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Forgiving Our Trespasses

10/13/2014

14 Comments

 
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"Forgiveness is a word no one can agree on."
      --Marina Cantacuzino, The Forgiveness Project

            Forgiveness is often a complex and confusing aspect of any healing process, particularly for those molested by the clergy. According to my own traditional Catholic school upbringing, the act was designed to be simple. We were told to forgive and we felt obligated to do so. We merely spoke the right words and our faith transformed us. But any movement in that direction was mostly driven by guilt, fear and control. I wasn’t the only one who was left feeling empty and unfulfilled. Most of us had no understanding of either the act or the method. How could we know otherwise? When forgiveness was preached it was often more about imposing beliefs and values and less about helping others find comfort and stillness. 
          In truth, there’s nothing simple about forgiveness. It involves diligence, a desire to chart a new course, and a willingness to be honest with our feelings. Forgiveness is not a convenience. It’s a conversation. There are no guarantees that those we forgive today will be forgiven tomorrow, including ourselves. It’s a fluid and ever-deepening practice. Like a river that constantly flows into and from our own experiences, it’s an ongoing process that reflects our struggles. When we freely immerse ourselves in that river our choices become clearer and our efforts more meaningful.

            In my first column for “A Room With A Pew” which appeared in December, 2013, I briefly mentioned forgiving my offender, Franciscan friar, Mario Cimmarrusti, who had passed away that November. Two months later, I was compelled to publish an “In Memoriam” piece on Mario in which I discussed my relationship with him over the years, and how forgiveness helped me come to terms with his presence in my life. In both articles, I didn’t relate the details or circumstances of my decision to forgive. Instead, I chose to focus on the effects of my resolution.  

            In the last few months I’ve received a number of inquiries from clergy abuse survivors asking me to share more of my personal experience regarding those details and circumstances. This hasn’t surprised me. The language of forgiveness may be foreign to many survivors, but more and more men and women have begun to explore this issue in earnest. One survivor spoke of her failed attempts to convince herself. “I’m not really clear about what forgiveness means to me anymore,” she wrote. Another survivor struggled with direction. “I’d read things and figured I could do this,” he explained. “I had no idea how or where to start.” Others felt trapped or disappointed in the theological propositions of inclusion and exclusion. One survivor aptly summed it up: “My cynicism makes forgiveness impractical.”

            In the beginning, my own reasons to forgive the priest who sexually molested me as a child were a chaotic jumble of confused emotions and fractured logic. My efforts to understand what I wanted and needed were more intimately private than I could ever imagine. As I’ve written before, forgiving Mario was never about Mario. It was about me. It had everything to do with my own life and very little to do with his. For years I had allowed him to occupy my world by welcoming him periodically with anger, hatred and bitterness. At one point, as my rage turned malicious, I began hurting people who cared for me. Acting and behaving in this manner became a convenient way to avoid my own sorrow and grief, and to view compassion as a weakness.    

            I know other survivors who find themselves facing a paradox. They claim they have no interest in forgiving their offenders and yet they’re the first to admit they could be doing more for themselves, emotionally and spiritually. They just haven’t figured out what that might be. Like all things, time has a way of influencing our decisions.  As we grow older and more mindful of our affairs, the concept of forgiveness becomes less and less abstract. What works for me may not necessarily work for you. But healing is not limited to binding individual wounds. When one is restored to health many more are capable of feeling the effects. There is a great collective that attempts to mend us all.

            Forgiveness, in and of itself, can be mystifying. Does it mean we must forget the wrongs we suffered? If we do, are we made stronger? Wiser? More understanding? And if we don’t, are we weak? Unworthy? Less compassionate? Is forgiveness meaningless without reconciliation? Is it possible when there’s no apology or remorse? These and other matters are challenges each of us must settle within ourselves. The answers are sometimes revealed before the questions are asked. But the suppleness of our own hearts can often astound us.

            Forgiving, the actual process by which we attain relief and, in some cases, a measure of redemption, is subject to human nature and a good part of our everyday lives. Sometimes it happens immediately. Often it takes much longer. And sometimes it seems to pursue us for a lifetime. This is something we discover both by rote and intuition. We can often forgive, almost without thinking, our partners, children, friends and even strangers: the small slight, the sharp rebuke, the angry gesture, the hurt feeling. We instinctively learn to use this valuable tool to resolve emotional issues, sometimes quickly, when we sense the damage caused by holding on to feelings of resentment or, worse, by doing nothing about them.

            It’s the big-ticket items, the horrors of our own world gone absolutely mad, that most of us find unforgivable. When we think of living in a civilized world, we imagine universal norms of behavior and ethics that conform to a strict belief system. Most believe that good and evil exist side by side. Others suspect there is no right or wrong, only what is. In the 1990’s, during the South African truth and reconciliation hearings and the Rwanda genocide inquiries, it was difficult for those who valued vengeance and retribution to explain and understand those who forgave their tormentors and persecutors. Was it more reasonable to expect someone to forgive a lie than it was to forgive a murder? And who could say for certain what forgiveness really meant for someone else when every act of forgiveness was private and cherished? One size did not fit all.  

            My efforts to forgive the priest who abused me sexually and repeatedly were never easy for me to undertake. Sometimes I could be inexplicably cruel to myself and to others. In the beginning, when I was incapable of realizing that forgiveness was an enduring practice, I was merely setting traps for myself. Time and time again, when one trigger after another reanimated bad feelings about my abuse, I felt I had failed to forgive and, likewise, failed myself. When I entered therapy in 1992, I specifically informed my therapist that my goal was to learn to forgive the man who had been haunting my dreams for most of my life. But it wasn’t until 2003, more than ten years later, that I found myself finally and confidently moving in that direction. And in a strange twist of fate, I owed much of that movement to my own father whom I hadn’t seen in forty years.

In the Name of the Father

            In October of 1965, as I and other boys were being sexually assaulted by Mario during our freshman year at Saint Anthony’s Seminary, in Santa Barbara, my parents separated after 21 years of marriage. There were certain signs of trouble over the years, but with eleven children and another on the way, no one ever dreamed that Frank and Josephine would part company. Since I was  the only one of her children away from home, my mother was naturally concerned about how the news might affect me. She wrote to Mario (he was the seminary’s prefect of discipline) and asked for his advice: "What would be the proper way to tell my son?" Mario wrote back and informed my mother that it would be best if I didn’t know. According to him, I would likely suffer “unnecessary anguish” at the news of their breakup. “Paul is very sensitive,” he wrote. “Disturbing news may cause him to abandon his vocation prematurely in favor of being with his family.” He suggested it would be prudent to wait until I arrived home for Christmas vacation.

            My mother, of course, had no idea that the trusted priest she was seeking guidance from was molesting her son and had his own reasons for not wanting me to know. As a result, and in agreement with Mario’s counsel, I didn’t learn of my parents’ separation (and eventual divorce) until after I returned home to San Francisco in mid-December for Christmas break.

            For my father’s part, he never hid the fact that he didn’t approve of me going off to become a priest. But he didn’t try to discourage me, either. He used to say he was “wise” to the Catholic Church, which always angered my mother. When he was a boy growing up in Boston, he secretly witnessed the severe beating of a friend by a parish priest in the church sacristy. He never forgot it. He went to mass every Sunday to please my mother, but he didn’t believe a word of what was being preached from the pulpit.  

            In November of 1965, one month after my parents separated, my father made an unexpected trip to Santa Barbara. He didn’t agree with my mother (and Mario) that I should not be told, but he went along with her wishes. I was puzzled as to why he would make the 350 mile trip alone. But my father, who drove a truck for a living, explained that he was delivering a load of goods to Los Angeles and wanted to stop off and see me (though I learned later he had traveled south with a female companion).

            Our visit was strained and awkward. Both of us were hiding dark secrets from one another and this made honest communication impossible. When my siblings and I were growing up, the image we had of our father was that of a giant. He was an imposing figure. His massive six-foot frame towered over us and his rugged good looks charmed both women and men alike. That afternoon, as we stood against a stone wall that overlooked a canyon behind the school, I watched him rub his large, calloused hands as if he didn’t know what to do with them. For a brief moment I thought about telling him what was happening to me, even though I didn’t understand myself what that was. But I couldn’t. I was ashamed, humiliated and confused.

            To pass the time, he talked about baseball and the Giants, knowing, at least, that we still had that much in common. I spoke about my vocation as if I were justifying my presence at the seminary. Ironically, my father brought me a gift that day: a new bible. “For when you become a priest,” he told me.

            Our encounter would turn out to be one of the last we would have for many years. It was also the  beginning of a long and painful estrangement that would stretch into four decades.  To be sure, my dad was no deadbeat. He faithfully paid his share of alimony and child support for many years. But his parental  responsibilities would mostly end there. For reasons that some family members still debate today, his involvement in the world of his children grew less and less each year. Finally, in the late-seventies, my father moved to the east coast, three thousand miles from his family, and all but vanished from our lives.

            For many years the two of us went our separate ways without a word from one another. Then, one day early in 2002, one of my sisters informed me that she had made contact with our father and that he had asked about me. I was shocked. I still thought of my dad from time to time, but mostly as a ghost and always in a way that made me feel angry with him and bad about myself. I found it strange that he would be asking about me at this particular time. After several years removed from therapy, I had recently resumed sessions. Personal difficulties, particularly with anger issues, had started to seep into areas of my life that I once thought were safe. I had abandoned any efforts to forgive Mario due to my own stubborn ideas. I had been comfortable and secure in my loathing, and it took very little effort to feel justifiably smug and self-righteous. Feelings of scorn and contempt were easy to succumb to. Now, although I was still doubtful about what I could accomplish, I felt an urge to get some of it right.

            It seems so obvious now, but until I walked back into therapy the thought had never occurred to me that everything I was feeling about Mario was pretty much what I was feeling about my father. It was also how I felt about me. The huge difference was that I still sensed a deep longing for the only man in my life who had any right to be called “father.” As much as I tried, I couldn’t deny it. I had hidden it away in some forlorn and neglected part of me and it was now rattling around in my bones.

            With support from my therapist, I wrote to my father who was now living in South Carolina. It was a carefully worded letter that was guarded but honest. And it revealed enough of myself to indicate I was curious about the twists and turns our lives had taken after all these years apart. I was 51 at the time, and my father was 78. The gap in our age didn’t seem anywhere near as vast as it appeared when I was 14 and he was 41. To my surprise, he responded almost immediately, writing back in his once-familiar longhand script. To this day, his letter remains the single most important document in my own recovery.

            In it, he expressed the joy of reconnecting with me and of the many mistakes he made that impacted so many lives. His admissions of sorrow and remorse were sincere and startling. And though he never asked for forgiveness, it was clear to me that he was struggling to forgive himself. He ended his letter by adding how sorry he was for allowing so much time to pass without telling me--and all his children--how much he loved us. This finally broke me down. While I secretly hoped I would someday hear these words again from my dad, I honestly believed it was never going to happen.

            My father was a proud and independent man with simple, basic needs. Growing up, he had always been a social person, willing to pitch in and help anyone who needed a hand. Being a long-suffering Red Sox fan, he was forever rooting for the underdog. He loved to hear a good joke. But he loved to tell one even more just to hear you laugh. He was a courageous man, a World War II navy veteran and gunnery mate who nearly lost his life in 1945 in the battle of Okinawa. As his first letter to me evolved into several more, they revealed something new and different about a man I had once remembered and loved. It soon became obvious to me how singular and great his suffering had been. My father was human. What a concept, I thought. For me, this was a sobering revelation that allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and away from all judgment.

            In June of 2002, I flew to South Carolina, and spent two weeks with my father. He was no longer the imposing colossus I had remembered. He was an old man now, a bit frail and gaunt with slightly stooped shoulders. But he still had a full head of hair, a thick, brown mop which he assured me had never once been dyed. He was also still a heavy smoker, a habit he started when he was twelve years old. During our time together we crammed years into days, listening to each other’s stories, swimming in a sea of emotions and clinging to our past like a lifeline tied to the present. I had brought with me a cassette recorder and was able to capture hours of our conversations on tape. My father was honest about his life. Related with a sense of urgency and need, he recounted stories about his childhood, his marriage to my mother, and his years away from family that were sad and scary, funny and heartbreaking.

            One night, after we had been together for about a week, we sat around his kitchen table enjoying a meal of homemade pasta fagioli, Italian sweet bread and red wine. It was then that I decided to tell him about my abuse. What he heard that evening made him cry, and it made me cry, too. We were experiencing a lot of “firsts” together and this one would shoot to the top of the list. I think he must have apologized half-a-dozen times for failing to protect me. “If I had known,” he said, 
“I would have strangled that priest with my bare hands.”  

            My father listened intently as I spoke of my ordeal at the seminary and all the issues I had been confronting and hiding from ever since. I told him about my failed attempts to forgive Mario and how I struggled with fairness and justice and the absence of any explanation or punishment. When I was finished, he lit another cigarette and thought awhile in silence. Then he said something so simple that it jolted me on the spot. “You were always a kind boy,” he said. 

“You should be kind to yourself now.”

            I was stunned. It was a unique perspective that only he, my father, could offer to me, his son. It was an illuminating burst of insight that I had never seriously considered before or dared to remember. This was my father’s true memory of me. And if I was willing to be honest with myself it was also my true memory of me. Here was a door to forgiveness that I could choose to open and my father was handing me a key. 

A Dream of Ordinary Men     

            When I returned to San Francisco, I immediately plunged into therapy with renewed hope and energy. I had learned I could forgive my father whom I once believed I was incapable of forgiving. I began to understand the significance of offering this gift to oneself. Those we choose to forgive are the indirect beneficiaries of our act. But our decision to forgive has a direct affect on relieving our own suffering. For all my concerns, forgiving Mario had suddenly become less about what he had done to me and more about who I was. The process was still tricky, but the task appeared less daunting and forbidding. To claim that a great weight was being lifted from my shoulders sounded trite. But that’s exactly how it felt. Within the first few months of my return, the deeper psychological work I was engaged in had enabled me to free myself at last from Mario’s grip.

            Isolated by his order since 1992, after the first allegations of abuse were lodged against him, Mario had been living a life governed by rules and restrictions at San Damiano, a Franciscan retreat center in the hills of Danville, California. He was the province’s most notorious sex offender and was no longer permitted to participate in public ministry of any kind. For the most part, he was confined to the retreat grounds with scheduled supervised visits into town. Although he was being evaluated on a regular basis, he was no longer in therapy at the time of our first meeting due to his resistance to the clinical process. His deteriorating psychological state reflected this. Despite numerous personal accounts to the contrary, he adamantly denied he had ever molested anyone. He spent most of his days gardening and taking care of the needs of a few elderly friars.

            On a bright autumn day in 2003, I drove to San Damiano and met Mario in the main garden there. I had written him two weeks before, asking to see him without anyone else present, and he agreed. We had been communicating in letters for a couple of years, but this was the first time we would see each other since 1966. When I first caught a glimpse of him that day, he was standing in the middle of a flower patch surrounded by dozens of pink and orange cosmos. Time and age had transformed us both. I was a thin, underweight writer with chronic headaches and a sleep disorder. He was a balding, overweight friar suffering from severe depression and psychological detachment. We made quite a pair.  

            At first, as we sat next to each other on a garden bench, he did a lot of staring at his hands, rubbing them as he talked. He either wouldn’t or couldn’t look directly into my eyes. But after awhile he faced me. I tried not to interpret or second guess him. I had purposely set my expectations low and was prepared to reject specific outlooks that kept me from being present with him. As we sat there for nearly two hours talking about the past, I gradually felt all my muscles relax and my heart open. There was no Mario, no me, no garden. I had the sensation of being near and far away at the same time, like a dream of ordinary men who had nothing and everything in common.  

            I never mentioned forgiveness that day and Mario never apologized for the harm he had caused. None of it was needed or required. But before we parted he told me he wanted to offer a blessing and proceeded to recite the “Lord’s Prayer.” After uttering the words, “and forgive us our trespasses,” he paused for what seemed like an unusually long time as if he was trying to remember the rest of the words. When he finally finished, we shook hands, embraced and walked away. In the years that followed, and before he passed away in 2013, Mario and I would meet and talk again several more times.
      
            As for my father, living in the middle of tobacco country had a severe toll on his failing health. After a lifetime of smoking unfiltered cigarettes, the dreaded diagnosis was emphysema and congestive heart failure. It took about a year, but I eventually convinced him to leave the south and settle in Ashland, Oregon, where, in the summer of 2003, he took a small apartment in town. Shortly afterwards he began seeking out the rest of his children who lived in the surrounding area, many of whom he had never gotten to know at all. The crisp mountain air reinvigorated him and within a week of his arrival he quit smoking for good. He would live only two more years, passing away in October, 2005, but his quality of life, both physically and emotionally, was greatly enhanced during his final days.

            Because of his determined spirit, my father seized the opportunity to reconcile with my mother and all of his children. He glossed over nothing and left very little unsaid. As a result of these efforts, his family responded in kind and helped clear the way for him to re-enter their lives. I believe it was the greatest act of courage and compassion he and his children ever performed. The night before he died he phoned me to say goodbye. He knew death was near and he even joked about it: “I’m not afraid of dying,” he said. “I’m just afraid I won’t be able to breathe.” 

I hesitated at first. But it was such an absurdly funny line that I had to laugh. He laughed too, 
and seemed pleased with himself. “I’d been saving that one for weeks,” he said.

            Acts of true forgiveness spring from our profoundly personal experiences. They are conscious and willing choices that reject superficially enforced convictions. A life changing encounter, a shift in consciousness and a resilient human spirit are all guides that foster hope. Forgiveness may not always be considered a requirement for finding and sustaining inner peace, but the process is often a spiritual revelation that liberates and deepens it.

                                                                                       ---

                                                                    HELPFUL RESOURCES

            For survivors and secondary survivors of clergy sexual abuse seeking information and/or assistance from the Franciscans and/or the Catholic Church, the following resources are recommended:

In the Franciscan Province of St. Barbara:

The Franciscan Office of Pastoral Outreach
1 800 770-8013

In the Catholic Dioceses of the United States:
Victims Assistance Coordinators

            For those interested in general information, research and education, and/or exploring issues of forgiveness, the following resources may be useful. Please Note: Sources presented here are for individual discernment and are not necessarily an endorsement by the author:

Secular and Non-Denominational:
The Forgiveness Project
Trauma Recovery Associates
A Campaign for Forgiveness Research
The Fetzer Institute
The Power of Forgiveness
The Unbreakable Child by Kim Michelle Richardson

Catholic-Related:
America Magazine: An Interview with Dawn Eden
The Maria Goretti Network

Documentation and Database:
BishopAccountability.org



 

           

 
14 Comments
Angelina
10/13/2014 04:15:44 am

What a beautifully written piece on forgiveness. Love it.

Reply
Brother Daniel Hall, CSSR
10/13/2014 04:51:15 am

Paul,

Thanks so much for sharing this with us. Forgiveness is surely the key we need to find in our lives to be able to move forward in our everyday life

Reply
ClevelandGirl
10/13/2014 05:02:15 am

Forgiveness is yet another weapon wielded by the powerful against the powerless. It is used to instill more guilt and fear and powerlessness in those already suffering from an overabundance of all three. "If you don't forgive, you'll go to hell" (score: fear). "If you don't forgive, you're a bad person/xtian/etc." (score: guilt) "If you don't forgive, you'll let your abuse overpower you and you'll never heal" (score: disempowerment).

Natural forgiveness for day to day things is OK, and we all forgive each other and that's as it should be. However, abusers are into power and are sociopaths/psychopaths with no empathy, no guilt, no remorse. Giving forgiveness to abusers is giving one's personal power away once again. It's the powerful that *compel* the powerless to forgive, and we're told that we're bad victims/human beings if we don't.

Abusers don't deserve forgiveness because they never feel guilt or shame or remorse about abusing us. They never care how we feel, except insofar as it serves their own sick needs to hurt us over and over again for kicks. The more fear, guilt, and shame and belief in our own powerlessness we feel for something for which we weren't responsible, the happier they are because it means that we're wide open for more abuse.

Your dad was messed up, but he wasn't evil or a sociopath. Mario was evil and a sociopath. Forgiving your dad was appropriate. Forgiving Mario (who put on a great act for you of "oh poor old, weak me") was not and you played right into his hands.

Compelling forgiveness IS ABUSE, just another form. It's retraumatizing. It's another way to get you to bend over and take it without courtesy of lube or a reacharound. And you fell for it, you poor victim.

Forgiveness is just another play in the endless sadomasochistic game that is religion and abuse. The only way to free oneself is to take oneself out of the dominance/submission top/bottom dynamic entirely. Stop being a sub/bottom. Buying into forgiveness is buying into the power-over paradigm instead of learning a power-with worldview. Forgiveness sucks. Never forgive a sociopath because it's what they want you to do so they can abuse you again.

Several of my in-laws are sociopaths. They'd abuse and bully, then say "forgive and forget". If you did, they'd abuse and bully you more and more. They *got off on* our forgiveness. The only way to break the cycle is to stop forgiving and remove oneself from the sadomasochistic game. We stopped forgiving them, and we're much better off for it.

Reply
Vernon Bradley link
10/14/2014 10:43:10 am

What you describe here is NOT forgiveness. As you said, it is just more abuse. Check out article by Marsha Utaine.
http://www.nancycarterlcsw.com/DramaTriangle.html.
Paul is describing a much different process. For you to experience your life to the fullest, you too will some day forgive, but it will not be your sociopathic relatives to excuse their abuse. It may even be perhaps yourself you will forgive! And not because you did anything wrong. Just breathe and think about it!! Forgiveness is a letting go process, so I can breathe and live again, and YES, I may have to open my eyes and CHOOSE to move away from dangerous and deadly relationships. And forgiving is NEVER forgetting. It is quite a different experience, even neurologically. It is a weaving together of my emotions and my thoughts about the abusive experience and allowing my brain to put the experience into my memory so I know it is something that did occur, but it is not occurring now. Anywho, I wish you well. You deserve to be free of whatever all that crap was!

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titi mila
10/13/2014 05:47:45 am

Paul! another great piece! Tears in my eyes! XO

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Amy
10/13/2014 05:53:40 am

I loved reading about your reconciliation with your father. It was beautiful and eventually brought healing to your whole family!

Not to excuse your dad's earlier bad choices, but is it possible your father himself was also a victim of clergy abuse? Maybe that's the one thing he couldn't say. Perhaps that's why he initially didn't want you to become a priest and wished he could have strangled Mario with his bare hands. Of course, that could have just been a father wanting to protect his son.

I can't tell everyone to respond this way to their abuser(s), but it did seem to be the right spiritual path for you as an individual.

Reply
Sharon Doubiago link
10/13/2014 09:51:59 am

I just read Cleveland Girls response to your Forgiveness piece. For me it was the "Forgiveness" law that saved my sanity. I can't imagine what would have happened to me without that, though I still ponder human nature, individually, my own. That I grabbed onto that to save myself, knowing (and God knew) what was my deepest reality and intent and meaning. SO: it has been NOT forgiving that has been my latelife salvation path.My faather, mainly, but I learned I had to cut off my sister too, after what would be to others longago unpardonable trespasses. I always forgave her. Shined it on. And in ways kept insulting her by not taking her trespasses seriously. Not communicating. When I finally declared an apology, full, with realization of what she had done, apologize or that's it, that was it. In no way could my well-known healer sister do such. What I know now, most profoundly, and most pertinent to what I think you are addressing: that my refusal to beg her for forgiveness (you have no idea how perverse such an idea is) or to even waltz around her, her environment without her apology, would be to reenter the oldest most evily abusive environment of my life. For me to forgive her would be to fan that fire. I would forgive her, easily, joyfully, if she could get it. I think that's sort of what Cleveland Girl is saying. For some of us Forgiveness is our biggest trap, and not salvation.

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Miguel Prats link
10/13/2014 02:07:52 pm

Paul, We in MGn believe forgiveness is the key. It may be impossible for some as Cleveland Girl so aptly demonstrates. But we in MGHN find that asking God to help us forgive even if we don't believe we should or want to starts some kind of mystical, cosmic process that can lead to healing. This is your best article yet my brother. Please keep them coming!

Reply
ClevelandGirl
10/13/2014 10:35:52 pm

Thanks Sharon! It looks like you get what I'm saying, that it can be wasteful and self-victimizing to forgive certain people for certain acts. In "The Sociopath Next Door", it is estimated that 4% of the human population are sociopaths. Not a large number, however, sociopaths are concentrated in positions of power and authority, from political dictators, to clergy, to cops, to some really sick parents. They use "color of authority" to hurt and abuse people, and it's that color of authority that protects them, gives them credibility and their victims zero credibility. Such individuals don't deserve any forgiveness and in fact should be discredited, toppled from power, and, if necessary, destroyed.

A lot of this stuff was driven home, specifically regarding my in-laws, after my mother-in-law died four years ago and the bizarre behavior that ensued, especially a month later when my brother's wife died and these people who wouldn't give my brother the time of day for over 35 years suddenly wanted to be his new bestest friends. I had heard about pathological or malignant narcissism and started reading up on the subject, which led me to learning about sociopathy/psychopathy. There isn't a whole lot of difference between the two, except maybe a narcissist might feel a twinge of guilt, maybe.

I recommend "In Sheep's Clothing" by George Simon to help restore sanity to abused people. We have no obligation to "accept", "get along with", or "forgive" sociopaths/psychopaths/narcissists. There is *nothing wrong with us*. There is something wrong with therapists who perpetuate the crazymaking by victimizing and abusing us into thinking there is something wrong if we can't do the above. If we find the evil behavior distressing, then that means we're the good people. We're not bad or crazy people for having trouble dealing with the actual bad people.

Hubby and I have been dealing with the bullying by his family for most of our lives. We've found different ways of coping and understanding (best way to cope is to absent yourself from the abusive environment, permanently if necessary for your mental and physical health). We thought it was just about alcoholism, which was only a part of the picture.

"Forgive or else!" is just one more thing put on the good people to make us sit and spin and feel badly about ourselves. None of us are inadequate if we choose not to forgive, and in fact, nonforgiveness is the sane response in most cases.

There is a website for those abused in a Jewish context. Every year, they've put out an article around Yom Kippur about how compelling forgiveness is itself abuse and can trigger and retraumatize the abused. In Judaism, there is one designated day every year when everyone is expected to forgive everyone else and beg forgiveness for oneself. All well and good, but this concentration of forgiveness into one specific day annually is bad for the abused. RCC Inc. and other institutions don't have a day of compulsion of forgiveness like this, so the Judaism example is a way of seeing the wrongness of compelling forgiveness.

RCC Inc. is a child rape and human trafficking organized crime cult that is collectively sociopathic/psychopathic and neither it nor its minions are deserving of any forgiveness. RCC Inc. has proven over and over that once they suck you in with carrots, they will beat you with sticks and get off on your bleeding and pain.

Think Charlie Brown trusting Lucy over and over to hold the football for him and *every time* she pulls the football away. EVERY TIME. That's what abusers, abusive institutions, and anything that bullies and degrades decent people do. It's their raison d'etre, and we all have to learn to accept *that*.

Forgiveness for the genuinely repentant only, and beware those who only pretend at being "sorry". I can't tell you how many times I was bullied as a kid where the bullies would always say "sorry" when I called them out on their bullying. That "sorry" was never, ever sincere. At most, they were sorry they got caught.

Miguel, I don't believe in your god or your religion, they're you're rules, and I don't have any obligation to follow any of them. Forgiveness is not key -- empowerment is. You forgive a dog who poops in the wrong place -- you should *never* forgive a serial predator/abuser. Be a sheep and you'll be eaten by wolves, and the wolves will never feel sorry they ate you. Baaaaahhhh. Baaaahhhhh. There's a reason that the central metaphor of xtianity is that people are sheep because the relationship of the shepherd to the sheep is not love but exploitation -- fleece 'em, screw 'em, sell 'em, kill 'em, eat 'em. A shepherd never cares about a stray lamb except insofar as the more that "survive" the more profit is to be made. I find it bizarre that xtians don't get this and love and enjoy being nothing but livestock for a psychotic and bloodthirsty “god” and his minions. Slaves, livestock, plants, dirt. So sad.

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Vernon Bradley link
10/14/2014 10:10:43 am

Hi
Much of what you say, perhaps all of what you say is accurate if we talk about forgiveness in the context of the "little" person or the "victim" having to forgive for some perverse reason, often to make the perpetrator feel better or even justified. The reality is that the forgiveness card is not in the hand of the "victim." See my comment below.

But there is another kind of forgiveness that Paul is sharing. It's a process of letting go and healing my heart so I can love again and be loved and can respond to those who love me and want to be loved by me as well.

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Vernon Bradley link
10/14/2014 10:04:12 am

Wow! I enjoyed reading this blog, Paul. Made me reflect on my own experience of forgiveness, and I think forgiveness is just that, an experience. I have realized, as I grow in age and wisdom, (the age is unquestionable, 69, but some will question the wisdom!), that my experience of life in general keeps expanding and blossoming. I know more about loving today than I did even a year ago. I know more about dying now than I did twenty years ago. Through working a twelve step program, I know a great deal more about forgiveness than I knew four years ago.

Some of my own food for thought. When we are small and powerless (at any age), and another person is able to penetrate our sense of self and hurt or wound us, (I like to avoid the term victimize because the label provides no possibility for healing and recovery), at that point, the FORGIVENESS CARD is not in our “hand.” Even Jesus DID NOT forgive those who crucified him. READ THE TEXT. And as a therapist, I do a fair amount of “work” with perpetrators, some conscienceless, and I always tells them, if you want forgiveness, then go on television and ask the community at large to forgive you. Ask me for forgiveness. Stand out in a public square and beg GOD to forgive you, but don’t you dare even consider asking the person you hurt to forgive you because by doing so, you are asking them to share the guilt of your unconscionable behavior. I don’t know if that is clear without further explanation, but just think about it.

However, there is another kind of forgiveness which you describe so well here. It’s the kind of forgiveness that is absolutely essential for my own growth and development as a human being and as a lover. As a 69 year old man, when I forgive other people, when I forgive myself, I am simply acknowledging that within me is a wonder filled potential for greatness as well as a unbelievable potential for inexplicable “evil.” If I cannot own both sides of the potential, I am then a dangerous man. So forgiveness is a must for us to complete our journey, to completely blossom as a human being and a lover. Ultimately, it may come down to, as Rabbi Kushner says in Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People, forgiving even God for making what many see as an “imperfect” world and universe.

So I think forgiveness, as you describe it, has to do with aging and maturing as in the sense that wine ages and matures and even with wine, sometimes, there are elements in the wine we forgive even though we might consider it an outstanding wine. As you repeated over and over again, forgiveness is not about the person who hurt or wounded us. Forgiveness is about my heart, freeing myself from the debilitating resentment, the restrictive vengeance that literally keeps me from seeing the world as it really is. There is no question that anger can be very healing, but when my anger ferments into rage, it becomes anything but lifegiving. It will kill me as well as potentially others.

Mario, even in his unconscionable state and his worst exploitive behavior, was hardly ever a “winner.” He remains whatever label you want to put on him. I prefer the label, “stunted human being,” and he will always be in that “limbo” until he can come to terms with being the flawed man that he became, until he himself can look squarely in the face of his own perpetrator and forgive that person as well. But not from the position of a “little” person, but from the position of the mature person who can take ownership of everything that has happened, take ownership of ALL of whom one has become. Mario seemingly never did that while here. Hopefully, he can accomplish that somewhere else.

I’ve been in the people business since 1967 and every conscienceless person I have engaged with has a heartless history. He or she was not born that way. Genetics? No. Read The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton. Genetics have little to do with our behavior!

SO! Thanks for sharing your journey of forgiveness, Paul. I know the journey makes it possible for you to have an open heart to those who love you and want to be loved by you in return. That’s the importance of forgiveness. And that has absolutely nothing to do with Mario.

One more item. There is an awesome article about living in chaos and Stepping Out of Chaos by Marsha Utain. Link is
http://www.nancycarterlcsw.com/DramaTriangle.html

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Robert Millick
10/15/2014 12:32:07 am

Paul and I were students at the seminary at the same time briefly. I can't say that I know Paul well, but I appreciate his personal sharing that has made me know him better. I suggest that Paul is saying that forgiveness is something freely given that may or may not be accepted for a variety of reasons. Forgiving can be a way to cut one's emotional and spiritual losses. And so it is with the deceased Father Mario whose abuses I share with Paul. Coming to the conclusion to cut losses and forgive can be a long, exhausting journey. I think it's the most effective way to regain one's spirit and inner joy. Bravo, Paul!

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Terry Reis Kennedy link
10/15/2014 02:00:18 pm

Thank you Paul. I appreciate that you write monthly on this subject. I live in India and these cases are just being reported............

I send you love, best wishes, and gratitude.

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Cathy Bryant link
11/18/2014 07:54:12 pm

Thank you for this powerful and superbly-written piece, Paul. After molestation (father, also headmaster of my strict Catholic school and a Papal knight - authority figure to the max) I too spent years in therapy, which helped enormously. I let myself be angry and work through all the anger and feelings of injustice and hatred. Unfortunately, by the time I was ready to confront my abuser, he had descended into dementia - he wasn't really there to confront any more. I'm left mostly with a sort of detached pity, in the end.
I'm so sorry for all you went through - what intolerable burdens for anyone, especially such a sensitive child - but full of admiration for your courage, honesty and kindness. Your father was right about that. Thank you for your writing - there's something healing in it, I think.

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    Author

    A Room With A Pew is a thought-provoking column on clergy abuse and the healing process. Its content reflects the observations, opinions and experiences of Paul Fericano, a former student who attended Saint Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara in the sixties, and a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. Fericano co-founded SafeNet in 2003, and returned to Santa Barbara that same year to assist the community in recovery. As a poet, satirist and author, he is actively engaged in advocacy, social justice and reconciliation efforts. He supports and encourages those who have been harmed by the Catholic church to explore the healing process, pursue justice with compassion, and to reclaim their past. He is the editor and co-founder of Yossarian Universal News Service (YU News Service), the nation's first parody news syndicate established in 1980. His spiritual practice includes challenging himself to look for humor in the shadows.

    Archives 
    A Room With A Pew
    Memories of Better Days Persist
    Many St. Anthony's students have contacted me, and one asked about the barbershop, where he had sought refuge one day after his offender beat him. Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    TUES., APRIL 1, 2014
    ---
    No Matter How High the Hedge Grows
    The Solidarity Project memorial for clergy abuse survivors at Mission Santa Barbara was vandalized for a second time by a person employed by the Franciscans.
     Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    WED., MARCH 5, 2014
    ---
    Mario (Walter) Cimmarrusti, OFM: 1931 - 2013
    The Worst of What We Lived
    My offender, a notorious Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who abused many boys at St. Anthony's Seminary, died on November 23, 2013. 
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    THURS., FEBRUARY 13, 2014
    ---
    The Roots of Pastoral Response
    Pastoral response is the kind of outreach by the church that is absolutely essential to the healing process.
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    WED., FEBRUARY 5, 2014
    ---
    Looking for Francis in the Franciscans
    Among survivors of clergy abuse, what puzzles, angers, and disappoints many is the shortage of moral courage among the friars in general. 
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    WED., JANUARY 8, 2014
    ---
    From Survival to Forgiveness
    In 1965 when I was 14 I was sexually abused at St. Anthony’s, a Catholic minor seminary in Santa Barbara operated by the Franciscan religious order. 
    Read story.
    by PAUL FERICANO
    THURS., DECEMBER 5, 2013

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