It is hard for many at our seder tables to imagine what it must have felt like to experience the abuse perpetrated on the slaves in Egypt. And it is hard for many others at the very same seder tables to imagine what it must feel like to be set free – because they do not remember how freedom tastes. That’s because childhood abuse can have an unfathomable power over people so that they remain enslaved throughout their lives.
Adults who have been abused as children usually find it much harder than others to trust in God. They feel like G-D abandoned them, in addition to all the other adults who didn’t protect them. It’s impossible to understand the big picture of why the agony of abuse ends up in so many people’s lives, just as it is impossible to understand the abuse suffered when we were slaves in Egypt. What is not impossible, though? Helping our family members and friends who are survivors of abuse to not feel abandoned by us as well.
Recent sociological research has corroborated what seems fairly evident: people who are suicidal feel isolated and not understood in their deepest struggles. The trauma of childhood abuse is a common cause of suicidal ideation. It often involves carrying within the deepest kind of struggle, one that has been widely misunderstood.
Until now.
It isn’t an accident that at the same time that reports of childhood abuse are just beginning to come forth more readily, we are also witnessing the beginning of research coming forth in the area of neuroscience that is of great assistance in comprehending how trauma changes people. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain (f-MRI) is demonstrating why traumatic events can leave such a dramatic impact on people’s lives.
We’ve learned that the subcortical (the lower and dorsal) region of our brain has a negative bias. It is the more primitive part of our brain designed to aid in our protection, so it seems that the dangerous experiences we’ve had tend to leave a deeper impression on our brains than the pleasant ones.
The neurons that fire frantically during a traumatic experience cause an actual rewiring of the brain. This means that neuroscientists now have the technology to observe the physiological changes that can take place in the brain as a result of childhood abuse. Through imaging, researchers also recently achieved the ability to detect the effects of triggers on the brain – circumstances which lead the survivor to respond with somatic reactions as if the abuse is still actively continuing.
Trauma survivors are generally finding it extremely valuable to learn about the new insights from psychobiology that are emerging, and it is also vital for those who want to aid survivors in the healing process. Recent knowledge helps to explain why cognitive therapies, while important, are limited in their healing capabilities, as the cerebral cortex (the higher and frontal part of the brain) is only of limited assistance in processing trauma.
Thinking one’s way out of “past” trauma can only get a survivor so far, and this is very useful to understand. Since triggering events cause the same re-wired neural pathways to fire, eliciting the same primal reactions in the survivor’s body, it truly is as if the abuse is still continuing, and not an event from the past. That’s why expecting a survivor of trauma to “just get over it already” actually makes no logical sense, as the survivor can be re-experiencing the trauma frequently.
New information is gained daily from previously unelucidated areas of neuroscience, right along with daily new information from dark closets filled with physical, emotional and sexual childhood abuse. It turns out that the neuroplasticity of our brains causes traumatic experiences to become embedded in our bodies, but this knowledge about the resilient qualities of our brains is, at the same time, shining light on effective methods of healing. Greater awareness of the mind-body interaction helps clinicians, as well as survivors and those who want to support them, uncover clues to an individual’s trauma history as well as his or her specific recovery process.
As the way we view survivors of trauma, and, more importantly, as the way survivors view themselves, changes, the added layer of frustration and blame over what has been seen as a lack of progress in “moving forward” is removed. Psychobiological advances are translating into sensori-motor training, somatic therapy, movement therapy, and a wide variety of mindfulness techniques – utilizing the diverse and specialized capabilities of the “full mind” so the brain-body integration can be optimized.
Understanding where and how memories are processed and stored leads to maximizing the interrelationship between the cortical and subcortical regions of the brain, as well as the right and left hemispheres of the brain, to actually change the way the abuse is stored in the body. Measurably significant differences become manifest as new vertical and lateral connections are forged.
We are living in a time when there is an explosion of disclosures of an as yet untold number of cases of abuse, and there is an explosion of neurobiological knowledge, as well, that can help the survivors seeking relief. In both realms, we are only now getting to see the very tip of what is vastly bigger than we ever realized.
Both types of breakthroughs offer trauma sufferers the chance to finally be released from their abuse and their abusers. Trained professionals are needed to help a survivor safely override the electromagnetic circuitry of the nervous system that has become frayed and torn, if it has led to the extremes of hyper-vigilance or dissociative numbness. It is as if certain fuses became overwhelmed and blew, but now that they can more accurately be identified, survivors can gradually be empowered to learn mind-body techniques that help reset them to a balanced level of relaxed alertness.
With increased awareness, we can reach out with more appropriate and compassionate support to the survivors who sit with us at our seder tables –as well as to all those who cannot yet face being there this year. Social engagement with an empathetic supporter is essential, as they have felt alone in their deepest struggle. Simply by offering patience and understanding, we help survivors in their courageous exodus from Egypt, from that constricted place where one is stuck reliving one’s personal enslavement again and again.
When we reach out with tenderness, we can reach across every level of consciousness in the brain, until we reach the fiber that connects to another’s heart. No longer alone, our caring helps raise each other’s dignity, as we trek toward redemption together.
This article appeared in last week’s Jewish Press
BIO: Bracha Goetz studied at Harvard University and the Medical College of Virginia. She is the author of over 20 Jewish children’s books which can be found on her Amazon Page, including Let’s Stay Safe!, Let’s Stay Pure, and The Invisible Book. It is possible to reach her at bgoetzster@gmail.com.
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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 23, 2014
From today’s Hawaii Star-Advertiser:
Bills seek more time to file suit
Expanding the current two-year window, which expires next month, is unfair to
the accused entities, critics argue
By Derrick DePledge
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 23, 2014
“Did you know these men?”
The question appeared in an ad in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last Sunday that
showed old black-and-white photographs of three Roman Catholic priests linked to
child sexual abuse.
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By Bob Warner, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: March 23, 2014
PHILADELPHIA Archbishop Charles J. Chaput apologized Saturday to victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy and referred to “the negligence of the church’s pastors” in allowing it to occur.
“I apologize on behalf of the church,” Chaput said in his homily at a late-afternoon “Mass for Healing for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” attended by some 250 people.
Similar Masses have been held elsewhere for victims of clergy sex abuse, but this was the first in Philadelphia, coming at a time when the archdiocese and Chaput have been strongly criticized by some groups of victims.
Chaput’s formal public apology on behalf of the church, as opposed to past acknowledgments of wrongdoing and personal responsibility, struck at least one person who attended as something new.
“I thought it was significant that he was talking about it and acknowledging the church had been wrong, talking about the church being in need of repentance,” said a woman who said she was a victim and asked not to be identified.
“That’s something I think has been missing.”
“We need to repent and ask the forgiveness of those who have suffered,” Chaput said. “We ask God in His mercy to lift up the victims and also lift up the rest of the church.”
Kenneth Gavin, the archdiocese’s director of communications, said it was not the first time that Chaput had apologized for the church’s responsibility in the sex-abuse scandal.
“The archbishop has publicly apologized before on several occasions, as did his predecessors,” Gavin said, referring to Cardinal Justin Rigali.
The archdiocese had invited more than 200 people who had identified themselves as victims of sexual abuse by priests in Philadelphia and the four suburban counties. The Mass was open to the public, and there was no way to tell how many of those in attendance were victims.
Outside the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, about 20 victims and their families protested the Mass and refused to attend, saying the archdiocese and Chaput had done too little, too late.
One of the protesters was State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat who has been trying to extend the state’s statute of limitations to permit criminal prosecution of child abusers whenever their victims choose to come forward, and to provide a window for victims to file civil lawsuits, whenever the abuse occurred.
The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, a powerful Harrisburg lobby led by Chaput, has opposed the bills, Rozzi said.
“You would think an organization that preaches taking care of its own would step up and take responsibility,” Rozzi said. “The church is turning its back on victims.”
Chaput is leaving for Rome on Sunday, part of a delegation including Gov. Corbett and Mayor Nutter that hopes to persuade Pope Francis to visit Philadelphia for the World Meetings of Families in September 2015.
David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national organization, criticized the Mass in advance in a statement Friday.
“At worst this is a cynical public relations move,” Clohessy said. “At best it misses the mark.”
Two recent situations came in for particular criticism.
One was the disclosure late last year that Chaput had allowed a priest at Our Lady of Calvary Parish in Northeast Philadelphia, the Rev. John P. Paul, 67, to keep working, without any notice to the parish, for nearly a year after abuse allegations were lodged against him.
Paul was allowed to announce in November that he was retiring voluntarily. He was permanently removed from the ministry last month after an archdiocesan review board substantiated a claim that he had sexually abused a teenager more than 40 years ago.
“They made a choice to leave him in the ministry during the investigation,” said Susan Matthews, a writer who follows the archdiocese for her blog, Catholics4change.com. “They notified the principal but not the parents. . . . That’s not transparent and accountable.”
The other situation involved the archdiocese ending an eight-year-old practice of paying parochial-school tuition bills for the children of a small number of clergy sex-abuse victims.
Several victims and advocates told The Inquirer they had never been told about the program, even though the archdiocese had described it in literature outlining their services for sex-abuse victims.
warnerb@phillynews.com
215-854-5885
@bobwarner1
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Last June, The Auditor described how the New Jersey Catholic Conference, which is the lobbying arm of the state’s bishops, went to one of Trenton’s higher powers and hired him as a lobbyist.
It cost the church more than the contents of a few collection plates to pay the lobbying firm of Dale Florio, Princeton Public Affairs.
The bishops’ group, which already has an in-house lobbyist, paid Florio’s firm $60,097 in 2013, according to reports filed this month with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission.
But that wasn’t all. The bishops also hired the lobbying firm of Donald Sico last year, paying it $17,500.
Patrick Brannigan, the staff lobbyist for the bishops, said Florio’s firm was hired to fight bills that would extend the statute of limitations for civil sex abuse cases and allow doctors to write lethal prescriptions to terminally ill patients. His advice was also sought on advancing a bill to create a school voucher-like system.
Brannigan said Sico was hired to lobby against same-sex marriage, or as Brannigan put it, “on supporting marriage between a man and a woman.”
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We enjoy the process of creating a theme from its start to its end – from a sparkling design idea, to the very release..
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Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)
Philly archdiocesan officials have scheduled a “healing mass” for tomorrow at Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.
At worst, this is a cynical public relations move. At best, it misses the mark.
Chaput’s focus should be on real reforms that actually make kids safer, not symbolic gestures that make him seem nicer or that make a few adults temporarily feel better.
Chaput’s first job should be protecting the vulnerable. And much remains to be done on this front.
He should discipline – publicly and harshly – those who hid or ignored clergy sex crimes, to deter such irresponsible behavior in the first place.
He should support – not oppose – reforming Pennsylvania’ secular child safety laws, especially the archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations.
He should house – in remote, secure, independent treatment centers – every proven, admitted or suspended and credibly accused child molesting cleric, so that kids will be safer.
We could go on and on and on.
Quite frankly, adults can heal themselves, with or without action by Chaput. (It certainly helps when church officials provide therapy to victims of course.) But kids need the archbishop to take strong action to protect them from child molesting clerics.
Consider the continuing reckless secrecy and delays in the case of Fr. John P. Paul, whose status as a credibly accused child molester was finally, disclosed in February.
In October or November of last year (perhaps even earlier), Philly Catholic officials received reports of alleged child sex crimes against Fr. Paul. But church officials apparently kept quiet. On November 6, Fr. Paul resigned, (“He came to that decision of his own accord during the course of the Archdiocesan investigation regarding this alleged abuse,” Chaput claims.)
At the time, Fr. Paul claimed he was “considering a serious road trip for ‘renewal’ purposes.” Again, Philly church officials apparently kept silent, letting an accused child molester’s lie stand.
Finally, in November, Philly church officials admitted, to one parish, that Fr. Paul was suspended for credible allegations of child sex abuse crimes. Weeks later, Philly church officials told the public and the rest of their flock that Fr. Paul was suspended for credible allegations of child sex abuse crimes.
Shame on Chaput for not explaining why he 1) kept child sex abuse allegations secret for months, 2) let one of his priests lie to his flock, 3) telling only one parish about Fr. Paul first, and 4) waiting until several months later to tell the public about Fr. Paul.
When it comes to “job one” – the safety of kids – Chaput is moving backwards, not forward.
Chaput claims that he “decided to restrict Father Paul’s ministry so that he would have no unsupervised contact with minors pending the outcome of the internal Archdiocesan investigation that was in progress.” But that’s what Catholic officials have said, for decades, to justify their irresponsible secrecy in clergy sex cases. It’s reckless to ask one or two or three Catholic employees to try to keep an accused child molester away from kids.
We challenge Chaput to disclose which church employees he assigned to “watch” Fr. Paul and tell us exactly how they performed this impossible task. And we want Chaput to disclose how many other church employees are currently “watching” other suspected child molesters while secrecy is being maintained and alleged criminals are still on the job while so-called church ‘investigators’ creep along at a glacial pace.
That kind of action is what truly safeguards kids, not gestures like “healing” masses.
(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)
Why Child Abuse Victims Don’t “Just Get Over It”
/in impact, Resources /by SOL Reformhttp://tzedek-tzedek.blogspot.
Why Child Abuse Victims Don’t “Just Get Over It”
Hawaii: Bills may give more victims chance for justice
/in Hawaii, Hawaii Window /by SOL ReformHAWAII
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 23, 2014
From today’s Hawaii Star-Advertiser:
Bills seek more time to file suit
Expanding the current two-year window, which expires next month, is unfair to
the accused entities, critics argue
By Derrick DePledge
POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Mar 23, 2014
“Did you know these men?”
The question appeared in an ad in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser last Sunday that
showed old black-and-white photographs of three Roman Catholic priests linked to
child sexual abuse.
Mark Gallagher, a Kailua attorney, and Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn.,
attorney, are searching for possible victims of child sexual abuse before a
unique two-year window to file civil claims for decades-old misconduct closes on
April 24.
–
http://theworthyadversary.com/2830-hawaii-bills-may-give-more-victims-chance-for-justice
———————————–
Chaput apologizes for church’s role in sex abuse scandal
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformBy Bob Warner, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: March 23, 2014
PHILADELPHIA Archbishop Charles J. Chaput apologized Saturday to victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy and referred to “the negligence of the church’s pastors” in allowing it to occur.
“I apologize on behalf of the church,” Chaput said in his homily at a late-afternoon “Mass for Healing for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” attended by some 250 people.
Similar Masses have been held elsewhere for victims of clergy sex abuse, but this was the first in Philadelphia, coming at a time when the archdiocese and Chaput have been strongly criticized by some groups of victims.
Chaput’s formal public apology on behalf of the church, as opposed to past acknowledgments of wrongdoing and personal responsibility, struck at least one person who attended as something new.
“I thought it was significant that he was talking about it and acknowledging the church had been wrong, talking about the church being in need of repentance,” said a woman who said she was a victim and asked not to be identified.
“That’s something I think has been missing.”
“We need to repent and ask the forgiveness of those who have suffered,” Chaput said. “We ask God in His mercy to lift up the victims and also lift up the rest of the church.”
Kenneth Gavin, the archdiocese’s director of communications, said it was not the first time that Chaput had apologized for the church’s responsibility in the sex-abuse scandal.
“The archbishop has publicly apologized before on several occasions, as did his predecessors,” Gavin said, referring to Cardinal Justin Rigali.
The archdiocese had invited more than 200 people who had identified themselves as victims of sexual abuse by priests in Philadelphia and the four suburban counties. The Mass was open to the public, and there was no way to tell how many of those in attendance were victims.
Outside the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, about 20 victims and their families protested the Mass and refused to attend, saying the archdiocese and Chaput had done too little, too late.
One of the protesters was State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat who has been trying to extend the state’s statute of limitations to permit criminal prosecution of child abusers whenever their victims choose to come forward, and to provide a window for victims to file civil lawsuits, whenever the abuse occurred.
The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, a powerful Harrisburg lobby led by Chaput, has opposed the bills, Rozzi said.
“You would think an organization that preaches taking care of its own would step up and take responsibility,” Rozzi said. “The church is turning its back on victims.”
Chaput is leaving for Rome on Sunday, part of a delegation including Gov. Corbett and Mayor Nutter that hopes to persuade Pope Francis to visit Philadelphia for the World Meetings of Families in September 2015.
David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national organization, criticized the Mass in advance in a statement Friday.
“At worst this is a cynical public relations move,” Clohessy said. “At best it misses the mark.”
Two recent situations came in for particular criticism.
One was the disclosure late last year that Chaput had allowed a priest at Our Lady of Calvary Parish in Northeast Philadelphia, the Rev. John P. Paul, 67, to keep working, without any notice to the parish, for nearly a year after abuse allegations were lodged against him.
Paul was allowed to announce in November that he was retiring voluntarily. He was permanently removed from the ministry last month after an archdiocesan review board substantiated a claim that he had sexually abused a teenager more than 40 years ago.
“They made a choice to leave him in the ministry during the investigation,” said Susan Matthews, a writer who follows the archdiocese for her blog, Catholics4change.com. “They notified the principal but not the parents. . . . That’s not transparent and accountable.”
The other situation involved the archdiocese ending an eight-year-old practice of paying parochial-school tuition bills for the children of a small number of clergy sex-abuse victims.
Several victims and advocates told The Inquirer they had never been told about the program, even though the archdiocese had described it in literature outlining their services for sex-abuse victims.
warnerb@phillynews.com
215-854-5885
@bobwarner1
Give me 10 Hail Marys and some good advice
/in New Jersey /by SOL ReformOur Team Members
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformWe enjoy the process of creating a theme from its start to its end – from a sparkling design idea, to the very release..
Victims blast Catholic healing mass
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL Reform