A Slaughter of Innocence - by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
This article first appeared May 7, 2010
Making it through the dark night of the priest pedophilia crisis and arriving at truth and reconciliation requires an unflinching examination of our consciences.
When King Herod the Great learned from the Magi that they were seeking a newborn child who would become king over all, he ordered a slaughter of the innocents. Herod, then 75 years old, was not new to murderous revenges-and he would eventually kill his own grown son. Rather than risk losing his estate, he instead ragefully ordered that all of Bethlehem's precious boy babies under 2 years of age be murdered in their cradles.Pick up your Bible, and surely the very page weeps blood as you read, "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more" (Matt. 2:18).
The anguished Rachel is awakened again today. Who here cannot hear the terrible weeping for the children of our own time? Lord, hear our prayer. Awaken us. May the slaughter of innocents never be allowed again.
But today we have to do more than just pray. Let us learn the harsh facts and not turn away. Let us act, link arms across the world to better protect all children. I think I speak for many Catholics when I say we could not be one ounce more heartsick and strewn with ashes than we are right now over hearing of some priests using children for sexual gratification. Let this be our prayer, forever and always: Awaken. Be awake. Remain awake.
As a psychoanalyst practicing clinically for 32 years, I am not a priest, not a theologian. But perhaps, ultimately, I am someone far more dangerous-a Latina grandmother with a fierce glint in her eye who knows several somethings about moral formation. As I see it, our first task here is to acknowledge that sexual intrusion against children exists and apparently far more often than we would ever think to imagine. Next we must apply proper spiritual and temporal remedies for every soul's recovery from this modern slaughter of the innocents.
The issues require excruciating differentiation so as not to harm those who have already made their admissions and paid their debts; not to falsely accuse; not to sacrifice for the sake of the status quo or the institution any child or adult who is blameless; not to allow righteous anger at perpetrators to demean all the other priests who have lived honorably; not to allow solely legal postures to dominate this process. I hope we can look closely and be willing to hold firmly accountable those who have intruded, while also exonerating justly when appropriate.
From decades in post-trauma work-both with war veterans and with victims of massacres and natural disasters-I know that the steps to help mend this tremendous laceration to the souls of many will take much time. The burden is very heavy, and the night is bitter cold, but I believe we can make it across this la noche oscura del alma, as San Juan de la Cruz called it, this "dark night of the soul." The way through this dark night can come through self-- inquiry, both as individuals and as a group. We can stop the secrecy by telling the whole story by the light of day.
The sacrament of Reconciliation can provide the model. In this sacramental assessment of our own motives, foibles, and oversights, we are given a way of asking that the disattached heart, mind, body, soul, and spirit be mended back together and made whole again.
Whether in medicine, psychology, or theology, we know that a sickness lying underneath the skin and left without effective treatment will infect and devastate the entire body. It will eventually suppurate and rise to the surface, destroying all living tissue. This is what has apparently occurred in the matter of certain priests sexually abusing children. Medicine must be administered, and quickly. Can prayers be antibiotics? Yes. Can goodwill help? Yes. But far more is needed-a psychic surgery, excision, grafts. Where to make the cuts, what to excise?
I strongly believe we should start with scanning ourselves.
Unconsciously or not and in varying degrees of responsibility and culpability, we have been rampantly negligent in questioning our own naivete about who and how others administer accountability and justice; in the need for vigilance regarding children; in our learning the true facts about mental disorders in our times; about evil being a palpable force in the modern world that can overwhelm reason and resolve; and about the proximity of children to disordered adults being the perfect feast set out for those who raven and sexually overwhelm the young.
We are not alone in responsibility here. Naivete, sluggish comprehension, and studied ignorance about how predators of many kinds easily savage those who are vulnerable infects our entire culture. Child sex slavery. Children caged in cellars. Children lured through the Internet. Food withheld as punishment. Beatings that blind and deafen children for life. Children murdered daily in heart, spirit, and body. These atrocities do not only occur in isolated wadis halfway across the world. They can and do occur right down the street, in our own villages.
Pedophilia is an illness, not a job description. This disorder is found in all ethnic groups and social classes. Others who are not priests intrude on the young as well. One of the greatest helps children can be given is to be kept away from such persons. The greatest help a person suffering from this disease can be given is to isolate them from children. No honor accrues to the fox-or anyone else-by setting out little chicks in order to test whether the fox has been "adequately rehabilitated" or not...
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