http://www.sta.si/en/vest.php?id=1660455
27 July 2011
Ljubljana, 27 July (STA) – The daily Dnevnik takes issue with the Slovenian Catholic Church over its claim that it does not report suspected sexual abuse by priests to the police because most of the victims who turn to the Church do not want to report the perpetrator but only want the Church to prevent further abuse.
I tried without success to find more information on what is happening in Slovenia which promted this article (actually it’s only a pasrt of the article – payment is requred to get more. That seems to be the way of the future on the net :()
But, a comment….
We have heard this all before. I certainly have. There is an element of truth to the claim that victims reporting to Church authorities in a diocese do not want to go to police. However, I have concluded that this reluctance of victims to go to police has served the dioceses well, and that, in that vein, rarely, if ever, were efforts made by Church officials to urge those victims to report to police. I also believe that in readily agreeing to maintain silence these Church officials have nurtured in victims the erroneous notion that the feelings of shame regardiung the clerical abuse which they endure is justified.
How different life would be for victims who approach Church officials IF those officials encouraged them to go to police, and IF Church officials walked them through the process with constant assurance that the shame rightly belongs to the molester, NOT to the victim.