Re: "But if the "innocent" parent does hold back from reporting a crime like this, I would be inclined to hold them somewhat responsible."
Thanks McCullough for your response. Of course, you don't know the whole story, so I'll clarify a little...
Here's the irony of our situation: A body of Elders publicly reproved my mother for not disclosing abuse and then sleeps well at night as they send four victims to the molester's home and don't disclose the abuse to the police. 'Job well done....we protected the congregation.'
That is ridiculous. My mother was abused by my father from the moment they married. He owned her and brainwashed her. My mother was not a co-abuser. I have had 20 years of excellent therapy and I've heard all the psycho-babble crap about how the silent parent "knows" and does nothing, and, of course, there are those sick cases where the Mother does nothing to help her children, calls them liars etc., BUT this did not happen in our situation. Our Mother believed us, condemned him in front of us.
I think our case makes the hall-of-shame top 10 Witness blunders of all time awards.
You want proof: Here's another excerpt from my book: (NOTE: ALL NAMES ARE CHANGED IN Father's Touch EXCEPT FOR MY FAMILY; I'VE ALSO EDITED THIS EXCERPT TO ONLY WHAT IS APPLICABLE TO THIS THREAD; THIS IS ONLY FROM CHAPTER 14 OF A 46 CHAPTER BOOK)
But were the Elders aware that an adult who engages in a sexual act with a child is committing a criminal offense? There was no talk of contacting the police, reporting our disclosure to the Children’s Aid Society, or offers of escape.
How could a twelve-year-old boy know this event would be the beginning of a long series of disclosures, public announcements, hearings, and media attention? I didn’t. The only emotion I remember during that period was sadness over my mother being punished. She was being punished for knowing about the abuse for two years.
Would it have been such a sin to stand up, say, “This is a load of crap!” and walk out of that meeting? Such a blasphemous move would have labeled one a devil’s disciple. We four children believed in this system of discipline, even if we didn’t understand it. How could we know better? The Elders dealt with our problems internally because their perspective was focused on not being a part of the ungodly world.
Separating church and state led to an unspoken taboo against interference and also a desire to stay innocent....In general, though, if someone broke the law of the land, the Elders encouraged the individual to initiate the unwieldy process of settling accounts with the appropriate law enforcement officials....Why had the Elders not encouraged Daniel D’Haene to go to the police? Was not incest also a serious crime?
No doubt the fact that Ronny’s disclosure followed on the heels of ...[another case involving a different crime] ...worked against us..... Four physically healthy children came before him [an Elder] to testify. We were not seen as Daniel’s victims. We were witnesses and participants in a series of sinful acts. More importantly, we were alive—what did we have to complain about? Such was the depth of ignorance of sexual abuse within the Witness society in 1973.
Yet Elder Surin wasn’t completely naïve. He told me, “I warned my wife to keep our children away from your father.”
Did the adult players in this fiasco act out of self-interest? I was a child. What did I know? I wished someone would have taken us away from my father, but I did not understand the legalities of the situation. Outside the looking glass that was my childhood, one could ask why Mother had not taken action to remove us. Were we asking more of the Elders than of her? Perhaps. But Judgment Day seemed far off. Was it so wrong to look to the shepherds of the flock to be our immediate saviors? The Elders were well-educated men. Mother was not. Who had more responsibility?
I know that I associated disclosure with hurtful consequences, unfair punishment. These experiences only encouraged my separation from reality. I was a body without a voice, programmed to be silent, to feel nothing. There was no acknowledgement of my worth. In fact, my public image was negative by association. I was my father’s child. I had hardly begun my life and already the strikes against me were building. Worst of all, a condescending attitude from certain ministers—God’s chosen Elders —fed the feeling that a negative energy was coming to us in an indirect way from God. One traveling Witness overseer told me that from the moment he heard of our being sexually abused, he vowed never to touch another glass or cup in the Kingdom Hall—because it was tainted by, “your father’s touch.”
He was truly horrified by our experience. He always expressed genuine caring for my family—and chose a symbolic act that would signify his personal protest to the abuse, yet he never made an overt gesture of help. He never said, “Get out! Call the police or I will!” His revelation was like an abuse victim of a Catholic priest receiving a get-well card from the Pope. Too little—too late.
Chapter 14, pg 80-81
Copyright 2002, Father's Touch, AMERICAN BOOK PUBLISHING
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MY BOOK: VISIT www.fatherstouch.com
