this day is dedicated to all the children who were molested at a christian school, in a church or rectory, by anyone in a clerical or teaching position, all over the world thousands of children have been raped, intimidated, horribly abused under the name of Christ.
If we call ourselves Christians we have to do something or else expect judgment
Matt 18
not our reputations.
A few years ago the New Yorker did an article about Polanski’s rape of a 13 year old girl and the way he has evaded consequences for this for years. Many celebrities support Polanski despite the fact that he is a child rapist. Weird. He also exhibits classic pedophile behavior–seeking out teenage companions.
It amazes me that no one seems to question whether or not he is a decent or even legally safe parent.
I am afraid that his public behavior suggests his private behavior is not safe for children. It certainly was not for the girl he drugged and raped when she was just 13.
Dahlmer, father of Jeffrey, wrote a book. When he wrote it he was roundly mocked and scorned–as an opportunist? as a poor candidate for parenting expert? Probably both.
I have a handful of books that I bought grudgingly from Amazon over the course of a year. The first was Sibling Abuse and one of the last was Lionel’s book. I had a nagging feeling I should and combined with prayer eventually I did. I was glad I did, I learned a lot and none of it was fun. A Father’s Story is not overly graphic and not at all sensationalist. It is the haunting story of a father whose son became a monster. After I read the book and told the kids about it we looked JD on wiki.
Today I am dedicating the blog to all of Jeffrey Dahlmer’s victims, including his own family. Not only does the suffering he caused defy imagination, it would have ended much sooner if the police had cared at all about protecting his target group.
One of the things I gained form Lionel’s book was the tendency of ordinary people around psychopaths to enable, look the other way, rationalize or just choose not to investigate closely. Psychopaths capitalize on their ability to coop people to accept danger lies. Don’t.
went through a period of their lives where they were only seen in public wearing masks. Like Mardi Gras style, not surgical. During this same period of time we had two very loud and frequently prone to public tantrum foster/adopted children. I thought one way to distance myself from their outbursts would have been to put them in Mardi Gras masks and if they started to misbehave I could shrug and say I was just babysitting MJ’s kids. Poor MJ’s kids, they always looked perfectly well behaved.
After Jackson’s untimely death I thought about his children a lot. I know they must be grieving so. And yet their father was such a strange character often noteworthy for his outlandish behavior and appearance, but at one point most notorious for the allegations of abuse of young boys.
More victims.
Sometimes I want to tell these kids en masse, you are not alone. You would be surprised how many ordinary kids just like you have suffered through abuse feeling alone and “different” when you are not the different one, you are simply the victim of a crime. A kind of crime that should be first prevented and then punished if prevention doesnt work. But once someone has been identified as a child molester, they should never, never be alone with children again.
They have already proven that they are not safe and not trustworthy the very first time they abuse
One of the ways C masked his enthusiasm for abusing his very little sisters was by acting like the opportunity to watch movies while I ran to the store was a major enticement to watch the kids. I never left him alone with a child who could not tell on him, so I thought if he was mean or obnoxious they would let me know. It did not occur to me that it was weird that he always took my calls to check on the kids and only after it was too late did I realize what a destructive con artist he is.
He liked the Passion of the Christ and I assumed that it was less for a spiritual uplift and more for the uncomfortable violence. Still believe this. The other Bible story he seemed to like for the incipient violence was the story of John the Baptist. I figured and he verified that he was more drawn to beheadings than sermons. Blech.
When I asked God about the relative dearth of direct confrontations about child sexual abuse my gaze was directed toward this story–
a forthright, outspoke prophet gets dragged to prison for confronting a grossly corrupt monarch who has stolen his brother’s wife and is living with her openly (incest)
said wife is angry at said prophet and convinces her young, adolescent? daughter to do a dance that is so suggestive that her stepfather promises her whatever she wants (yuck, and then yuck again)
she asks for the head of the prophet and gets it
This is a deeply, deeply troubling illegal, barbaric and pornographic story and Herod’s behavior and choices are wildlly out of bounds
Why? John asks before his death and I think most survivors ask this too. I know I did. I asked God how I could have had a rich, detailed and amazing conversation with Him for thirty years and He did not tell me that my little ones were being abused in my own house and other places? I felt like a fool that I had been deceived, but I know Go’sd had not. Why so long? Why so devastating? I knew I needed answers not just for myself but for C’s victims.
The words that I have to respond to that grief are too many and nuanced for a blog. But I see things, my children and husband see our lives in a defined before and after, just as I see the story of the murder of a man God loved differently now. I see the great tragedy of a girl seduced into murdering the one man in the story who might have guarded her innocence and dignity. I believe Herod was a very bad man. He came to a very bad end as well…
April is kicking my butt. I knew that many people who had spent time researching the holocaust or other human atrocities (rape of Nanking) suffered emotionally as a result. I am finding this is true for me also. I made a commitment to spend a month focusing on public stories about sexual assault and it has been emotionally exhausting.
There is so much pain in the world and the knowledge that all sexual assault is angry and unnecessary makes the pain worse. All sexual assault is the result of deliberate and egregious wrong-doing.
The Bible talks about “the years the locusts have devoured”
Tonight I want to look at the biblical Joseph, son of Jacob. Joseph is one of only a few men identified in the Bible as victims of sexual assault. Potiphar’s wife attempted to sexually assault Joseph and then wrongly accused him of rape. But he was not just the victim in this story, he was the victim of attempted murder, kidnapping, slavery, and the scars of his mother’s death and his sister’s rape. Joseph was wounded and wrongly accused.
Christians would say he is a “type” of Christ– a character whose story and issues echo the life of Jesus.
When the triumph of his story becomes evident the Egyptians call him savior in their language.
I want the living survivors of all sexual assault to know that God is a God who can heal us, who can return what the locusts have devoured. Demand this of His Father’s heart, His abiding love.
www.telegraph.co.uk/…/Etan-Patz…for-milk–carton–boy.html
if link doesnt work type “milk carton boy” into search engine
Salient points of this article:
6 year old boy died because he wanted to walk to the school bus by himself
if they won the lawsuit there must have been salient proof that Ramos was involved
and not only would a conviction in this little boy’s case have saved the victim Ramos was sent to prison for in PA,
how many others?
and last of all. This Ramos fella will be out in November.
Doubt he will have sufficient supervision…
tragic.
More war violence.
My point is simple: when the Japanese army systematically eviscerated a continent during WWII they did not do it for love or even like.
Rape, sexual assault, any non-consensual sexual act is an act of anger and aggression. Sexual predators are not misguided children, they are people who knowingly violate the most basic categories of protection and they, like the Japanese in WWII, act out of anger,entitlement and cruelty wiith no empathy for their victims.
And as a grumpy post-script I would add that they never apologized in any meaningful manner. And by that I mean in truth, humility and reparations.
Carrying Light 