Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - PREDATORS IN THE CHURCH

When Mentor Becomes Molester

Ministers are often granted immediate trust . . . but some betray it.

by Alexa Smith  

She remembers how the mentoring slowly turned sexual. He said having sex wasn't wrong, even though she didn't feel it was quite right.

Why didn't she tell? She would say she thought no one would believe her, a "20-something-nobody" who was new in town and didn't have many friends anyway. "There was nobody to tell," she says. And even though her marriage was emotionally bankrupt, what would her husband do?

"I felt I wouldn't be believed. It would be my word against his. And it was risky--what would it do to my marriage? At the time, people didn't understand the dynamics of the abuse of power, and I didn't either. I just felt I'd done something bad."

Like most women, it took Anne years to tell. And though she finally helped draft her presbytery's first sexual misconduct policy, it took a supportive new relationship and years of reflection before she understood how her pastor had simply used her for sex while she was supposedly in his care.

The Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) estimates that there are about 50 clergy sexual misconduct cases every year. Although cases in the PCUSA tend to involve adult women and male pastors, there are sometimes cases reported that involve children and other men.

Some of the cases involve men who are predators, who repeatedly prey on vulnerable women and lack remorse for their behavior. Other sexual abusers are what experts call wanderers--people who have crossed sexual boundaries inappropriately but, with treatment, have a fairly good prognosis for change. For predators, who are sociopathic, the statistics are not as hopeful.

According to the Center for the Prevention of Sexual and Domestic Violence in Seattle, Washington, both categories of abusers tend to have little sense of the damage their behavior causes, have limited impulse control, are often charismatic and talented, but secretive, and tend to confuse sex with affection. They also have little awareness of how much power they wield, and they tend not to recognize their own sexual feelings.

How do women get into relationships with them? Research shows that most women who are abused by clergy are initially approached because they are too insecure or too vulnerable to say no or, perhaps more important, to tell anyone about it. Or they may be in the midst of a life crisis and especially vulnerable. Usually they are women who want to please the man who has become indispensable to their emotional lives, either as a confidante, counselor, priest, or they might even say savior because of the kind of dependency they have felt.

http://www.advocateweb.org/HOPE/mentormolester.asp