Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church: don’t forget about the female victims
By Lotte Kamphuis
The Roman Catholic Church has been dealing with revelations of mental, physical and sexual abuse of minors since the end of the twentieth century. On a worldwide scale, the abuse of boys by priests and other male religious have become apparent. Yet, the abuse of girls within the Catholic Church is less highlighted. Recently this topic has been subject of considerable discussion in the Netherlands.
“I remember that if we did not like the food, we were thrown on the floor and they would force the food into your mouth. If you vomited, they made you eat that as well. They also hit with sticks. It was only abuse abuse abuse,” says Els Mulkens, on the Dutch talk show Pauw&Witteman. As a young girl, Mulkens lived at a Catholic boarding school. Here she experienced different forms of abuse and humiliation by the nuns.
Mulkens’ story motivated the Dutch authors Danielle Hermans and Esther Verhoef to launch the book Stil in mij. Overleven bij de nonnen (translation: Silent in me. Surviving with the nuns) in May 2014. The book contains interviews with women who were mentally, physically and sexually abused by nuns in their childhood. It aims to raise more awareness about these abuses and to stimulate other women to come forward with their stories. The current point of discussion in the Netherlands is why there is considerably less attention and acknowledgment for the abuse of girls than for the abuse of boys within the Roman Catholic Church.
All around the world
The Netherlands has been one of the many nations across the world where cases of abuse of minors within the Roman Catholic Church have been reported. The list of countries is extensive and covers each continent, except for Antarctica. On a global scale, more men than women have been victims of abuse. North America has the highest number of reported abuse cases. In Europe the abuse scandal has affected dioceses in a significant amount of nations, with Ireland at the top. This country is also characterized by a scandal concerning the maltreatment of girls by nuns. Allegations varying from corporal punishment, emotional abuse and sexual abuse of children have been made against institutions managed by the Sisters of Mercy.
At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century most Dutch cases came to the surface. The incidents of abuse in the Netherlands mainly occurred between the 50s and the 80s, in the last century. Particularly back in the days, the Catholic Church had a high social status and was almost sacrosanct. For decades the institute failed to take adequate action to prevent abuse. Accusations were swept under the carpet and there was little attention for the victims. The abuse of minors could continue undisturbed. Since the accusations in most recent years, some cases were settled internally or redeemed by those involved and other cases came to trial. Nowadays, the Catholic Church is still not open about this taboo subject and even though they are not ignorant of the problem of abuse, the institute wishes to remain silent and victims themselves have to come forward to report abuse. For many victims it is extremely difficult to pluck up the necessary courage to do so.
Investigation
In 2010, an increasing amount of sexual abuse complaints in the Dutch Roman Catholic Church were filed. On the request of the ecclesiastical authorities, an independent inquiry by the Assessment and Advisory Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church (De Commissie Deetman) was set up to investigate sexual abuse of minors from 1945 to 2010. Their first report was published in December 2011. According to this document, approximately several tens of thousands of victims have reported sexual abuse by people working in the Roman Catholic Church. Experiences range from mild to severe abuse, and most children were between six and 14 at the time of the abuse. The commission of inquiry pointed the Catholic Church to its moral duties of assisting people who suffered from abuse by perpetrators working in the institute. It recommended acknowledging complaints, providing aid to victims and executing financial compensation in order to redress the suffering.
The first report by the commission of inquiry was well received, but also criticized for underrepresenting violence and abuse against girls. “Both men and women could report themselves, but the research only involved sexual abuse. In the media it seemed that only men reported abuse, so it was harder for women to encourage themselves to file a complaint as well. You can’t really blame the commission of inquiry for this. On the other side, there was too little attention for physical and mental abuse. Only later on it was possible to report such a complaint as well,” says Pastoral Psychologist Anke Bisschops.
In March 2013 a second report followed, focusing on mental, physical and sexual abuse of girls within the Catholic Church. The commission of inquiry advised the Catholic Church to acknowledge the women that were severely abused and to compensate them. In response to the second report, the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands apologized to all women who have been abused in their childhood. The second report could also count on criticism. Authors Hermans and Verhoef and the Women’s Platform for Ecclesiastical Child Abuse (VPKK) argue that not all complaints of abuse are correctly represented or are even omitted in the report. The report also focuses most on mental, physical and sexual abuse of girls by nuns in orphanages and boarding schools and less on the abuse of girls by men with a position in the Catholic Church. In addition, the commission did not find a lot of archival material and the number of complaints was very low. The limited exposure of the call for reports in the media and the remarkably short time of 40 days to report an abuse case are possible reasons for this, according to VPKK.
VPKK spokesperson Annemie Knibbe: “There are good aspects to the report. But if you read it, you see that they failed in making both sides be heard. The complaints are brought down, attenuated, changed and some parts were taken out by the influence of the other side. They didn’t use their sources properly. Besides, an e-mail inbox has been open to complaints for seven weeks, but half of the target group is composed of women around the age of 65 who have no Internet. There was also little publicity for the call. To be honest, I don’t know why this happened.” In a press release, the commission of inquiry asked authors Hermans and Verhoef to substantiate their criticism and why they never contacted the commission for rebuttal. Because of the abolition of the commission of inquiry, they were not available for additional comments.
Lack of clarity
While more and more stories come to light, the abuse of girls is rarely spoken of. There is not one cause to blame, but various factors play a part in this. According to authors Hermans and Verhoef, one of the reasons the subject has been insufficiently highlighted is that women are less inclined than men to come forward with their abusive past. “By their very nature, many women blame themselves. They think that they facilitated the abuse,” says Verhoef on the Dutch television channel RTV OOST. Hermans adds: “Some women also don’t want to burden their children and families with this history.” Emeritus professor Francien Lamers-Winkelman adds that this not only counts for girls that are abused by nuns: “Almost all child victims feel guilty about abuse and they don’t want to burden their families with it.”
According to Knibbe, there are differences between men and women in coping with their abusive past. “Research has shown that when women find themselves in a hard position, they look for support by confidants, like friends and family. Men on the other side tackle the problem by confrontation.” Bisschops adds: “Many men didn’t talk with anyone about their abuse. For them it is a highly charged issue, as homosexuality was involved. They therefore lived in silence for a longer time than women, as these already started talking with confidants. When there was more publicity around the abuses in the Catholic Church and people were finally believed, men stood up and they gained a stage for their anger. Women never took that stage and therefore never got it.” It can be deduced that when women are less inclined to make an official complaint, the number of known abuse cases will be smaller and inevitably the group can count on less attention.
Controversies around different types of abuse play another role. One is that boys were confronted more often with sexual abuse, whereas girls had to deal more with severe violence. Bisschops: “The separation of the sexes back in the days led to boys only being in contact with male religious authorities and girls with female religious authorities. As it happens, men committed more sexual abuse than women, as they do not share that desire as much. Both male and female religious officials have had a horrible education. This made men vent their sexual desires and women act sadistically. This is not so much transmitted to sex. In a way it is less ‘spectacular’ to hear about mental and physical abuse than of sexual abuse, but it is as harmful for minors. The abuse of boys was something new. There has been more knowledge about the abuse of girls. So the first is in a way more shocking and sensational.”
In addition, there seems to be a taboo that women are not abusers; men are. “The ultimate taboo is actually, and it is never expressed like this, that women are ‘a-sexual creatures’ and therefore by definition not capable of abuse”, says Lamers-Winkelman. Bisschops adds: “It could be that people think, what a woman has done to a child can never be that horrific. Men are thought of as more brutal and less empathic than women. These are just speculations, because it is well know that women can be cruel.” Sexual abuse of girls by women is also taboo: “Women that abuse girls are also homosexual. This is still a sensitive issue,” Lamers-Winkelman says.
Lamers-Winkelman stresses that even though more boys are confronted with abuse within the Catholic Church, “in the clinical practice, the proportion of minor male and female victims is almost equal.” The abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is therefore not a representation of society.
A deadline to justice
Since the publication of the book by Hermans and Verhoef, there is a decrease in the reporting of child abuse by female victims. This achievement is overshadowed by the planned shut down of the Notification Center for Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church (Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik Rooms-Katholieke Kerk) on the 1st of July, 2014. Both male and female victims of sexual, physical and mental abuse can report their complaints here. In addition, the center provides victims with information, advice, guidance and help regarding the handling of sexual abuse. The VPPK worries that closing the center will turn out to dissuade the women who finally feel encouraged to come forward with their abuse complaints.
The date of July 1st is chosen with the philosophy that a limit has to be imposed somewhere. “This is a complicated matter. On the one side, you can’t keep the foundation alive forever. Besides, imposing a time limit stimulates people to file their complaints now. However, for me the counter argument is more important. Many people are ashamed; they still suffer from the abuse and are afraid to come forward with it. These people need more time. It shouldn’t happen that precisely these people, that are most damaged, will be blocked,” Bisschops says.
When the notification center closes, the task remains to ensure that justice will be done for victims. Bisschops keeps a positive outlook: “People mostly need help and this is offered by victims’ associations. As an individual you can also call on the responsibility of a superior in the Catholic Church, you don’t need a notification center for that. These people do have a pastoral heart and it would be callous if they said, ‘Sorry, you should have come up with this a month ago’. In addition, there are nowadays mediation procedures for victims and perpetrators outside of the notification center.”
For victim Mulkens, there is no sense of achievement to get out of her complaint. The Catholic boarding school where she spent her childhood no longer exists and it is therefore hard to do her justice. She is disappointed: “You can come forward with a complaint in order to register for help. But that’s it.” Nevertheless she is not waiting for gestures from the Roman Catholic Church. “I wouldn’t want to accept a financial compensation anyway,” Mulkens says. “It is all so easy. Authorities should have intervened sooner. The outside world knew about it and they turned away from it. That cannot be solved with an apology. You cannot change our youth with that. It has already been destroyed.”
Unlike Mulkens, there are also female victims that are satisfied with receiving an ecclesiastical apology and financial compensation. Victims have suffered for decades from the effects of abuse, but the suffering cannot be undone. Recently, a new climate has been created for women to come forward with their abusive past. Continual recognition by peers and responsibility being taken by the Catholic Church and society remains important for these women.
Lotte is a cross-media journalist based in Amsterdam. She previously studied in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Denmark, and worked for various organizations including Amnesty International, Aarhus University and Student Reporter.
