The Sexual Abuse of Women by Members of the Clergy by Kathryn A. Flynn

Author:Kathryn A. Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2018-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

The woman expressed her knowledge that cultural adulation of the clerical collar had become almost a false god before the multitudes. She expressed her confusion with the dichotomy between the pastor’s public and private persona. The majority saw only his public presentation, and she experienced the reality of his private other self. His split identity created confusion and conflict in her mind with regard to who he really was, and what the truth was. The pastor’s seemingly pathological compartmentalization of his own life, along with cultural myths that surround religious persons, created enormous conflict for the woman. She described the contradiction as “really doing a number” on her.

Also, the pastor defined sex abuse for her as being a good thing. However, the involvement did not feel like a good thing and created additional inner conflict. Struggle, it seems, is resident in the decision whether to trust her own feelings or to trust his powerful words, presumably from God.

Let’s look at another narrative:

I guess that to me, this man was God’s messenger. He was next to God. And he was, is very charismatic, very manipulative but in a subtle sort of way that if you are not on to him, you wouldn’t recognize it. And I didn’t until a couple of years ago. When he would talk about—whatever he talked about from the pulpit like truth and honesty, and you go down the whole line, of course I believed him. So, when he is saying to me in the privacy of my bedroom that he loves me, of course I believed him. When I finally, finally, finally realized that he never loved me, that I was one of many, how do I separate that lie from what he was saying from the pulpit? I can’t. To me it is one whole package. That if he is telling the truth there, he should’ve been telling the truth with me. But I know he wasn’t, so what was that all about from the pulpit? For me it’s just all coming to terms with them and dealing with those ghosts of his being there and what he has said. But it has been a long time in coming, a lot of therapy…. Okay. Okay. I guess this man was such a … we all had him on such a pedestal. My family thought he was wonderful. My husband thought he was wonderful. When I was peeling away the emotion of what had happened, I would keep asking myself the question, “If I can’t trust him, who can I trust?” The last thing that would’ve come into my mind before I started counseling with him, which was his suggestion by the way, was can I trust him? But when he brings God into it, that God wouldn’t have given us these feelings if we weren’t to use them, he told me several times that he could get in trouble for this. This was after the intimate relationship had started. He said, “I could get into trouble for this.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.