Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
The Society of Jesus, Oregon Province—a group of Jesuits who serve the Northwest—has agreed to pay a settlement of $166 million to childhood v
ictims of sexual and physical abuse. The abuse of approximately 500 Native Americans and Alaskan Natives is reported to have taken place at mission and boarding schools operated by the Jesuits on Indian Reservations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and Montana.
The financial payout by the Society of Jesus is part of an agreement to resolve its two-year-old bankruptcy case. It is said to be the third biggest settlement to date in the Catholic Church’s ongoing sexual abuse scandal—and, according to lawyers for the victims, it is the largest ever by a single Catholic religious order.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs announced the settlement on Friday morning. Blaine Tamaki, an attorney from Yakima whose firm represented about one-third of the non-Alaskan victims, said, “Instead of teaching these Native American children about the love of God, these pedophile priests were molesting these children.” He added, “It was a culture of abuse of Native American children. Today is the day where they are acknowledging guilt.”
The abuse of the children is said to have spanned decades—and was perpetrated by priests and workers who were supervised by the Jesuits. The Jesuit order has been accused of regarding remote villages and reservations as “dumping grounds” for their problem priests.
According to an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, none of the priests, nuns, and lay workers who abused the children has gone to prison. In fact, many who held power in the province when the abuse occurred have retained their positions of authority.
Clarita Vargas, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, remembers being abused by the Rev. John Morse at St. Mary’s Mission and School—which she attended from the second through the eighth grade. She said Morse would sometimes lock her in a cellar and tell her she could not come out until she agreed to do what he wanted.
Vargas called the attacks on her and other native children a “generational trauma.” She told reporters that she, her siblings, and her classmates were subjected to constant sexual abuse at the school in Omak. “I was a beautiful Christian Catholic child,” she said. “Why would a person of authority try to tarnish that?”
Vargas feels that nothing can compensate her for her lost childhood. “My spirit was wounded. I can only say (the settlement) makes me feel better. And I can’t explain it,” she said.
In addition to the financial settlement, the Jesuit order reportedly has agreed to no longer refer to their victims as “alleged victims,” to write apologies to them, and to enforce new practices that would prevent abuse of children in the future.
Let me add a qualifier that pedophiles are not curable by any method or technique knows to modern science.
A single gun shot to the head would cure it.
Alluding to another thread that would be hammer meets the primer.
Let me add a qualifier that pedophiles are not curable by any method or technique knows to modern science. That does not mean that a cure is not possible; it is just that no cure has been discovered and I am pessimistic that a cure can be found in the foreseeable future.
This does not mean we should stop looking. In the meantime, we have to isolate predators from children not coddle them and protect them. The RCC has it backward. It is not the pedophile priests who need protecting, it is the parishioners who need to be protected from the priests.
Elaine asks: “Can pedophiles be cured?”
**************************
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: It is a compulsion. Combines sex drive with fascination with children. Years ago, we had an inmate who had been a guest at our facility for 23 years. He was in his late fifties. On testing with the PPG, he had an 85% erection when shown stimulus pictures such a photo of a four year old little girl in a Sunday School dress. He was not shown any pictures that could be considered provocative by any stretch of the imagination by normal subjects. Yet, he reacted with raw lust to pictures that included children engaging in normal child activities.
When checking on inmates, it is common to catch pedophiles masturbating while watching TV programs such as Sesame Street.
For the church leadership to move known pedophiles around to protect them is unconscionable.
culheath,
The church helped facilitate the abuse of children by moving pedophile priests from parish to parish. That was unconscionable. Those priests who were known to have sexually abused children should never have been allowed near children ever again.
**********
I have to ask the question: Can pedophiles be cured?
Nothing fans a fire as readily as the wind from money going out the door.
I understand your point…but that won’t stop the cycle will it? Making them not-like-us and punishment alone is part of the problem as I see it.
Culheath,
Maybe these predators need a little fire at their feet, along with their facilitators.
“Punishing people who were themselves abused as children for later becoming child abusers does not reduce child abuse.”
Precisely put. We will not make any progress in this regard until we stop the hysteria surrounding the whole topic of sexuality and that’s not at all likely until we manage to exorcise the paternalistic dogmatic and exclusionary authoritarian religions that persist in inflicting magical thinking memes on the culture.
We’d much rather remain comfortable expressing outrage at instances of pedophilia than actually try to understand its roots and develop methods of channeling the perverted energies of those adult victims into self-healing, socially productive modes.
“Those monsters can’t be changed!” is the constant mythic cry because public piety and disgust enable the clamor for spectacular punishment above all else. Witch burning at its finest, guaranteed route to perpetuate the cycle.
Some day, understanding of child abuse may evolve enough to begin to stop it.
Punishing people who were themselves abused as children for later becoming child abusers does not reduce child abuse.
Woosty,
You are right that there are good Catholics that don’t agree with Rome’s handling of these crimes, but they do nothing and keep giving money to these felons who keep hiding the peeps!
Bonnie 1, March 26, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Why any one would remain Catholic after this is beyond me.
——————————————
Firstly…I am not Catholic, but if you think that pedophilia is part of what Catholicism is meant to be you are wrong. In fact I could make the same statement about men…using the same logic….the truth is that there are very good and decent Catholics out there who do not subscribe to or support the pedophilia OR the silence and failure to protect children (and others!)…
WOW…only 166 million for 500 or more….not enough…not enough…
Elaine: Please do write a follow up story. Bob Sloan summarizes it very well in his DKos diary, but the more eyeballs on it, the better.
Otteray,
I heard about that story on NPR the other day. It was actually on my list of potential stories to post about this weekend. Then I read the story about the Jesuits abusing Native American and Alaskan Native children this afternoon and decided I HAD to write about it for the Turley blog today.
Privatizing prison services has made some people a lot of money. Who cares what happens to the kids???!!!
On a related theme, how about the mistreatment of kids by the for profit correctional industry. I use the word “correctional” because it is in their business name, but you can infer a sarcastic tone in my remark.
I have been aware of the juvenile “justice” nightmare in Mississippi for more than three decades, but it is getting worse at warp speed thanks to Haley the Hutt and his owners, some of whom include the Koch crime family. Would you believe that part of the reason the rabid right wants to defund public radio/television is because they do, you know, real reporting?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/26/960345/-Another-Reason-Conservatives-want-to-Defund-NPR-More-on-Geo-Group-and-Juvenile-abuse-in-Miss
The RCC is a global pedophilia cult, subsidized by government tax policies and the given protection of a sovereign nation.
Stossel . . . what a privileged cracker know-nothing asshat.
I really wish someone would give him some small pox infected blankets just to see how helpful he thinks it is.
Every time someone refers to that propaganda clown as a journalist, Murrow spins in his grave.
Bonnie & Buddha,
Did you hear John Stossel talking about Native Americans on FOX recently?
John Stossel: No Group Has Had More Government Help Than American Indians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otWAbnFIKvE
**********
Buddha,
My husband had a great grandmother who was a Penobscot Indian.
Elaine,
I read this story this morning and I’m glad you decided to post about it. My great great grandmother was full blood Blackfoot. While there is truly no such thing as a full measure of justice to be had in the instances of child abuse, given the rest of the horrors and injustices done to the Native Americans by not just the RCC but by damn near every European group to arrive on these shores, it was good to see that at least some small measure of justice has been had for these 500 children within their lifetime.
Why any one would remain Catholic after this is beyond me. The church should be barred from having any parishes in Indian Country in these states. My point of view comes from being a Pacific Northwest Indian. My tribe had our savage souls saved by the Presbyterians.