The Worthy Adversary

Category: Book Reviews

  • A question about adult victims

    I am currently reading SPLIT: A CHILD, A PRIEST AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH by my friend Mary Dispenza.

    Abuse memoirs are usually a tough read, but Mary discusses her life with grace and respect—very similar to the way she lives her life.

    While I am not done with the book, something struck me at the very beginning of her narrative. From the book (emphasis mine):

    Not more than a week passed before I got to the circle of other women at Therapy and Renewal Associates (TARA) for the Archdiocese of Seattle—and there I spun some more, listening for the first time to stories of other women within the Catholic Church who had been abused by priests. Many of their stories were like mine, except I was the only woman who had been abused as a child.

    I was floored.

    I don’t have an answer or an analysis. Just questions.

     

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  • Book Announcement

    THE WELL-ARMORED CHILD: A PARENTS’ GUIDE TO PREVENTING ABUSE has found a home (before it ends up in your home and the homes of all of your friends).

    The manuscript has been accepted by the Greenleaf Book Group and will be published under the River Grove imprint. Expect to see the book on Amazon and available for order in late August 2015. It will also be available for order by book stores and groups.

    Yay!

     

     

  • A novel peek into the “convoluted world” of grooming

    A very good friend of mine pointed me to a recent review of Eimear McBride’ novel A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING. The author of the review, Paige Reynolds, includes this very intuitive and honest description of some of the reasons why the sexual abuse of teens can be so damaging:

    The novel thus showcases the genuine complexity of sexual abuse as experienced by someone in her teens. It acknowledges the fact that sexual abuse can feel good physically … if not psychologically or socially appropriate, that it is a perceived exercise of power … that it appears to give immediate access to the coveted world of adulthood, that the secrecy demanded by abuse becomes something that belongs to the victim and sutures him or her to the adult abuser, even as it enables more harmful abuse. The novel depicts the convoluted nature of sexual abuse, even as its distressing conclusion confirms that this abuse is fundamentally harmful and can have deadly consequences.

    What the reviewer does not discuss, however, is that the glimpse into the “coveted world of adulthood,” the “secrecy,” and the “convoluted world” are keynotes of grooming – the way that a predator flatters and manipulates a child or teen into becoming a “compliant” victim. The adult does this by gaining the child’s implicit trust and love, blurring sexual boundaries, sexualizing behavior, and convincing the child or teen that a positive physical response (even though the child or teen is hurt, confused, shamed, isolated, or disassociating) means that the child or teen wants and needs the abusive behavior.

    If a predator can use grooming to create a world that confusing and convoluted for an adult book reviewer, how can a child or teen stand a chance?

    The excerpt above also shows some of the reasons why teen victims of abuse experience such profound feelings of shame – because this “convoluted world” makes a teen feel that abuse was his/her fault, he/she wanted it or asked for it, or that the teen is fundamentally flawed. Add in layers of religion (as in cases of sexual abuse by clergy in Catholic or Protestant faiths) or the manipulation of incest, and this convoluted world becomes even more tragic and wrought with shame.

    Although this review focuses on a female character, grooming is just as confusing and damaging for boys. I also want to make it clear that it does not matter what the sex of the abuser is. A boy sexually abused by an adult woman can be just as damaged and hurt as a boy abused by a man.

     

     

  • Review: A Diary of Disconnect

    Book Review: The Vatican Diaries: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities, and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church; by John Thavis. Penguin Books

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    A year after the hardcover publication of The Vatican Diaries (a book whose hardcover release date coincided with the resignation of Pope Benedict XXIII XVI and the election of Pope Francis—a marketing and sales extravaganza if ever there were one), John Thavis‘ chronicle of Vatican shenanigans is now out in paperback.

    A new afterward by the author is the icing on this cupcake of a book—a sweet, delectable, slightly naughty look inside the Vatican: a patchwork of quirky and outdated personalities tied together by allegiance, clericalism, protocol, and theater. While none of these things are very good for Catholics, clergy sex abuse victims or the Vatican state, Thavis expertly shows how the Vatican’s incompetency, callousness and failures reside in its humanity and its all-too-human worship of the most seductive power of all: information.

    Thavis spent more than 25 years as a member of the Vaticanista, the group of journalists charged with covering the Vatican, the pope and other news surrounding the Holy See. As a writer for the Catholic News Service, Thavis was forced to balance the very delicate line between journalistic integrity and his own Catholicism.

    He didn’t have an easy job. Without decent access to information or (the sometimes-kept) promises of transparency in many western governments, journalists covering the Vatican are forced to follow a path reminiscent of the childhood game of telephone. It’s about knowing the right person to call, capitalizing on people’s hot buttons, and most importantly, knowing whom to believe. Imagine The National Enquirer with all of the couture, but none of the good looks.

    The book is a series of well-told anecdotes which follow Thavis’ thesis: The Vatican suffers from a great communication disconnect. Sometimes the disconnect is intentional. Other times, the disconnect is far more nefarious. Whether he’s telling the story of the construction of a underground parking lot (which accidentally unearths an ancient Roman cemetery) or the decades-long saga of serial pedophile and Vatican embarrassment Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, every story is peppered with Three Stooges-esque mishaps and information bottlenecks.

    Immensely readable and thoroughly insightful, The Vatican Diaries does not fall into the “wonk-y and unreadible” trap that ensnares too many other books in this genre. It is what is says it is: a diary. And in this case, breaking open your sister’s locked journal was never this much fun.

    To buy the book, click here.

    And to learn more about my upcoming book, click here.