I would be grateful for your prayers; this may clarify what to pray for. In any case, pray for the holy man recently elected rat-catcher of the world.
Descent into Hell
Since the election of Pope Francis, there has been some discussion about whether he was responsible and effective dealing with priests who had abused children in Buenos Aires. I have no knowledge of what he did or didn’t do, or when; but I believe I have a perspective worth considering.
In the language of child protective services, I am a “reporter.” I am a person who has reported predatory sex. A rat-fink. I hate my role. I understand clearly that my feelings are nothing compared to the suffering of abused children, and the self-loathing of some sex abusers. But still, it is a curse worth understanding.
A decade ago, I worked at a small Christian school in Maryland, Montrose Christian School (a great place in some ways that are easy to share: Kevin Durant and Greivis Vasquez were in one of my classes). Another teacher, a close friend, asked for help investigating complaints against a school counselor. Together, we collected data, then reported what we found to the police. There were a dozen students who had been abused. I do not know for sure whether the abuse involved penile penetration before we interrupted. Things went much much farther than fanny-pats, nipple-twisting, and tucking in shirts. We could provide more clarity if you would like to risk students’ self-respect and even their lives. The students who had been abused worst were deeply ashamed and declined to testify publicly, or even anonymously.
Even with the worst cases excluded, we had enough for conviction. The offender pleaded guilty to second degree assault, and was sentenced to 18 months in jail, all suspended, and was placed on probation.
He violated probation rather promptly, and the two busybody Judge Hathorne teachers collected data again, and reported again.
When the offender appeared in court for a probation violation hearing, he came alone. At the end of a brief hearing, the judge set a date for sentencing. The offender was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom. I don’t think he had expected anything serious; he fainted, tumbling to the floor.
I was deeply conflicted. In preparation for upcoming sentencing, I wrote a strong explanation of the damage he had done. But at the same time, I also worked to line up support for him – not to defend him, but to pray with him, and protect his dignity. I called his church repeatedly, to extract a promise that they would be with him in court. When I finally got the pastor and a couple of assistants, they balked. I lost it, and started shouting that they could not let him go through this alone. Shouting was a tremendous relief; after months of filth, it was a few moments of joy. I had felt like a traitor to my colleague; it was much more fun to defend him.
At the sentencing hearing, I spoke. The judge listened a little, and then cut me off, and I thought he was about to dismiss the case. But I had said I had a list of things to say, so when he paused for a moment, I interrupted his interruption: “Second, there was the damage to …” He seemed startled, but let me finish. In the end, he ordered seven months incarceration, and sex offender counseling. I am not certain, but I believe that the judge acted because I interrupted forcefully. Which side am I on, anyway?
Recently (February 2013), my friend and co-reporter called to say that the offender had announced he was going back into teaching. She was unable to do much about it; she has moved away, and her husband was facing life-threatening surgery. Resuming the chase was my responsibility.
I was angry about her call, and disgusted. Back to the sewers? Back to treachery? Why me? Was this a real threat, or was the offender just fantasizing?
Sex should be private. And shame should be private. And it is destructive to link shame to sex. But I was working to make sure that shameful sex acts were made public. That’s three problems.
I don’t want anyone examining my sins, or even my weirdness. If someone has questions about me, I want to control the flow of information. My sins are not the same as his sins, but I am not sinless. Still, here I am working to ensure that this man’s crimes are known to potential employers, regardless of his resistance. Hypocrite.
I believe in the forgiveness of sins. I believe people can learn from their mistakes and move on. I would love to hear that he is in some new program that makes it safe for him to create great music with kids.
How do I know that this once-excellent teacher can’t re-assemble the good pieces of his life and stay out of trouble? To be clear: I do NOT know. One more level of ignorance.
I tried to guilt-trip a reporter who had criticized Pope Francis into taking over my job in the sewers, but failed.
Grumbling bitterly, confused, and deeply ambivalent, I went back to work.
Ten years ago, the judge refused to put the offender on a sex offender registry. And he is not on probation any longer. It might be legal for him to teach again. But almost certainly, to get a job with kids, he would have to lie on the application.
Child Protective Services referred me to the Youth Division, Montgomery County Police. The police took a report, and forwarded it to the DC police, where the offender lives and might be teaching. DC police listened; but if he is not on a registry and there is no active complaint, they do not have cause to act. So I have to find the school (church? choir?) by myself.
The students who might be in danger are abstractions to me. I don’t know who they are, or where they are, or if they exist. I am not a teacher now, so I am not a “mandated” reporter. Can I let it go?
I solicited letters of support from former students of the offender, and got a small stack, all but one from girls – young women now. He had organized some great shows, and had helped many kids experience wild success. I found him on Facebook and sent him the letters. But I also asked to meet, and explained what I intended. He declined to meet, and said he would report me as a stalker.
Stalker. Rat. Traitor. Judge Hathorne. What’s wrong with me?
The noise in my head is actually a little worse than that. Some stories may clarify it.
When I was teaching in the Christian school, I came into school one morning, and the receptionist stopped me to complain about some infraction by one of my Korean students, and asked me to send the child back to the office to get chewed out. The receptionist was a very good woman, but she was tough on kids. Maybe that was okay for some kids, but not my Korean girls, who were so vulnerable! They often worked themselves into a stupor. They were lost and disoriented in America. They felt they were getting ripped off, paying too much for tuition and room and board, not getting services they were promised. They were homesick. I would not let anyone mess with them.
Anyway, my student was in trouble. I went to my room, her home room, and got in front of her desk, so that I filled her whole line of vision. I dropped down and sat on my ankles, so that my eyes were below hers, and she was looking down at an adult, which was probably disrespectful in some obscure way. I put my hands on her outer edges of her desk, a large table in front of the seat; my hands were at the edges of her peripheral vision, and she was inside a wide embrace. I looked her in the eye and smiled and smiled. She smiled back, and waited. Then I said, “You’re in trouble!” and she laughed. I explained, and she went off to fix it, laughing, not afraid.
I think that when I contacted my old colleague in March 2013, I filled his horizon, and shifted him abruptly from laughter to fear. I was proud to shift a student from fear to laughter, ashamed to shift a colleague the other way.
I enjoyed teaching. I was a good teacher, but also, separate from being a good teacher, I enjoyed my kids. Every October, I would realize, with a sense of helpless stupidity, that I had fallen in love with another 90-110 kids. Every one, no exceptions, ever.
I taught for five years at this Christian school, without the rules and regs of public schools. One large difference was that we talked about the “five languages of love,” and worked consciously to figure out which language mattered to which students. Words of praise, physical rewards or gifts, simple time and attention, some simple service, and physical touch: five languages. Different people respond to different languages; this is not a one-size-fits-all. Five sizes don’t fit all either, but it’s better than one.
Later, I taught with Montgomery County Public Schools for six years, and I was sorry to be limited to four languages. The public schools, in prudent fear of pedophilia, opted to throw out a whole language of love, physical touch. I understand the decision, but it is a very sad thing.
At MCPS, I had a student with ADHD who was in trouble all the time. His prognosis was not full of hope; he may in jail for drug-related crimes including armed robbery before his classmates graduate. I pray not, but believe that any other course will require serious and determined intervention that his Grandma can’t organize. Anyway, it was illegal (or against county policy) to touch this kid – or any student – but I broke the law a few times. When he was starting to spin out of control, if I put my hand on his shoulder, he would shiver and then relax, and the crisis might be over for the day. There was one day when he was already in some trouble; he had already told a few adults to bleep off, and he was buzzing like a madman. He looked in my eye, and then walked up against me, chest to chest. It was problematic to touch his shoulders, and it was definitely serious to hug him. But he was desperate, and he trusted me – probably, for the moment. Maybe he was just making more trouble, but I was 90% sure he wanted someone to hold him. So I hugged him, just held him for about 15 seconds – a long, long 15 seconds – while he calmed down. There were about 20 witnesses to this “crime.” Everybody understood what was going on, and most of them wanted things to work out for this kid. I risked my license for him. No trouble came of it, but it could have been a real problem.
Private school wasn’t like that. I was walking down the hall during a planning period one afternoon at Montrose, and a student was at her locker, grumbling and fussing and slamming things. I said, loudly, with two classroom doors open nearby and two classrooms of kids probably distracted and listening with grins, “Becky Rosey, if I hug you, will you slap me silly?” And she said, “No, Mr. O’Keefe, I won’t slap you silly if you hug me.” So I hugged her, and she calmed down, and laughed at me, and went back to work smiling – still in trouble about something stupid, but feeling like a beautiful girl. That was fun: I got to feel all virtuous and helpful, for hugging a beautiful girl. It is perhaps pertinent to mention that she was a cheerleader at the University of Maryland a couple of years later – seriously beautiful by anyone’s standards.
So am I a pedophile? I used to worry about it a little. I do like kids, and that’s what the word means, literally, in Greek: a person who philes (likes) pedos (kids, students). To answer: I am not a pedophile; I am an adult who enjoys his students. Pedophilia is not what I do; pedophilia is a corruption of a very good and precious thing, a corruption of what I do.
I remember nuns trying to explain that chastity is a good thing, a positive virtue. All we little brats knew was that it wasn’t fornication, and fornication sounded like fun, so chastity was not-fun. I was a mature adult before I understood how much fun chastity is. Chastity is loving without – well, speaking carefully, with no little ears nearby – chastity is loving without fucking it up. I take “fuck” to be a fairly precise word, referring to sexual activity that is devoid of meaning, that unfolds on a single level of human experience – the physical level – without anything significant on a dozen other possible levels of human experience. Sometimes it includes affection, a second level of experience – but even on that level, it is weak, not a robust – which is to say, committed and exclusive – affection.
Chastity is a good thing, and it may include hugging Becky Rosey, which makes it a better thing. It is different from pedophilia.
Stalker. Rat. Traitor. Judge Hathorne. Add: ignorance, question of pedophilia, and therefore hypocrisy. I hear the charges against me in the back of my mind when I pursue my colleague. The noise has not stopped me, but I am not a happy camper.
Child in danger: that vibrates as deep in our genes as sex. I will keep faith. But I hate what I am doing, hate every moment of it.
I agree decisively that bishops must act firmly against priests convicted of sex abuse. The threat to the kids far outweighs anything that over-sensitive adults might experience. But: can the critics tone it down just a little? You are demanding that the bishops descend into a hell.
+++++++
Added thought
What is stronger: Easter or pedophilia?
The joy of the Lord is my strength: a good song for little kids. Is it reality?
I think the following. Offhand, I see four ways to think about pedophilia. It is easy to condemn the sin and the sinner; I refuse to do that. Second, it is perhaps conceptually easy to overlook them both, because there are a lot of other things to think about it. I don’t think I am capable of doing that, although I can get distracted awhile. Third, I suspect there is a fairly powerful medical/psychiatric model for getting a handle on the questions here, but I am not sure, and I am especially not sure what therapists do when it is appropriate to call the police. In any case, I don’t know the model, and don’t know how to use it. Finally, there is the option of following Jesus. That’s not an easy sell in the modern American public square, but it is where my thinking is, and I don’t see a good alternative.
Bass-ackwards into Christianity.
What Jesus said is, love the sinner and hate the sin. He did not use those words, but I believe that he taught each of these two things, separately but nonetheless forcefully. To be forgiving as the Lord is forgiving is a vibrant reality, and a forceful commandment. But it does not mean, practically speaking, to be stupid. What does it mean? I know a man who is called by God to be wonderful, but who must not be with children. I will not let go of either piece of that.
I think this also …
Pope Francis seems to be having a good time being pope. He is a good role model, and he knows how to use his position to inspire, to set an example. But soon, he must make decisions that will cause heartache. He must be proactive about decisions that will cause great pain to people who have done some world-changing good things, and some intolerably evil things. He must deal forcefully with pedophilia (and other corruption) within the Church.
I think it is an odd honor to be wrestling, on a much smaller scale, with some of the same ideas and emotions that he may be facing. I pray that the Lord will give him wisdom and guidance and love and courage. I expect to learn from his example. Pray in jail: I’ve done that. Cherish folks with disabilities: I’ve done that. Faced down and banished someone who assaulted children: I have done that too – but not well, and not happily. My experience in the past did not leave me with confidence in the current struggle.
+++
Closing out the story
After two months of ineffective search, I got up one morning (Tuesday, 4/16) with a sense of urgency I could not explain, could not avoid. I had asked hundreds of people for help, and had been brushed off too often. Three people did help: three pro-lifers, three “rescuers,” accustomed to paying a price to protect children, law be damned. Many others were sympathetic but-but-but.
I decided that I would have a plan in place to find his church and/or his school that week. I had a plan that would work if I could line up a team. I decided the team would come from the school where I taught, where the victims were, where the abuser had last taught -- Montrose Christian School, a ministry of Montrose Baptist Church, in Rockville.
I had called there and left a message for the pastor and headmaster. But (1) I did not believe he had gotten the message. I was pretty sure his schedule was full, but (2) that if I showed up and explained the urgency, he could make time. (3) I was worried about whether I could keep my temper.
I was right, three for three.
I went in without an appointment. I had a great conversation for 20 minutes or so with the acting principal of the high school, but I was asking for decisions that would have to go to his boss. Step two was the pastor’s wife, and that conversation went south very quickly. She wanted me to leave, make an appointment, come back another time. I insisted that the matter was urgent. She snorted, “Ten years ago something happened, and now it’s urgent!” I don’t think she ever understood what I was after, but she did understand that it was about Maurice Douglas, and told me defiantly that she didn’t know anything about what happened back then, that the records were lost, that anyone who called to ask about him would not get any info, good or bad.
I said I would stay to talk to her husband. If she was dead set against that, she could call the police, but I was not leaving voluntarily until we had a plan and team for dealing with Maurice. She had her choice.
She chose.
While the police were on the way, the pastor showed up, belligerent from the get-go. We both struggled to keep our tempers, and almost put it together. He had not gotten any message from me. He could meet at 2:30, for an hour. But then he learned that his wife had already called the police, and opted to back her up.
I was arrested around noon on Tuesday, released Wednesday about nine in the evening. Montrose had had my car towed: expensive harassment. My computer, with my notes about Maurice (and my livelihood -- I’m a writer), were locked in an evidence drawer at a police station for a week.
Jail was good. One of my students from Rockville was there, and I was able to help him. One inmate got preaching, and kept going because he had a good audience; soon, there weren‘t enough Bibles for all the guys who wanted one.
I listened for a while to one man who talked about God’s power to heal, about his hope for a better future. I asked him for advice about my situation: can the Lord heal a pedophile? Can it ever be safe to have a man with such a past back in a school? His response was clear-eyed, prompt, and firm: “God can heal, but alcoholics should never be bartenders.” Simple. But I needed to hear it, needed that clarity. My good brother untied some knots for me, some seriously tight knots. (Rebecca, thanks for your prayers.)
I got back to work Thursday morning, and promptly found the school where Maurice had been teaching. He had been hired by a charter school in DC, unfortunately named Blow Pierce Junior Academy. They were already dealing with a situation. He had been there, but had been asked to leave, and was not permitted on the premises. Beyond that, they could not tell me anything. But they seemed very interested in everything I told them about events ten years ago. I was impressed by the people I met there. Apparently they did let their guard down somehow, and that mistake endangered students. But they found they had made a mistake, and addressed it.
I have a totally illogical sense that I found Maurice because the guys in jail were praying for me.
I called the Youth Division, Metropolitan Police. And then crawled out of the sewers.
Critique:
1. When a child is in danger, that takes precedence over everything else I can think of.
2. Facts matter. You can’t get all the data, because telling what happened may push a kid over the edge into suicide. But get the data you can get. Get the data, protect the data, share the data. There’s something wrong with people who brag they don’t know anything.
3. In 2004, a judge refused to require Maurice Douglas to register as a sex offender. That was a mistake.
4. I did not want to think about this thing: that‘s a healthy response. But I did focus and kept at it, and I can look at myself in the mirror.
5. I did not want it to be my responsibility, but I did not let go until I had completed my piece.
6. I did what I could to protect the dignity of the offender. He can find support in a variety of churches or AA-type groups, and can get more support if he reaches out. But that’s up to him.
7. I spent too much time working alone. It was unnecessary, and debilitating.
8. The people who helped were pro-life activists. Do not let them be forgotten.
9. I was aware as I worked that I might be re-inventing a wheel. But I kept at it, following what I heard in my heart, not a textbook. In the end, I found I could compare my work to what others have done, and there was an important difference: I did focus on the role of the pastor more than others have. The Church can and should move sooner, get deeper, and stay at the job much longer than the State. (I will write that up carefully.)
Finished, except that I have a trial May 23.
+++++++
April 25, 2013
Final thoughts, on pastors
1. They can start faster, go deeper, and stick with it longer
2. The Church can and should do better than the State. Actually, I think it may, in general, despite the colossal problems of recent history that have led to crippling lawsuits. Mark and MOG …
3. I do want to respond to Mrs. Fentress, who challenged me twice. (1) “You want to find this man’s pastor, but have you talked to your own pastor about this?” (2) “Have you prayed about this?”
When I visited Montrose to get help, my plan was to write to all the pastors in Prince Georges County and part of Washington. It had become clear to me that the letter had to come from a pastor to get opened and read; hence Montrose. (I also wanted letters to all the schools in that area, also on school letterhead for credibility and effectiveness – on Montrose Christian School letterhead.) The reasons for going to a pastor include:
(a) They can move faster. Maurice has a history of pedophilia, but is off probation and is not a registered sex offender. The State (the police) could not act until there was a crime. That is, the police had to wait until after a child was abused, then act. Worse, they had to wait until after a child reported, which would likely mean waiting until a dozen children were abused. A pastor with a knowledge of Maurice’s history could intervene promptly – not making threats, but nonetheless with real hope of success.
(b) They can get deeper. The law is a blunt instrument, with several binary choices: arrest/no arrest, trial/no trial, guilty/innocent, jail/no jail, etc. A pastor can work to protect children and also to rescue the dignity of the offender, with tools that are designed for precision, probing soul and spirit.
(c) They can stick at it longer. The Court imposed years of probation. The Church (and/or AA, for example) can pull Maurice into a lifetime relationship, to deal with a lifelong challenge. The forceful intervention of the courts ten years ago failed this year; despite their force and determination, they can’t stick with it.
I have only a few anecdotes, but I wonder how often the Church (churches) have had success responding to pedophilia that has been overshadowed by terrible failures. After I had found Maurice, I spoke with a good friend, who described what his church had done responding to a pedophile in the congregation: a long and confidential story, but very impressive. A few hours later, talking to friends in another community, I heard a similar quiet and even hidden story, of lifelong support restoring a child of God to a vibrant life. I understand the work of AA and similar groups, but have learned that there are many quiet stories about determined restoration. The Church can/should/has done far better the State – although, tragically and disastrously, not in all cases.
Mrs. Fentress asked if I had consulted my pastor. I said no, and she jumped on that, wanted to know why not. I said it was complicated, that Catholics and Baptists went about it differently, and I didn’t want to get side-tracked.
I’d like to answer more carefully. I belong to St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Damascus; the pastor there is Fr. Joseph Pearce. I do not recall with certainty whether I have spoken with him about confronting a pedophile. I did consult a holy and brilliant priest, Fr. Martin. I sketched what I was doing, and said I was in way over my head. His response: Do what you have to do.
But the real answer to her question is also the answer to her second question: have I prayed about this? Oddly, it seems to me, Catholics and Protestants have swapped places on a pastoral issue from centuries ago. Centuries ago, Protestants stated angrily that Catholic priests were interfering with the proper relationship between God and his people. The way that is usually worded is: “I don’t need to talk to a priest; I can talk to God directly without any help,” a claim that often includes a few pointed insults, referring perhaps to “some guy in a black dress.” Today, though, it seems to me that Protestants are much more likely than Catholics to demand that a Christian seek professional help in order to pray. Hence the question from Mrs. Fentress.
I answered the question that I thought she had asked: no, I did not ask Fr. Pearce about this. But if we can get past the divisions of the Reformation, perhaps I can answer more clearly. Yes, emphatically, I did talk to my Pastor about this. Most Catholics stay far away from statements that “God said….” Many Catholics are pretty sure that miracles are commonplace at Lourdes (for example), but will not make a firm claim that any specific case was a miracle unless it meets some tough conditions (immediate, complete, irreversible, unexplained, well documented). When a Baptist might well say, “God said to me that …” a Catholic with the identical experience is far more likely to say, “I think that …” I do not want anyone to hold God responsible for my mistakes. St. Francis of Assisi heard God speak – audibly, in Italian – and still screwed it up for a while. God said, “Rebuild my church,” and Francis started fooling around with bricks. I am not going to claim more clarity than Francis had.
So if I may be granted permission to speak as a Baptist, and then back up into less assertive Catholic-speak, I would say this. On Tuesday, April 16, I did not go to the Lord to ask about visiting Montrose. He took the initiative. He told me to go. He said the time had come, and I should move urgently. He said that the pastor had not gotten any message from me. He said the pastor would drag his feet, but he could make time for me. He said I would have trouble with my temper, but should try hard to keep it. He said if I lost my temper, I should apologize, and work hard to patch things up. He said I should not leave until we had a plan and a team in place. He said I should be ready to go to jail.
Whoa! Scrambling back into my comfort zone … Same experience, described by a Catholic:
I got up that morning with an inexplicable sense of urgency. I had been working for two months, and had not found a man who was likely a threat to children, who had announced he was going back into a school. I had spoken to hundreds of people, and had been brushed aside over and over. In fact, I bet the pastor at Montrose had not gotten any message that I called; for sure, he hadn’t called me back. Chances were, if I called, it would take days to get an appointment; if I went in, in person, I could ask for an urgent appointment, and probably get one. But I would have trouble with my temper; if I lost my temper, that would be counter-productive. I thought I had better practice my pitch, and did in fact spend half an hour on it, reining in my anger over and over. In the past, when I have acted with effect, it has been in the context of civil disobedience; this was not the same situation, but I tried to reach into my gut to get the same immovable determination. I was determined to move ahead that week, and end the danger to children – and to Maurice. It was Tuesday already: action that week required shared decisions that day. I could underline the urgency for others if I was immovable, and ready to sacrifice for it. I do not want to blame Pope Francis for my mistakes and failures, but it was on my mind that he had said it was better to get out on the streets and risk mistakes than to stay inside and get everything exactly right.
Did I consult my pastor? No. Yes. Do you mean my “pastor” or “Pastor”? I don’t know how to answer the question.
You be the judge, if you dare.
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