The Worthy Adversary

Author: Joelle Casteix

  • Ask a Question Friday: Reporting and Institutions

    This week’s question, two days late.

    Joelle, how do scandals in places like Penn State and the Catholic Church start? I mean, these aren’t bad people in these institutions, right? Will new policies by these organizations and others make sure that men and women who abuse children are reported and stopped, instead of protected?

    This is a complicated question that I will try to answer as simply as possible. We love our institutions. We love them so much that, sometimes, very good people do bad things in order to protect the reputation of the institution. It’s easy to think, “Gosh, the church/scouts/school promised to take care of us. They would never do something to intentionally hurt a child.”

    But unfortunately, they do. Institutions are only as good as the people in them. Good people should stand up for principles, morality, and child safety, even if it means that they risk their job, the reputation of the institution, or community opinion. But as we’ve seen, it’s not always the case.

    In places like Penn State and the Catholic Church, people who saw, suspected or learned about abuse didn’t do the one important thing that could have stopped the cycle: Call the police. Yes, there are cases where the police were notified, but in many of these, investigations were stonewalled by employees and polices that kept very important evidence out of the hands of cops and prosecutors.

    I don’t have a lot of faith that new policies in these institutions will make real change. Policies don’t change how institutions operate. People do. It’s the culture of the institution that ensures openness, safety, transparency and accountability. Culture is created by people from the top down and the bottom up. The importance of culture goes beyond child sexual abuse—large corporations deal with the problems of culture all of the time. When the culture begins to go sour (Enron, anyone?), all of the policies of the world won’t change it. Only real culture change within the organizations will do that. Only PEOPLE can do that.

    If you don’t see real cultural change in an institution that has protected child predators in the past, then chances are that all of the policies and rules in the world aren’t going to make a lick of difference.

    I hate to be somewhat of a downer on the subject, but there is an upside: YOU can create the culture of an institution. In the case of child sexual abuse, it’s a simple as this: if you see, suspect, or hear about child sexual abuse, report to LAW ENFORCEMENT first, then inform upper management, if you feel comfortable doing so. If you have questions about your suspicions, call the ChildHelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-CHILD. Your identity will remain confidential.

    If you saw a co-worker punching an innocent bystander in the face, you’d call the cops, right? If a co-worker came to you bloodied and bruised, and told you that another co-worker had violently attacked him, you’d call the cops, right? If you had real fear that co-worker was violent and was going to hurt someone, you’d report right? Child sex abuse is no different. Let’s quit pretending it is.

     

  • New feature: Ask a Question Friday

    Q&A

    I get TONS of questions. Lots. So many in fact, that I ended up writing a book.

    But there are some questions that don’t really have a place in the book. There are others with answers that need to be reiterated … and reiterated … until you feel like you’ve been bludgeoned by Mjolnir. (Just ask my husband – NO ONE can nag like I can)

    The result: I’ve decided to launch Ask a Question Friday. If you have a question you want answered, send it to me at jcasteix@gmail.com. If you want to make a party of it, read this at 5pm with your favorite cocktail (who says that prevention education can’t be fun?).

    So grab the wine opener, and let’s get started.

    Joelle, you have a young son. With everything you know about abuse, how can you ever let him out of your sight?

    I get this question all of the time.

    I’ll admit it: having a kid is really hard. If you watch TV and keep up with the news, you’re bound to think that the world is a terrible place where children can’t play outside and where a predator lurks behind every corner.

    But much of that is not true.

    My son plays outside with his friends almost every day. At least twice a week, I have about six kids in my house playing Legos, Xbox, or inventing zombie-esque games.

    You can create a fun, safe, and magical place for your child to play and thrive. How do you do that? Be aware. Know your child’s friends and their parents. Demand that your child follow your rules for safe play, check-in, etc. Be observant of other adults. Understand that “Stranger Danger” is important, but that a majority of abuse is perpetrated by someone YOU and YOUR CHILD love and respect.

    I am doing my best to raise my child with strong body boundaries, strong behavioral boundaries, and the confidence to know that he can tell me anything. He does not spend time alone with any adult besides his parents or a trusted caregiver. From a toddler, he has known the correct names of his body parts and that no one touches them inside or outside of his clothes (or vice-versa, or takes pictures). I am also teaching him to be confident enough to know that it is okay to say no to an adult, he does not have to be hugged or touched if he doesn’t want to, and that self-esteem and self-confidence will be his biggest defenses against predators.

    Mostly, I try to make sure that he is not surrounded by fear, judgement, or confusion about his body. And yes, I am on the stricter side of parenting. My son has had strong and appropriate consequences for inappropriate behavior. I am an adult, and my child is a child. He wants me to be an adult and to be strong for him. It is my job to solve the “adult problems” of his world so that he can learn to problem-solve his own issues.

    Am I perfect? Hell, no. I am sure that any reader can shoot 100 holes in my answer. But I will say this: my child has only one chance to be a child. He only has one chance to be strong about his body and full of childhood friendships. I refuse to raise a child with a victim mentality. It’s not my son’s job to pay for what happened to me.

    I know that I mess up every day. A lot. But awareness is 90% of the battle.

     

     

  • My interview on Lawpreneur Radio: Civil rights for crime victims

    Last, week, I spoke with Miranda Dempsey McCroskey of Lawpreneur Radio about the importance of civil rights for crime victims, how plaintiffs’ attorneys have been instrumental in exposing abuse … and, of course, THE WELL-ARMORED CHILD. The podcast is up and you can listen here.

    Or, you can check out the interview on iTunes.

  • Guam: When ordinary people do extraordinary things

     

    I hate watching sports … but I LOVE stories about sports.

    The minutiae about how any particular game is played is usually lost on me. For me, going to a live sporting event is about the spectacle, not the stats or the rules.

    But give me a documentary, movie, book, magazine article, or TV show about the PEOPLE in and behind the games, and I’m mesmerized. These stories draw me in because they are about ordinary people who do extraordinary things. These stories take place in a world—our world—where ANYTHING is possible. There are no victims and there is no pity. This is a world full of vision, enthusiasm, dreams, hope, love, and the value of tenacity.

    Which brings me to a small island in the Western Pacific: Guam—an island full of ordinary people doing very extraordinary things. These people aren’t athletes—they are Catholics fighting to take back their church, their faith, and their reputations.

    apuron sign

    I went to Guam in 2010. Survivors on the island had asked me to come there and reach out to other survivors who felt like it was not safe to come forward and report. The Archbishop of Hagatna, Anthony Sablan Apuron—according to Catholics and critics—was perceived as a bully who scared and shamed victims into silence. So, for some sex abuse victims in the Archdiocese of Hagatna (the only diocese on Guam), coming forward and reporting abuse was tantamount to career and reputation suicide. For the rest, it was suicide.

    So when Guam legislators passed a 2011 civil window that allowed sex abuse victims to come forward and use the civil courts to sue their abuser (but not the Archdiocese), victims didn’t come forward … it was just too risky.

    Fast forward to 2014. This is where the story really begins. (Note: this story is SO complex and complicated, I know I’m going to miss some of the big points. But the story is still pretty darned juicy.)

    Local Catholics, led by trail blazers such as Tim Rohr (a man Apuron had recruited to discredit me in 2010) and Fr. Matthew Blockley, decided that they had had enough. Apuron was pushing the Neocatechumenal Way, a lay movement within the church that according to John Allen, Jr., is “playing fast and loose with both Church teaching and the liturgical rules, fostering a cult of personality, and dividing parishes by insisting that members attend their own Saturday evening services rather than the usual Sunday Mass.”

     

    rorh

     

    But there was more. According to Rohr, Apuron was punishing his critics by firing them and “cutting fast and loose” with their reputations. Even worse, the group found out that a member of Apuron’s inner circle, John Wadeson, was a twice-accused priest that had been banned from San Francisco and Los Angeles. Blockley and Rohr (who was now an ally) reached out to me and SNAP to help expose the priest. After the story went national, Apuron finally forced Wadeson to quit.

    Rohr and Blockley weren’t done. They blasted Apuron for financial mismanagement. They demanded a voice in how the Archdiocese was run. They demanded to know why Apuron was pushing out his critics inside the chancery. Rohr empowered John Toves, a relative of an alleged sex abuse victim of Apuron himself, to come forward and publicly talk about what he knows. Rohr’s website was flooded with local supporters and international readers (many of whom were within the Vatican itself).

    Other people started to stand up. A group of local Catholics started a nonprofit called Concerned Catholics of Guam. The group’s purpose is to empower the laity and to achieve financial transparency in the Archdiocese. Soon after, John Toves came to Guam to try and speak with the Archbishop. He was told he would be arrested if he came onto church property.

    Then, Apuron fired Deacon Steve Martinez, the man who had demanded that Apuron’s handling of the Wadeson case be held up to Vatican scrutiny. Rohr and his supporters blasted the move, exposing the fact that Martinez was being ousted for upholding the sex abuse policies of the Archdiocese—policies that Apuron allegedly wanted to ignore.

    The Guam Archbishop’s veneer of respectability had almost completely disintegrated.

    Then came the coup de gras. Yesterday, December 19, the Vatican announced that the Archdiocese of Hagatna would be the subject of an “Apostolic Visit” during the first week of January 2015. Apuron did his best to spin the visit, but the real reason of any Apostolic Visit isn’t so happy: The visitor is sent to investigate a special circumstance in a diocese or country and to submit a report to the Holy See at the conclusion of the investigation.

    As a result, a seemingly panicked Apuron has decided that Martinez could stay in his position until January 12, after the Apostolic Visitor had returned to the Vatican.

    Catholics on Guam are fighting … and right now, they are winning. This is something that NEVER happens. Apuron has few, if any, vocal supporters and the Vatican has taken notice. Even if the Pope decides to take no action whatsoever (which is a huge possibility), Guam’s Catholics have already struck a huge victory. It’s a real Cinderella story (to borrow a well-worn sports cliche) and it’s still unfolding.

    I suggest you keep this team on your radar. They are doing extraordinary things, and we should all be watching.

     

     

  • 28 Texting and Internet acronyms every parent should know

    From CNN: A great list of acronyms that teens use to keep their attentive parents “in the dark” about the subject matter of their texts, internet exchanges, and social media posts. A great read for any parent who understands the importance of keeping tabs on their children’s online lives.

    Note: Since these acronyms are being picked up by the mainstream media, they are probably already out of date … There ARE teenagers, you know.