician who performed the procedure in the third trimester.
Abuse breeds abuse. Anger breeds anger. Perpetrators create perpetrators. And we, corporately and individually, still so easily become both abusers and victims.
It's time for America to close Gitmo and for each of us to close the Gitmo in our own heart.
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