When I was young, about 12 years old, my mother would send us to go clean the church and our priest’s house. One day when I was cleaning and dusting his office, the priest startled me when he playfully grabbed me and placed his hands on my breast and said “you have grown into quite a young lady” and started to molest me. When I mentioned what this priest did to me to my mother, she slapped me and shouted, “Do not lie about God’s chosen saints!” My mom did not believe me.
I did not want to clean his office, clean the church, or go to mass for that matter anymore. But my mother forced me. I asked my sisters if this had happened to them when they had cleaned his office? They did not respond to me. Why?
They just continued to clean. We would take turns with another family to clean the church and the office. How many other girls was this man doing this to? I never will know.
The outcomes of these incidents can be overwhelming to us young people. Even though the world was not paying as much attention at that time and era, but equally important is long-term destructive effects in the lives of abused victims.
The damage to victims and the emotional damage as well, also the belief in our religious background. I remember him giving a sermon on keeping clean, staying away from lust, and sexual desires. I did not know what to do but feel disgusted based on what I had already experienced and keep things to myself.
Some of us cannot have normal or healthy emotional relationships with other people because of the distrust of other male people just wanting to be a friend or an acquaintance.
When does this emotional feeling go away? With time and work on yourself with the help of a professional.
Getting rid of all that shame, guilt, and our accusing God of allowing this to happen to me. One day, the priest was no longer there. He was gone. This made going to church more comfortable.
- I went on to learn the ritual prayers.
- Celebrated my holy communion, just to please my mom.
- I made my mother proud when I got married in the church. In a white dress and I did not feel guilty about being married in a white dress, as if I was a virgin because I was blessed by doing that act with a priest “a man chosen by God himself” according to my mom (that was my justification).
- I did leave the church soon after I got married.
Has this experience taken my belief in God away? It did at first, but now I understand, that they (priests) are “after all, just a man.” Not “made in the image of God” Genesis 1:27 as well. This verb is a reference to man and indicates that man was created with a difference from animals.
Clergy are charged with the habitual conformity of all Gods power, to do the will of God and to the will of his powers to the will of God clearly discerning, his will in embracing his chief good without error in his knowledge, passions, or his appetites, and senses, also being all, to wisdom and enjoyment of his facilities in all his ministry and pray to restore our souls.
That’s a lot of responsibilities to place on a man’s shoulders. If so, that is probably the reason clergy are mostly men, ministry, men, church leaders, men. Today there are women in the ministry as well.
Healing will come as well, getting help, by seeing a professional, or a good therapist.