Maltreatment during childhood can lead to long-term changes in brain circuits that process fear, researchers say. This could help explain why children who suffer abuse are much more likely than others to develop problems like anxiety and depression later on.
Brain scans of teenagers revealed weaker connections between the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus in both boys and girls who had been maltreated as children, a team from the University of Wisconsin in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Girls who had been maltreated also had relatively weak connections between the prefrontal cortex the amygdala.
Those weaker connections “actually mediated or led to the development of anxiety and depressive symptoms by late adolescence,” says , a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin and one of the study’s authors.
Maltreatment can be physical or emotional, and it ranges from mild to severe. So the researchers asked a group of 64 fairly typical 18-year-olds to answer a questionnaire designed to assess childhood trauma. The teens are part of a larger that has been tracking children’s social and emotional development in more than 500 families since 1994.
The participants were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements like, “When I was growing up I didn’t have enough to eat,” or “My parents were too drunk or high to take care of the family,” or “Somebody in my family hit me so hard that it left me with bruises or marks.”
There were also statements about emotional and sexual abuse. The responses indicated that some had been maltreated in childhood while others hadn’t.
All of the participants had their brains scanned using a special type of MRI to measure the strength of connections among three areas of the brain involved in processing fear.
One area is the prefrontal cortex, which orchestrates our thoughts and actions, Herringa says. Another is the amygdala, which is “the brain’s emotion and fear center,” he says, and triggers the “fight or flight” response when we encounter something scary.
Herringa says messages from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex are often balanced by input from a third area, the hippocampus, which helps decide whether something is truly dangerous. “So, for example, if you’re at home watching a scary movie at night, the hippocampus can tell the prefrontal cortex that you’re at home, this is just a movie, that’s no reason to go into a full fight or flight response or freak out,” Herringa says.
At least that’s what usually happens when there’s a strong connection between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, and the fear circuitry is working correctly.
But Herringa says brain scans showed that in adolescents who had been maltreated as children, the connection with the hippocampus was relatively weak. He says in girls who had been maltreated, the connection with the amygdala was weak, too.
That suggests the fear circuitry wasn’t working the way it should, Herringa says. The result seems to explain something he sees in many young patients with anxiety and depression and a history of maltreatment. “These kids seem to be afraid everywhere,” he says. “It’s like they’ve lost the ability to put a contextual limit on when they’re going to be afraid and when they’re not.”
The finding that girls have weaker connections to two areas of the brain, not just one, could help explain why they seem to be more sensitive than boys to maltreatment, Herringa says.
The results of the new study are important because they suggest better ways to diagnose and treat mental problems related to maltreatment, says , a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh.
“Maltreatment is a disorder where often people are not even aware of the extent of their symptoms,” Siegle says. So having an objective test would be “a significant advance,” he says.
The study also shows that brain researchers are making some progress in their quest to make mental health care more like physical health care, where objective tests confirm a diagnosis and measure the effectiveness of treatment, Siegle says.
“In psychiatry, in psychology, we very rarely have those tests because we just don’t know the biological and brain mechanisms,” he says. “This study is starting to get at what mechanisms we should be looking at.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-11-06 22:24:382013-11-06 22:24:38Childhood Maltreatment Can Leave Scars In The Brain (NPR)
The Catholic Church has a troubling track record of tucking its problems out of sight. It’s common for priests accused of molesting children to be shuffled to new parishes, allowing church leaders to ignore them.
The latest example: The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller reported Sunday that a number of priests — including some stripped of robes and collars after the church found accusations of abuse to be credible — were sent to a retirement home in Rutherford, right next to two Catholic schools. That follows other reports of accused priests who chaperoned youth retreats or taught in parish schools, each under the supposed supervision of church hierarchy.
Those are the acts of an organization and leadership that believe they are immune from consequences.
Were it not for expired statutes of limitations — which often ran out before young victims could report their abusers to authorities or even understand the full consequences of those attacks — many of these men might have faced prison, not retirement. That escape hatch closed in 1996, when New Jersey eliminated the time limit for criminal charges.
In New Jersey, sex abuse victims have just two years to sue after linking abuse to other problems, such as depression or divorce. That’s not enough.
What about holding the church accountable for allowing abuse? A statute of limitations has blocked that, too. In New Jersey, sex abuse victims have just two years to sue after linking abuse to other problems, such as depression, addiction or divorce. That’s not enough.
Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) has proposed a bill to extend that to 30 years. How do we know it would make a difference? Because the church has fought so hard to kill it, with powerful lobbyists and competing legislation.
When the new legislative session begins in January, Vitale’s bill should be a priority.
Victims of childhood sex abuse require greater care and time — time to remember the crime and decide to act. Their ability to sue is about justice, not money. For most, lawsuits may be their only remedy against not only their abuser, but also the organization that enabled the abuse. The right to sue should be expanded, not constrained.
Priest sex-abuse scandals have already cost the Catholic church $2.5 billion nationwide. With an already tiny window for lawsuits, the church has a financial stake in staying silent as long as possible. The clock shouldn’t be allowed to run out so quickly.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-11-05 20:17:362013-11-05 20:17:36Great oped in NJ!
Church spent heavily to prevent expansion of time limit for lawsuits by childhood sexual abuse victims.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was at the forefront of extensive lobbying against efforts to expand the time limit for lawsuits by victims of childhood sexual abuse, according to a document obtained by the Star Tribune.
An internal accounting analysis prepared by the archdiocese shows that the lobbying association known as the Minnesota Religious Council received more than $800,000 from the Catholic Church during a seven-year period ending in the middle of 2008. A similar analysis was not available for subsequent years, but state lobbying records show the council spent more than $425,000 on lobbyists from 2006 through 2012.
Lobbying records also show the council doubled its lobbying force to six individuals on March 22, 2013, just weeks before the passage of the Child Victims Act. That law eliminated the statute of limitation for child sexual abuse cases going forward. It also created a three-year window for litigation of many previously barred claims in cases where churches, schools and other institutions failed to provide protection to children.
Since the law took effect in late May, at least 18 lawsuits seeking damages for sex abuse have been filed against Minnesota Catholic clergy and leaders.
Jim Accurso, a spokesman for the archdiocese, acknowledged that the archdiocese funded much of the costs of the Minnesota Religious Council, which he described as “a broad coalition of Minnesota churches from many denominations, led by a Lutheran pastor, that has worked together for common causes for many years. More importantly, all of the churches that are part of the MRC have a deep heartfelt commitment to creating and maintaining safe environments and protecting minors. This is within the core of all of our faiths.
“The Minnesota Religious Council was at the forefront of the effort to expand protections for all victims of child sexual abuse,” Accurso said. “We worked hard to make sure all faith groups were represented at the table … and we were successful.”
He also said the council had interest in “many other issues” besides the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits.
The Rev. Karen Bockelman, the Lutheran pastor currently listed as director of the Minnesota Religious Council, said in an interview last week that the council’s main focus has been on litigation issues involving childhood sexual abuse. She said the council has not met recently and has no plans to meet.
Meanwhile, the cleric who leads the largest non-Catholic partner of the Minnesota Religious Council told the Star Tribune that local bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were not consulted on lobbying expenditures. Nor was the ELCA asked to participate in any decisionmaking on lobbying, said the Rev. Peter Rogness, bishop of the ELCA’s St. Paul Area Synod.
Rogness said that while he and other ELCA bishops were not aware of the full scope of lobbying by the council, he supported the council’s opposition this year to a broad lifting of the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases.
He said the ELCA’s concern, shared by many large institutions that deal with children, was that very old claims could be brought on vague levels of proof.
An intense lobbying battle
The bill’s chief Senate author, Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, and state Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, who carried the measure in the House, criticized Catholic leaders last week in separate interviews. Latz said years of lobbying by the archdiocese contradict the church’s recent expressions of sympathy and outrage on behalf of boys and girls who were abused by priests.
“They want the public to believe they are very caring about something, but behind the scenes they are very actively opposing the kind of steps or remedies or legislation that would hold them accountable for their conduct,” Latz said.
Cristine Almeida, who fought for passage of the Minnesota Child Victims Act as lead lobbyist for the National Center for Victims of Crime, said both sides employed an equal number of lobbyists, on the issue, and each side added more lobbyists in the session’s final weeks. Among those hired by the Minnesota Religious Council were longtime Capitol fixture Ted Grindal and Cullen Sheehan, who ran Norm Coleman’s last U.S. Senate campaign.
Almeida said she considered the archdiocese the principal force behind the council. One of its tactics, she said, was to try to amend the bill with language that would have disabled it — including a proposed amendment to hold institutions harmless for abuse by offenders they employ.
Dan Connolly, a lobbyist for the Minnesota Religious Council, said at a hearing this year that the group did not oppose expanding the statute of limitations for perpetrators, “because they know the facts.” But the organizations facing lawsuits “very rarely know the facts” and are defenseless, he said.
On Feb. 28, Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, proposed an amendment to keep the six-year statute of limitations, unless the victim had reported the claim to law enforcement or had physical evidence (like DNA).
“I want the plaintiffs to have their day in court,” Ortman said at the hearing. “But I also want the defendants to have some certainty to when the claim can end. They have a business to run.”
Latz opposed the proposal. “No 5-year-old or 6-year-old says I better save my underwear for years later when I am psychologically ready to deal with this,” he said.
Ortman, now a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, withdrew the amendment. The Senate passed the final measure unanimously and the House by all but three votes.
McDonough criticized
In addition to the Minnesota Religious Council, House members say the Rev. Kevin McDonough, the former vicar general of the archdiocese, personally lobbied them to maintain the statute of limitations. McDonough, who has come under fire for his handling of clergy sex abuse investigations for the archdiocese, resigned from the board of the University of St. Thomas last month in connection with a suit filed against a Catholic studies professor there.
“He was forceful in trying to kill this piece of legislation,” Simon said.
Some of those meetings occurred in 2007 or 2008, when McDonough was Senate chaplain. At one of those meetings, Simon remembers McDonough telling him that an expanded statute of limitation would expose victims to the additional emotional pain of retelling their story of abuse.
“I thought it was totally inappropriate and borderline offensive,” Simon said.
Accurso said McDonough disclosed his “long history of involvement with the Minnesota Religious Council” in 2007, when he was nominated to serve as Senate chaplain. At the time, McDonough agreed not to lobby any senators while he was chaplain, and McDonough stuck to that, Accurso said. His term expired in 2010.
In the weeks before the Child Victims Act passed this year, McDonough tried to persuade Rep. John Lesch, D-St. Paul, to vote against it.
“He just said it would be very problematic for what they were trying to do [to help victims],” said Lesch, a prosecutor for the city of St. Paul who once studied to be a Catholic priest.
Lesch said he told McDonough that he couldn’t support the church’s position because he saw institutional coverups of child abuse while in the seminary and manipulation of young people by adults.
“This is how the church has been since I’ve been alive,” Lesch said.
Money funded lobbying
A document from the archdiocese detailed $830,145 in church spending to support the Minnesota Religious Council from mid-2001 to mid-2008. A source close to the archdiocese said nearly all of the money went to pay lobbyists working to block the expansion of the statute of limitations.
A footnote on the document said the archdiocese expected 50 percent of the total $830,145 to be reimbursed by non-Catholic partners in the council. Another reimbursement covering 25 percent of the expense was expected to come from five Catholic dioceses in greater Minnesota — Winona, Crookston, St. Cloud, New Ulm and Duluth, the footnote said.
The analysis showed that reimbursements lagged in every year. By June 30, 2008, the non-Catholic partners owed $201,600 and the outstate dioceses owed $92,100, according to the document. The only documented payment from a non-Catholic partner was $5,000, made by “Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” not the ELCA, in October 2003.
The source said the archdiocese absorbed all expenses that weren’t reimbursed during the 2001-08 time period.
Rogness, the Lutheran bishop, said the first time he heard of any ELCA obligation to pay for lobbyists hired by the Minnesota Religious Council was “very recently,” from Bockelman. “We’ve never received a bill,” Rogness said. “None of us have it in our budget.”
Said Accurso: “It looks to me like a communication breakdown.” Accurso said the Minnesota Religious Council was formed 20 years ago when victim advocates won a change in state law that was favorable to litigants. He said the creation of the council has allowed for “all religious faiths, institutions and schools” to be at the table when state legislation that affects them is considered.
Baird Helgeson contributed to this report. Tony Kennedy • 612-673-4213
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-11-05 15:54:372014-01-07 23:26:48And MN still passed a window. Fighting access to justice is evil.
Albany diocese ordered to turn over clergy abuse files
Albany diocese must surrender information, but judge seals it
By Brendan J. Lyons
Updated 11:23 am, Saturday, November 2, 2013
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has been ordered by a federal judge to turn over nearly 40 years worth of clergy abuse files to a Warren County man who is suing the diocese and a priest who raped him as a young boy.
It’s the first time the Albany diocese has been ordered by a court to fully disclose itsconfidential files on priests and other employees accused of sexual abuse. But the ruling by U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III includes a sealing order that, for now, will keep the records from being made public. The sealing order was requested by the diocese and Gary J. Mercure, an imprisoned Albany priest who is accused of systematically raping and abusing altar boys for years.
The order requires the diocese to turn over its internal records on sexual abuse by priests and other employees dating to 1975.
“This is the first time the diocese has been ordered to turn over 38 years of records involving individuals — current and former clergy and employees, and even those who have made complaints of sexual abuse — who have absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand,” saidKenneth Goldfarb, a spokesman for the diocese. “The diocese sought a protective order because, surely, the privacy rights of these individuals warrant the same protection that the federal court already granted to Gary Mercure by issuing a protective order for his files.”
The decision was handed down in a lawsuit filed by a 37-year-old man who said he was raped by Mercure in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont beginning in the early 1980s when he was about 8 years old. The victim filed his lawsuit against the diocese and Mercure in Vermont because New York’s statute of limitations prevented any claim or criminal action here.
The victim’s identity is being withheld by the Times Union under a policy not to identify victims of rape or sexual abuse without their consent.
For two years, the diocese waged a fierce legal battle to have the case dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, arguing they had no legal ties to Vermont. They lost that argument but have now prevailed on their motion to keep secret, at least for now, possibly thousands of pages of clergy abuse files that will be turned over to the victim’s Vermont attorney.
“At this point, the court will grant the diocese’s request for a protective order so that the disclosures may be used only by litigants and not shared with others,” Sessions wrote in his decision.
The ruling came three weeks after the Times Union published a story Oct. 13 detailing Mercure’s history of sexual abuse, which dates to the late 1970s, that was outlined in 88 pages from his confidential files. The records were attached to a motion filed by the victim’s attorney,Jerome F. O’Neill of Burlington. O’Neill attached the files to a motion complaining the diocese had heavily redacted the documents before turning them over. The judge, as part of his order this week, directed the diocese to give O’Neill unredacted copies.
Mercure’s attorneys had filed a separate motion, two days before the Times Union’s Oct. 13 story was published, asking the judge to seal Mercure’s files.
“This is the exact reason that defendant Mercure sought a protective order; so that details of his personnel files were not disseminated to the media for the sole purpose of creating a spectacle,” wrote Shannon A. Bertrand, a Vermont attorney handling Mercure’s case.
Sessions ruled the unredacted copies of Mercure’s files must also remain sealed from public scrutiny. “The court will review the issue of disclosure of these documents to the public prior to trial,” the judge said.
The case is scheduled for trial next year unless the diocese, Mercure and the victim reach a settlement.
In 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to release more than 12,000 pages of sexual abuse files as part of a settlement that paid about $660 million to more than 500 victims of clergy abuse. Attorneys for the victims in that case said disclosure of the files was a key part of the settlement.
O’Neill, who represents the victim in Vermont, said: “If we resolve this case we will make every effort to have the records released. However, ultimately, the issue is the client’s. If he decides he wants to resolve the case and that resolving it is more important than having the documents made public, we will have no choice but to follow his dictates.”
Goldfarb said the diocese is still reviewing Session’s ruling.
“The diocese already has complied with the request to turn over more than 50,000 pages of documents in this civil case and earlier cooperated with law enforcement authorities who brought criminal charges against Mercure,” he said. “It was the Albany diocese that first alerted law enforcement authorities to Mercure’s crimes and barred Mercure from priestly ministry in 2008.”
The 50,000 pages Goldfarb referenced were mostly business records disclosed on the argument over jurisdiction, and not clergy abuse files. Mercure’s personnel file was just 563 pages.
However, the judge this week ordered the diocese to turn over additional records on Mercure, including “all reports, reviews, or other internal or external investigations of misconduct by Mercure … (and) all demand letters, correspondence, pleadings, or discovery where a person sought compensation as a result of Mercure’s conduct.”
O’Neill said the judge’s order is unprecedented.
“The court’s order will require that for the first time the diocese produce all documents relating to Mercure,” O’Neill said. “Equally important, for what we believe is the first time ever for this diocese, it will have to produce documents going back to 1975 as to sexual abuse of children in the diocese by other priests and employees. This is important information that the public should see.”
Mercure, 65, was a priest for the Albany diocese from 1974 to 2008, when he was removed from ministry. He has been accused of sexually abusing altar boys he met at parishes in Albany, Queensbury and Glens Falls. The diocese last year petitioned the Vatican to have Mercure removed from priesthood. He was convicted in Massachusetts in 2011 of raping two altar boys — including the alleged victim in the Vermont case — during ski trips to Berkshire County, and sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. He lost an appeal of his conviction.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-11-04 02:08:272013-11-04 02:08:43Until NY window is passed, this info likely remains secret and NY kids at risk
When I was diagnosed with PTSD over my priest rape, I thought it was bull. I believed that the ONLY people whom could be classified as someone with PTSD were soldiers or those in war zones. Then my therapist started explaining to me what a person whom they diagnose with PTSD goes through, what their life is like…it was like they wrote most of that definition for me.
Yet people still think what I went through can simply go away if I just get over it, forgive the priest, forgive the church, forgive those whom harmed me. That if I just forget…somehow this will make me all better.
To those who think this way do you may not realize, for 33 years I hid what that priest did to me. During that time I tried to forget, but it only made matters much, much worse. I felt guilty, I hated myself for what he did to me. I even called myself the Antichrist because of it. I actually took the name of Damien from the Omen series for my name. This is a fact. This is how evil I thought I was for what the priest did to me.
Yes I have spoken out in harsh language and foul words against this, because in my mind, in my heart and soul, nothing is more heinous than raping a child. Nothing deserves more condemnation than the rape or any harm done to a child.
The Church continues to deny us true justice. What is the harm in victims of crime asking for this? Wouldn’t you ask for justice if you were a victim of a crime? I hear it time and time again, that people would just wish we would shut up and go away. That we are Anti-Catholic when we speak out like this, when all we really are is anti-child rape and we seek justice for ourselves and far too many who, when they were children and teens, were harmed in this way. I do not only speak out against anyone in the RCC who do this, but to all who do this. In my eyes, it does not matter what position you hold when you harm a child, be you a priest, minister, teacher, or what have you. You rape a child, you harm a child and I will be all up in your grill.
We have been called liars, we have been told because we did not fight back, we are guilty of what was done to us. Imagine being told this? The thing is, when this is said of other victims of rape, people come to their defense and say how shameful this is. We who speak out about our crimes done to us at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, sadly do not get the same treatment. We are victims of one of the most heinous evils that can be perpetrated against another, so much so that it is spoken of in the Catechism.
“Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.” (no. 2356)
How can anyone expect a victim of such an evil act ever come to the point of healing, of forgiveness for those whom committed these crimes against us when we hear these things said about us? If YOU wish for us to forgive you, to heal from these evils, then you must stand with us not against us. All we ask for is justice? Is that wrong? Would YOU not want the same for someone you loved and was going through this?
I onced loved the RCC with all of my heart and soul. When I was a young boy taking my Catechism and doing my First Communion…I was hooked to the beauty and the mysticism and most of all…the love of God and Jesus Christ. That I just had the incredible honor of having my first Communion, of taking the Holy Body and Blood of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into me and that meant the world to me at that moment.
That was taken away from me in one night due to the perversities of a priest. How can I forgive this priest, when he himself will not even admit what he did to me? How can I forgive him when the church fights me at every step just to obtain some justice for the crime that was done to me?
So when you hear us survivors of these crimes against us, speak out in anger, pain, and in horror about the evils done to us…do not condemn us…help us…In the name of God and Jesus Christ, help us heal from all of this suffering and pain. In the name of God and Jesus Christ stand up for us. If you wish for us to truly come back, to be fellow followers of God and Jesus Christ, then help us do so by standing for us and not against us. We do not want to destroy your church, we want to clean it from these evils so it can be the church it is supposed to be.
I do not want to hate anymore, I want to heal and forgive those whom committed these crimes against myself and so many others.
In the name of God and Jesus Christ help us heal our pain, help us heal our suffering. Help us.
Frank Laferriere
Berlin
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2013-11-04 00:47:202013-11-04 00:48:54A moving plea for justice so victim can forgive (Berlin Daily Sun)
Childhood Maltreatment Can Leave Scars In The Brain (NPR)
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformChildhood Maltreatment Can Leave Scars In The Brain
http://www.npr.org/blogs/
Maltreatment during childhood can lead to long-term changes in brain circuits that process fear, researchers say. This could help explain why children who suffer abuse are much more likely than others to develop problems like anxiety and depression later on.
Brain scans of teenagers revealed weaker connections between the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus in both boys and girls who had been maltreated as children, a team from the University of Wisconsin in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Girls who had been maltreated also had relatively weak connections between the prefrontal cortex the amygdala.
Those weaker connections “actually mediated or led to the development of anxiety and depressive symptoms by late adolescence,” says , a psychiatrist at the University of Wisconsin and one of the study’s authors.
Maltreatment can be physical or emotional, and it ranges from mild to severe. So the researchers asked a group of 64 fairly typical 18-year-olds to answer a questionnaire designed to assess childhood trauma. The teens are part of a larger that has been tracking children’s social and emotional development in more than 500 families since 1994.
The participants were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with statements like, “When I was growing up I didn’t have enough to eat,” or “My parents were too drunk or high to take care of the family,” or “Somebody in my family hit me so hard that it left me with bruises or marks.”
There were also statements about emotional and sexual abuse. The responses indicated that some had been maltreated in childhood while others hadn’t.
All of the participants had their brains scanned using a special type of MRI to measure the strength of connections among three areas of the brain involved in processing fear.
One area is the prefrontal cortex, which orchestrates our thoughts and actions, Herringa says. Another is the amygdala, which is “the brain’s emotion and fear center,” he says, and triggers the “fight or flight” response when we encounter something scary.
Herringa says messages from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex are often balanced by input from a third area, the hippocampus, which helps decide whether something is truly dangerous. “So, for example, if you’re at home watching a scary movie at night, the hippocampus can tell the prefrontal cortex that you’re at home, this is just a movie, that’s no reason to go into a full fight or flight response or freak out,” Herringa says.
At least that’s what usually happens when there’s a strong connection between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, and the fear circuitry is working correctly.
But Herringa says brain scans showed that in adolescents who had been maltreated as children, the connection with the hippocampus was relatively weak. He says in girls who had been maltreated, the connection with the amygdala was weak, too.
That suggests the fear circuitry wasn’t working the way it should, Herringa says. The result seems to explain something he sees in many young patients with anxiety and depression and a history of maltreatment. “These kids seem to be afraid everywhere,” he says. “It’s like they’ve lost the ability to put a contextual limit on when they’re going to be afraid and when they’re not.”
The finding that girls have weaker connections to two areas of the brain, not just one, could help explain why they seem to be more sensitive than boys to maltreatment, Herringa says.
The results of the new study are important because they suggest better ways to diagnose and treat mental problems related to maltreatment, says , a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh.
“Maltreatment is a disorder where often people are not even aware of the extent of their symptoms,” Siegle says. So having an objective test would be “a significant advance,” he says.
The study also shows that brain researchers are making some progress in their quest to make mental health care more like physical health care, where objective tests confirm a diagnosis and measure the effectiveness of treatment, Siegle says.
“In psychiatry, in psychology, we very rarely have those tests because we just don’t know the biological and brain mechanisms,” he says. “This study is starting to get at what mechanisms we should be looking at.”
New Jersey Capitol Report Ep. 330
/in New Jersey /by SOL Reform.
Great oped in NJ!
/in New Jersey /by SOL ReformExtend statute of limitations for child victims of sex abuse: Editorial
The Catholic Church has a troubling track record of tucking its problems out of sight. It’s common for priests accused of molesting children to be shuffled to new parishes, allowing church leaders to ignore them.
The latest example: The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller reported Sunday that a number of priests — including some stripped of robes and collars after the church found accusations of abuse to be credible — were sent to a retirement home in Rutherford, right next to two Catholic schools. That follows other reports of accused priests who chaperoned youth retreats or taught in parish schools, each under the supposed supervision of church hierarchy.
Those are the acts of an organization and leadership that believe they are immune from consequences.
Were it not for expired statutes of limitations — which often ran out before young victims could report their abusers to authorities or even understand the full consequences of those attacks — many of these men might have faced prison, not retirement. That escape hatch closed in 1996, when New Jersey eliminated the time limit for criminal charges.
What about holding the church accountable for allowing abuse? A statute of limitations has blocked that, too. In New Jersey, sex abuse victims have just two years to sue after linking abuse to other problems, such as depression, addiction or divorce. That’s not enough.
Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) has proposed a bill to extend that to 30 years. How do we know it would make a difference? Because the church has fought so hard to kill it, with powerful lobbyists and competing legislation.
When the new legislative session begins in January, Vitale’s bill should be a priority.
Victims of childhood sex abuse require greater care and time — time to remember the crime and decide to act. Their ability to sue is about justice, not money. For most, lawsuits may be their only remedy against not only their abuser, but also the organization that enabled the abuse. The right to sue should be expanded, not constrained.
Priest sex-abuse scandals have already cost the Catholic church $2.5 billion nationwide. With an already tiny window for lawsuits, the church has a financial stake in staying silent as long as possible. The clock shouldn’t be allowed to run out so quickly.
And MN still passed a window. Fighting access to justice is evil.
/in Minnesota, MN Post Window /by SOL ReformArchdiocese led lobby to stop abuse law change
Church spent heavily to prevent expansion of time limit for lawsuits by childhood sexual abuse victims.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was at the forefront of extensive lobbying against efforts to expand the time limit for lawsuits by victims of childhood sexual abuse, according to a document obtained by the Star Tribune.
An internal accounting analysis prepared by the archdiocese shows that the lobbying association known as the Minnesota Religious Council received more than $800,000 from the Catholic Church during a seven-year period ending in the middle of 2008. A similar analysis was not available for subsequent years, but state lobbying records show the council spent more than $425,000 on lobbyists from 2006 through 2012.
Lobbying records also show the council doubled its lobbying force to six individuals on March 22, 2013, just weeks before the passage of the Child Victims Act. That law eliminated the statute of limitation for child sexual abuse cases going forward. It also created a three-year window for litigation of many previously barred claims in cases where churches, schools and other institutions failed to provide protection to children.
Since the law took effect in late May, at least 18 lawsuits seeking damages for sex abuse have been filed against Minnesota Catholic clergy and leaders.
Jim Accurso, a spokesman for the archdiocese, acknowledged that the archdiocese funded much of the costs of the Minnesota Religious Council, which he described as “a broad coalition of Minnesota churches from many denominations, led by a Lutheran pastor, that has worked together for common causes for many years. More importantly, all of the churches that are part of the MRC have a deep heartfelt commitment to creating and maintaining safe environments and protecting minors. This is within the core of all of our faiths.
“The Minnesota Religious Council was at the forefront of the effort to expand protections for all victims of child sexual abuse,” Accurso said. “We worked hard to make sure all faith groups were represented at the table … and we were successful.”
He also said the council had interest in “many other issues” besides the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits.
The Rev. Karen Bockelman, the Lutheran pastor currently listed as director of the Minnesota Religious Council, said in an interview last week that the council’s main focus has been on litigation issues involving childhood sexual abuse. She said the council has not met recently and has no plans to meet.
Meanwhile, the cleric who leads the largest non-Catholic partner of the Minnesota Religious Council told the Star Tribune that local bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were not consulted on lobbying expenditures. Nor was the ELCA asked to participate in any decisionmaking on lobbying, said the Rev. Peter Rogness, bishop of the ELCA’s St. Paul Area Synod.
Rogness said that while he and other ELCA bishops were not aware of the full scope of lobbying by the council, he supported the council’s opposition this year to a broad lifting of the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases.
He said the ELCA’s concern, shared by many large institutions that deal with children, was that very old claims could be brought on vague levels of proof.
An intense lobbying battle
The bill’s chief Senate author, Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, and state Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-Hopkins, who carried the measure in the House, criticized Catholic leaders last week in separate interviews. Latz said years of lobbying by the archdiocese contradict the church’s recent expressions of sympathy and outrage on behalf of boys and girls who were abused by priests.
“They want the public to believe they are very caring about something, but behind the scenes they are very actively opposing the kind of steps or remedies or legislation that would hold them accountable for their conduct,” Latz said.
Cristine Almeida, who fought for passage of the Minnesota Child Victims Act as lead lobbyist for the National Center for Victims of Crime, said both sides employed an equal number of lobbyists, on the issue, and each side added more lobbyists in the session’s final weeks. Among those hired by the Minnesota Religious Council were longtime Capitol fixture Ted Grindal and Cullen Sheehan, who ran Norm Coleman’s last U.S. Senate campaign.
Almeida said she considered the archdiocese the principal force behind the council. One of its tactics, she said, was to try to amend the bill with language that would have disabled it — including a proposed amendment to hold institutions harmless for abuse by offenders they employ.
Dan Connolly, a lobbyist for the Minnesota Religious Council, said at a hearing this year that the group did not oppose expanding the statute of limitations for perpetrators, “because they know the facts.” But the organizations facing lawsuits “very rarely know the facts” and are defenseless, he said.
On Feb. 28, Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, proposed an amendment to keep the six-year statute of limitations, unless the victim had reported the claim to law enforcement or had physical evidence (like DNA).
“I want the plaintiffs to have their day in court,” Ortman said at the hearing. “But I also want the defendants to have some certainty to when the claim can end. They have a business to run.”
Latz opposed the proposal. “No 5-year-old or 6-year-old says I better save my underwear for years later when I am psychologically ready to deal with this,” he said.
Ortman, now a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, withdrew the amendment. The Senate passed the final measure unanimously and the House by all but three votes.
McDonough criticized
In addition to the Minnesota Religious Council, House members say the Rev. Kevin McDonough, the former vicar general of the archdiocese, personally lobbied them to maintain the statute of limitations. McDonough, who has come under fire for his handling of clergy sex abuse investigations for the archdiocese, resigned from the board of the University of St. Thomas last month in connection with a suit filed against a Catholic studies professor there.
“He was forceful in trying to kill this piece of legislation,” Simon said.
Some of those meetings occurred in 2007 or 2008, when McDonough was Senate chaplain. At one of those meetings, Simon remembers McDonough telling him that an expanded statute of limitation would expose victims to the additional emotional pain of retelling their story of abuse.
“I thought it was totally inappropriate and borderline offensive,” Simon said.
Accurso said McDonough disclosed his “long history of involvement with the Minnesota Religious Council” in 2007, when he was nominated to serve as Senate chaplain. At the time, McDonough agreed not to lobby any senators while he was chaplain, and McDonough stuck to that, Accurso said. His term expired in 2010.
In the weeks before the Child Victims Act passed this year, McDonough tried to persuade Rep. John Lesch, D-St. Paul, to vote against it.
“He just said it would be very problematic for what they were trying to do [to help victims],” said Lesch, a prosecutor for the city of St. Paul who once studied to be a Catholic priest.
Lesch said he told McDonough that he couldn’t support the church’s position because he saw institutional coverups of child abuse while in the seminary and manipulation of young people by adults.
“This is how the church has been since I’ve been alive,” Lesch said.
Money funded lobbying
A document from the archdiocese detailed $830,145 in church spending to support the Minnesota Religious Council from mid-2001 to mid-2008. A source close to the archdiocese said nearly all of the money went to pay lobbyists working to block the expansion of the statute of limitations.
A footnote on the document said the archdiocese expected 50 percent of the total $830,145 to be reimbursed by non-Catholic partners in the council. Another reimbursement covering 25 percent of the expense was expected to come from five Catholic dioceses in greater Minnesota — Winona, Crookston, St. Cloud, New Ulm and Duluth, the footnote said.
The analysis showed that reimbursements lagged in every year. By June 30, 2008, the non-Catholic partners owed $201,600 and the outstate dioceses owed $92,100, according to the document. The only documented payment from a non-Catholic partner was $5,000, made by “Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” not the ELCA, in October 2003.
The source said the archdiocese absorbed all expenses that weren’t reimbursed during the 2001-08 time period.
Rogness, the Lutheran bishop, said the first time he heard of any ELCA obligation to pay for lobbyists hired by the Minnesota Religious Council was “very recently,” from Bockelman. “We’ve never received a bill,” Rogness said. “None of us have it in our budget.”
Said Accurso: “It looks to me like a communication breakdown.” Accurso said the Minnesota Religious Council was formed 20 years ago when victim advocates won a change in state law that was favorable to litigants. He said the creation of the council has allowed for “all religious faiths, institutions and schools” to be at the table when state legislation that affects them is considered.
Baird Helgeson contributed to this report. Tony Kennedy • 612-673-4213
Until NY window is passed, this info likely remains secret and NY kids at risk
/in New York /by SOL ReformAlbany diocese ordered to turn over clergy abuse files
Albany diocese must surrender information, but judge seals it
By Brendan J. Lyons
Updated 11:23 am, Saturday, November 2, 2013
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has been ordered by a federal judge to turn over nearly 40 years worth of clergy abuse files to a Warren County man who is suing the diocese and a priest who raped him as a young boy.
It’s the first time the Albany diocese has been ordered by a court to fully disclose itsconfidential files on priests and other employees accused of sexual abuse. But the ruling by U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III includes a sealing order that, for now, will keep the records from being made public. The sealing order was requested by the diocese and Gary J. Mercure, an imprisoned Albany priest who is accused of systematically raping and abusing altar boys for years.
The order requires the diocese to turn over its internal records on sexual abuse by priests and other employees dating to 1975.
“This is the first time the diocese has been ordered to turn over 38 years of records involving individuals — current and former clergy and employees, and even those who have made complaints of sexual abuse — who have absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand,” saidKenneth Goldfarb, a spokesman for the diocese. “The diocese sought a protective order because, surely, the privacy rights of these individuals warrant the same protection that the federal court already granted to Gary Mercure by issuing a protective order for his files.”
The decision was handed down in a lawsuit filed by a 37-year-old man who said he was raped by Mercure in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont beginning in the early 1980s when he was about 8 years old. The victim filed his lawsuit against the diocese and Mercure in Vermont because New York’s statute of limitations prevented any claim or criminal action here.
The victim’s identity is being withheld by the Times Union under a policy not to identify victims of rape or sexual abuse without their consent.
For two years, the diocese waged a fierce legal battle to have the case dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, arguing they had no legal ties to Vermont. They lost that argument but have now prevailed on their motion to keep secret, at least for now, possibly thousands of pages of clergy abuse files that will be turned over to the victim’s Vermont attorney.
“At this point, the court will grant the diocese’s request for a protective order so that the disclosures may be used only by litigants and not shared with others,” Sessions wrote in his decision.
The ruling came three weeks after the Times Union published a story Oct. 13 detailing Mercure’s history of sexual abuse, which dates to the late 1970s, that was outlined in 88 pages from his confidential files. The records were attached to a motion filed by the victim’s attorney,Jerome F. O’Neill of Burlington. O’Neill attached the files to a motion complaining the diocese had heavily redacted the documents before turning them over. The judge, as part of his order this week, directed the diocese to give O’Neill unredacted copies.
Mercure’s attorneys had filed a separate motion, two days before the Times Union’s Oct. 13 story was published, asking the judge to seal Mercure’s files.
“This is the exact reason that defendant Mercure sought a protective order; so that details of his personnel files were not disseminated to the media for the sole purpose of creating a spectacle,” wrote Shannon A. Bertrand, a Vermont attorney handling Mercure’s case.
Sessions ruled the unredacted copies of Mercure’s files must also remain sealed from public scrutiny. “The court will review the issue of disclosure of these documents to the public prior to trial,” the judge said.
The case is scheduled for trial next year unless the diocese, Mercure and the victim reach a settlement.
In 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to release more than 12,000 pages of sexual abuse files as part of a settlement that paid about $660 million to more than 500 victims of clergy abuse. Attorneys for the victims in that case said disclosure of the files was a key part of the settlement.
O’Neill, who represents the victim in Vermont, said: “If we resolve this case we will make every effort to have the records released. However, ultimately, the issue is the client’s. If he decides he wants to resolve the case and that resolving it is more important than having the documents made public, we will have no choice but to follow his dictates.”
Goldfarb said the diocese is still reviewing Session’s ruling.
“The diocese already has complied with the request to turn over more than 50,000 pages of documents in this civil case and earlier cooperated with law enforcement authorities who brought criminal charges against Mercure,” he said. “It was the Albany diocese that first alerted law enforcement authorities to Mercure’s crimes and barred Mercure from priestly ministry in 2008.”
The 50,000 pages Goldfarb referenced were mostly business records disclosed on the argument over jurisdiction, and not clergy abuse files. Mercure’s personnel file was just 563 pages.
However, the judge this week ordered the diocese to turn over additional records on Mercure, including “all reports, reviews, or other internal or external investigations of misconduct by Mercure … (and) all demand letters, correspondence, pleadings, or discovery where a person sought compensation as a result of Mercure’s conduct.”
O’Neill said the judge’s order is unprecedented.
“The court’s order will require that for the first time the diocese produce all documents relating to Mercure,” O’Neill said. “Equally important, for what we believe is the first time ever for this diocese, it will have to produce documents going back to 1975 as to sexual abuse of children in the diocese by other priests and employees. This is important information that the public should see.”
Mercure, 65, was a priest for the Albany diocese from 1974 to 2008, when he was removed from ministry. He has been accused of sexually abusing altar boys he met at parishes in Albany, Queensbury and Glens Falls. The diocese last year petitioned the Vatican to have Mercure removed from priesthood. He was convicted in Massachusetts in 2011 of raping two altar boys — including the alleged victim in the Vermont case — during ski trips to Berkshire County, and sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. He lost an appeal of his conviction.
http://www.timesunion.com/
A moving plea for justice so victim can forgive (Berlin Daily Sun)
/in New Hampshire /by SOL ReformI don’t want to hate anymore. Help us forgive
Published Date Wednesday, 30 November -0001 00:00
To the editor,
I speak not from hate, but from hope.
When I was diagnosed with PTSD over my priest rape, I thought it was bull. I believed that the ONLY people whom could be classified as someone with PTSD were soldiers or those in war zones. Then my therapist started explaining to me what a person whom they diagnose with PTSD goes through, what their life is like…it was like they wrote most of that definition for me.
Yet people still think what I went through can simply go away if I just get over it, forgive the priest, forgive the church, forgive those whom harmed me. That if I just forget…somehow this will make me all better.
To those who think this way do you may not realize, for 33 years I hid what that priest did to me. During that time I tried to forget, but it only made matters much, much worse. I felt guilty, I hated myself for what he did to me. I even called myself the Antichrist because of it. I actually took the name of Damien from the Omen series for my name. This is a fact. This is how evil I thought I was for what the priest did to me.
Yes I have spoken out in harsh language and foul words against this, because in my mind, in my heart and soul, nothing is more heinous than raping a child. Nothing deserves more condemnation than the rape or any harm done to a child.
The Church continues to deny us true justice. What is the harm in victims of crime asking for this? Wouldn’t you ask for justice if you were a victim of a crime? I hear it time and time again, that people would just wish we would shut up and go away. That we are Anti-Catholic when we speak out like this, when all we really are is anti-child rape and we seek justice for ourselves and far too many who, when they were children and teens, were harmed in this way. I do not only speak out against anyone in the RCC who do this, but to all who do this. In my eyes, it does not matter what position you hold when you harm a child, be you a priest, minister, teacher, or what have you. You rape a child, you harm a child and I will be all up in your grill.
We have been called liars, we have been told because we did not fight back, we are guilty of what was done to us. Imagine being told this? The thing is, when this is said of other victims of rape, people come to their defense and say how shameful this is. We who speak out about our crimes done to us at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church, sadly do not get the same treatment. We are victims of one of the most heinous evils that can be perpetrated against another, so much so that it is spoken of in the Catechism.
“Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.” (no. 2356)
How can anyone expect a victim of such an evil act ever come to the point of healing, of forgiveness for those whom committed these crimes against us when we hear these things said about us? If YOU wish for us to forgive you, to heal from these evils, then you must stand with us not against us. All we ask for is justice? Is that wrong? Would YOU not want the same for someone you loved and was going through this?
I onced loved the RCC with all of my heart and soul. When I was a young boy taking my Catechism and doing my First Communion…I was hooked to the beauty and the mysticism and most of all…the love of God and Jesus Christ. That I just had the incredible honor of having my first Communion, of taking the Holy Body and Blood of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into me and that meant the world to me at that moment.
That was taken away from me in one night due to the perversities of a priest. How can I forgive this priest, when he himself will not even admit what he did to me? How can I forgive him when the church fights me at every step just to obtain some justice for the crime that was done to me?
So when you hear us survivors of these crimes against us, speak out in anger, pain, and in horror about the evils done to us…do not condemn us…help us…In the name of God and Jesus Christ, help us heal from all of this suffering and pain. In the name of God and Jesus Christ stand up for us. If you wish for us to truly come back, to be fellow followers of God and Jesus Christ, then help us do so by standing for us and not against us. We do not want to destroy your church, we want to clean it from these evils so it can be the church it is supposed to be.
I do not want to hate anymore, I want to heal and forgive those whom committed these crimes against myself and so many others.
In the name of God and Jesus Christ help us heal our pain, help us heal our suffering. Help us.
Frank Laferriere
Berlin