Equations of Abuse, Equations of Healing (Faith in Reverse, Part 8)

This is one of those pieces that contains the phrase "Let the reader understand."

The following is the next installment of my Faith in Reverse story. If you need to catch up with the series, you can download it here.

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There are parts of this story that are difficult to share. Some of you who’ve suffered church abuse might call these parts triggering. (Call that the warning.) Others will say it's so common, so unsurprising, perhaps expected. All of you have heard it, the story of religious abuse (sexual, emotional, spiritual, whatever). Unfortunately, there are shades of that worn-out story here, written in more generic terms.

Take a man. Fill him with ideas, with education, with theology. Fill him with good-intention or bad intention or no intention, it doesn’t much matter. Give him following, give him people, give him power. Give him, give him, give him all the things a man is entitled to, but never stop to ask whether he’s imbued with peace, tenderness, self-awareness, emotional stability. Heaven forbid you ask whether he’s imbued with wisdom. Never stop to ask how he wears his ego.

Power in the hands of the chaotic is corrosive. Like rust. Like battery acid. Take an untreated rusty handrail, for instance. You can hold it, maybe brace yourself with it for years. The day will come, though, when you’ll need that handrail, when it will crumble like ash in your hand, and then what? Gravity takes over. Bones meet concrete. Everything breaks.

Let’s try another way of seeing the story., an equation to describe when the power to abuse is put in the hands of the abusive: a(p^x)=d. In the equation a equals those with abusive propensities, p equals the power to abuse, x equals amplifier (i.e., the checks on that power or the lack thereof), and d equals the extent of the damage. Increase any value on the left side of the equation, and watch the extent of the damage increase. But there are ways to eliminate d. Eliminate the abuser, and there is no damage. Take away the power to abuse, and there is no damage. Minimize the power amplifier (e.g., provide active oversight, require therapy and spiritual direction, hold abusers accountable, require repentance before restoration), and though there may still be some d, it’s value shrinks over the years.

This is my faith-journey story, my story of becoming Catholic, so let me be achingly clear about the formula: throughout the course of history, the Catholic Church has taken high-value a-s, vested them with high-value p, and has amplified that power by a lack of oversight. The result? Abuse. Incalculable damage. Tormented souls. And if there’s such thing as holy justice, I believe those a-s and those who empowered them will have their feet (at least) held to the fire in the Great Hereafter. Call it a hunch.

But here’s the other thing you ought to know: when Amber was a curate, when she was preparing to enter ministry, when she was subject to the unchecked power of a, it was not in a Catholic context. It was in the Anglican context. a was an Anglican priest. p was given by a particular diocese. x was increased by a lack of any real accountability or oversight. And though the d was felt over the years by many in the congregation, Amber felt it acutely because she was in closest proximity to a.