Over the past six months, one of the best religious blogs out there has been Speaking Truth to Power. Written by the pseudononymous uugrrl, it chronicles her thoughts and feelings as someone who was a victim of clergy sexual misconduct. But now she has announced that she’ll be taking the blog down for personal reasons. You have a few more days to read her well-written posts on clergy sexual misconduct.
I’m going to miss uugrrl. In the past, I’ve been in churches that had suffered from clergy sexual misconduct. I discovered that clergy misconduct can poison an entire congregation for years — and I learned that misconduct can have a negative impact on everyone in that congregation. Reading uugrrl’s blog has helped me to come to a better understanding of the evil of clergy sexual misconduct.
I’ll leave you with some critically important advice uugrrl offers to anyone who is a victim of clergy sexual misconduct in a Unitarian Universalist congregation (or in almost any denomination, for that matter):
If you are a victim of UU clergy misconduct, don’t report it…. To be clear, by “don’t report it,†I mostly mean don’t file a formal complaint. I don’t mean you shouldn’t tell anyone. It’s even okay in my opinion to tell the UUA [denominational headquarters], as long as you make it clear they do not have your permission to share your name or to consider you a complainant. Just do what feels safest. And be very careful. One good option is contacting Marie Fortune’s Institute.
So just why is that advice so critically important Dan?
Just to be very clear here. I am genuinely interested in hearing why you believe that it is “critically important advice” that victims of UU clergy misconduct should not file formal complaints against U*U ministers who are guilty of committing various forms of clergy misconduct.
Robin — Why is that advice critically important? (And note that this problem is not confined to any one denomination — I know of no denominations that handle clergy misconduct well.) Because there’s a lot of pressure on victims of clergy sexual misconduct to make an official report to denominational authorities — note that I am only addressing sexual misconduct here.
However, by making an official report, the victim of sexual misconduct is forced to reveal her/his name to the perpetrator, which in the past has led to subtle and not-so-subtle efforts to harrass and/or discredit the victim — e.g., I have been told of the following: perpetrator’s lawyer threatening countersuits; perpetrator contacting the victim directly and making disparaging remarks; perpetrator using position of influence to publicly discredit the victim (“oh, she’s mentally unstable”). All these are more-or-less legal ways to harrass and discredit the victim, and who wants to live through that? In addition, denominational authorities offer little or nothing in the way of protection or reparations to victims — that is, the victim could spend a great deal of her/his time (and sometimes money) and in the end gets nothing at all from the effort, except humiliation, heartache, and/or a ruined reputation. Having said all that, if a victim is a strong woman with an excellent support system, and she has clear evidence of sexual misconduct, and she wants to file a formal complaint with her denominational officials, some formal complaints are successful and result in a clergyperson being ejected from his denomination.
I am not an authority about these matters, but it seems to me that if I or a loved one were a victim of clergy sexual misconduct, my first thought would be to contact a lawyer. If it were a case of rape, child molestation, personal injury, or other actionable matter, the courts at least offer the possibility of financial compensation to a victim (if not from an individual minister, then from an insurance company or a complicit congregation), and offer some small legal protections (especially important when the victim is a legal minor). In the absence of financial compensation, the courts also offer the possibility of obtaining a restraining order.
Finally, I’d agree with uugrrl that, while I don’t necessarily support filing a formal complaint, a victim should let others know *to the level the victim feels safe*. Some denominational officials will be sympathetic to complaints and will even try to take what action they can behind the scenes. There are a quite a few ministers out there who will be supportive and understanding. I have also found that some academics and professionals who specialize in the area of clergy sexual misconduct may be trustworthy.