Speaks with a campaigner in the battle against child sexual abuse stay with us. For a welcome to sophie and co and Sophie Shevardnadze sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is once again in the spotlight was encouraged to europe and north america what can be done to make a big thing of the past call gorman himself a survivor insider against sexual abuse is with me today to talk about this. Another way for 6 when abuse allegations is hit the Catholic Church with reports painting a grim picture of systemic proportions implying that even high ranking Church Officials are complicit will pope francis. Take the fight against abuse personally and be able to break the system what are the roots of this plague that is easy no way of the church and how will it transform the global conflict. Palma warman survivor and fighter against sexual abuse welcome to the show its great to have you with us today. You have been complaining for accountability for clerical child abuse for more than 20 years what kind of change have you made over this time what are your successes well i think our gracious success has been finally exposing the fact not just that the abuses happened on us on the scale that weve been talking about for many years but that its endemic within the roman Catholic Church that its systemic. And the cover up of abuse by Church Authorities was a willful intended program that was designed to protect the institution its power and its money that it was operated and directed by the vatican at the global level and that its been a global cover up i think thats something weve now very clearly exposed so were going to go through all of that step by step but 1st ireland is a very catholic country when you came out publicly about your deal when you see the vatican where you supported by the irish or catholics around the world. It was a makes generally speaking when i went very public. I made a documentary with a European Television station in 2002 and when that aired there was a very very strong in support of response from people here in our in our into particular but of course there were people who didnt want me to speak about what was happening i mean i got people warning me that i should spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder i got Death Threats but in the main i got a huge amount of support i think people were uphold not just stuff the the the crimes of rape and abuse that reflected on me and many others by the priest in my own case but more by the cover up of those crimes the facilitation of the collusion with them and that we were able to expose that by catholic bishops and indeed by the vatican itself so how hard was it for you to make your case how did church resistance change things for you were you prevented from speaking out. What was i mean 1st of all it was very difficult to get to the point where i could challenge my own. I suppose internal inhibitors the the the own spoken authority of the church wasnt something that was external to me it was internal so when i 1st start to think about in the mid 1900 about 1904 about doing something about what had happened to me more than a decade earlier. My forced instinct was to contact the bishop from as opposed to contacting the police so i had bought into this idea that the church was the ultimate authority and that it was it was to them that i needed to look to thankfully i didnt instead i decided about 6 months later in february of 1905 that i would make a complete complaint directly to the police here in arlington thats what i did. The priest who would abuse me the priest who raped me when i was 14 years of age was known to be a sexual abuser when he was ordained a priest and the church knew about his offending behavior and they were doing to me he continued to abuse from his ordination right through his entire career as a priest and he was still a priest and active ministry when i went to the police in 1905 he was only removed from ministry immediately after the the churchs response to what i and others were alleging was to 1st of all deny deny that abuse happened then to deny the idea that they knew anything about abuse of the that they understood us and when they finally had to acknowledge that abuse was happening they tried to suggest this was just a few bad apples this was about a couple of you know bad people who had infected the priesthood and were doing terrible things. When we called from when i campaign for accountability on the part of the Institutional Church there was an effort to suggest that the church was above the law that the state could not investigate the church that the church was protected from any kind of station vesta geisha and indeed the church asserted here in arlington thats down across the world that their own rules canon law of the internal law of the church is superior to the law of the state in any jurisdiction which is. Within which they operate so we have to get over that and of course there were all the accusations of being dishonest of being deceitful of being anti catholic of trying to undermine the church. Of being a liar of being a fan to the retard my personal integrity all of that kind of thing was so based on everything that you have cite right now are these the only reasons or is there like Something Else that actually makes victims of child sexual abuse choose to report the crime many years later like you did as well. Well i suppose the 1st thing that ive worked also clinically with with people have been sexually assaulted my background actually as a psychotherapist working with victims of Sexual Violence ive never worked with an adult or child victim of Sexual Violence who hasnt somehow spoken of what happened to them now in the context of children they speak of their smaller behaviorally them verbally because they dont have a language to explain whats happened to them i mean even when i was 14 years of age this was back in 1981 there wasnt a language available to me to allow me to understand never mind explain part of happened and what this man was doing it was an incredibly frightening confusing threatening time in my life when suddenly the act that he perpetrated upon me. Called into question everything that i believed about the world i mean up until that point id been told some fairly fundamental things as fact warm that the church was good and the priests above all were good and were never to be questions they were absolutely good too that if i behaved myself and was a good person everything would be ok 3 that adults would only ever hurt me if i did something wrong so therefore if ive been heart i must have done something wrong and then suddenly im raped by a Catholic Priest that was there was no way i could understand that never mind articulate and i was so shamed by part of happened. I internalized all of that shame and that silenced me now that was me at 14. At 6 at 7 at 8 at 10 its going to be even more difficult for children to speak of victims of Sexual Violence carry the shame of society the shame that society on the perpetrator of the crime. And that shame becomes very internalized and its very silencing. I should also say that its very threatening to speak out you know if one knows that the perpetrator and the institution around the perpetrator is incredibly powerful and at the time when up until relatively recently the concept of church was more powerful than the state of the conflict church was more powerful than our parliament when it came to what happened within our society. Its a fairly intimidating institution to challenge so were now seeing a flurry of sex abuse scandals around the Catholic Church once again most of that church that has been accused of covering up sexual abuse to German Church is mired in the number of sexual abuse scandals theres another case in france some more american scandals popping up with federal a torn is a lot of what is behind the latest wave. Well you just see more and more revelations i mean i think whats significant finally is that were seeing state authorities federal authorities in the United States have announced that theyve opened up the department of justice has opened up an investigation into pennsylvania and its believed that investigations into other states at the federal level will also follow. But there has for whatever reason been a reluctance on the part of states to step in and investigate these crimes and in particular these cover ups that finally happened in australia recently one of our big successes from 2002 on was winning those inquiries here in arent so i campaign for an inquiry known as the friends inquiry in 2002 but finally got up and running in 2003 and reported in 2008 and it was one of the 1st such inquiries to look at the role of both the church and state authorities in the management of concerns our suspicions our complaints of child sexual abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests here in ireland and that found very deep and systemic failures within the church but also within state law and policy in practice but also pointed the finger at the vatican so states need to step in and thats only happening more recently but of course whats also critical is that as soon as a victim speaks as soon as somebody decides to speak publicly provides an opportunity or an opening for all there is to speak. And thats been very significant its you know im im 2124 years more nearly 25 years at this point since i went public and spoke about this for the 1st time and it never ceases to amaze me that every time i speak on this i get contacted by people who say me too who say that. I never thought i could speak about this but now i think that i have to. So its the opening up of us really the breaking open of silence allows people to speak but also the the new laws that are being. Made for this kind of cases have a lot of loopholes in them for instance in pencil ennia which like you mentioned has seen the. This way for child sex abuse revelations a law is in the works which on one hand will allow the dems to sue their creditors even if they abuse is beyond the statute of limitation but on the other the victim will only be allowed to sue a person not an institution so what sense will this law make for victims of their predators may be bad by that time anyway and theres no one to bear responsibility for what happened to them well i think thats what we have to be very clear about the critical obligation of states so if we look at what International Law says about states its for the state to guarantee access to justice and remedy for victims of Human Rights Violations and obviously the rape or Sexual Assault of a child or of any person is a human rights violation so in however a state is going to put in place a remedy to guarantee access for justice that has to guarantee access and blocking. Remedies involving institutions is problematic but i can also see why from the point of view of taking on the roman Catholic Church it might be important to begin to identify named individuals because for example the Catholic Church has so many different personalities legal and otherwise that it can be very hard to identify how the institution is to be sued so when i decided i would sue the pope i had to work out what am i going to sue the pope as the bishop of rome im going to sue him as the supreme pontiff of the roman Catholic Church im going to sue the legal personality of the holy see which has observer status of the United Nations im i going to sue the Vatican City State and him as head of the Vatican City State which personality will i pursue and weve seen in australia and even efforts to do the same here in our land where Catholic Diocese of effectively said well you can sue us because we dont exist we are not legal persons theyre not incorporated they dont exist as a legal entity as with any kind of an statues and so they can be very very difficult to pursue. The church has been very good for 2000 years of developing structures and mechanisms that allow it to be accountable to find a way to not be held accountable for its failings on its own crimes. It can be tricky to find laws and to design laws that can hold a properly accountable but its the obligation of states to do the. Right were going to take a short break right now while were back well continue talking to a war. Fighter against sexual abuse talking about the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church stay with us. Join me every thursday simon chill and ill be speaking to the world of politics. Im sure. Ill see that. They put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. The president. Actually going to be for us this is what we look for 3 of the more people. Interested in the waters. Into the experimentation field cultural chemicals we know that these chemicals have consequences they are. Major theres no question otherwise why would the Chemical Company workers themselves. Locals attempt to combat the on regulated experiments that often in day you have many of these people one foot into the biotech pharma and the other foot in the government regulatory bodies this kind of collusion is reprehensible while the battle goes on the chemicals continue to poison hawaii and its people so one has to ask the question whether there is a form of Environmental Research going on in hawaii whether these Companies Feel they can get away with this because the people have less political power. Now were back with call a warm and survivor and fighter against sexual abuse discussing they are professionals revelations of child sex abuse for a Catholic Church a call one pope francis was elected in 2013 he called for Decisive Action in tackling the issue of child sexual abuse do you feel that the action has been taken. Frankly no i think francis has been enormously disappointing on this issue and i dont say that with any pleasure i admire much of what he has to say on a whole range of social justice issues from refugees to people on the margins to poverty. To discrimination i think hes a strong advocate for a whole range of issues but on this issue hes been hes been enormously disappointing for example when he went to chile a couple of years ago a country thats been really blighted by revelations of sexual abuse and cover up of those crimes within the roman Catholic Church there and when victims spoke out about the appointment of a bishop who had known who was known to have covered up the abuse of a perpetrator by a priest rather than honestly respond to that charge and address that the pope accused the victim of spoken up of slander he accused them of comedy which means slander and he attacked their integrity now afterwards when there was a huge public reaction to that he rolled back and said oh well i havent been properly briefed by bishops and ive been misled by them before i before i travel to well you know thats either dishonest or its incompetent and the vatican itself had carried out investigations into that case as early as 2011 and for many decades now it has been an obligation on bishops to report any allegation of the sexual abuse or rape of a child or minor to the vatican which decides how that case is to be handled and much of happen next so the vatican had chapter and verse on modern happened in chile francis knew he was going to a country where the abuse issues were a big deal so he either didnt bother to get briefed or he was briefed and decided to be disingenuous and dishonest in how he responded there none of that look schooled well how do you think that public repentance will help the problem how will it stop perverts from molesting boys and girls. Well i think 1st of all its i can understand why some people might fixate on the idea of repentance almost from a religious procession. Specht of what im interested in is truth and justice and frankly love in its pop in its truest possible meaning and the kind of principles that churches are meant to be grounded in and the values that theyre meant to reflect so i have no desire to see pope francis or any bishop or cardinal or any Church Leader humiliated. Are exposed in that way when i do want them to do is to stand for truth to stand for justice to reveal the facts of what was known of what they knew of how their institution and they responded to these crimes and to make themselves properly accountable including before the law i wonder if the pope is doing as much as he can in a framework that and the paradigm that he exists for and says i know that in february hes going to simone as bishops counsel to a council to discuss the sexual abuse problem i mean i dont know if thats going to change anything but hes doing that and he has said recently that his efforts are kind of bearing fruit that the number of new cases are law compared to the old ones that they church attitude towards sex abuse has changed and now has a new conscience about it do you feel that he may have a point there i mean its kind of heart to doubt his sincere conviction. Im afraid its not hard to do. The objective evidence is there for why people should 1st of all pope francis is the last elected absolute monarch on the planet he is an absolute monarchy is the supreme pontiff of the roman Catholic Church under church t. C. Teaching he is the representative of st peter of god on earth he has that kind of power he has an entire judicial system available to him he has the mecca mechanisms of a state the Vatican City State its laws its police force its criminal justice process he has the own questioning loyalty of many many many billions of catholics are millions of catholics around the world he is an incredibly powerful individual with one wart with the stroke of a pen he can change much of church law when it comes to how these issues are to be addressed he has not done so and hes not the 1st pope to summon bishops to rome after revelations of scandals are revealed and those huge public outrage Pope Benedict of the Pope John Paul the 2nd did us and these summits amount to an awful lot of pictures of people looking solemn and very little change and as for the suggestion that we can now believe that theres less of us will based on what evidence the church doesnt reveal the number of cases that are reported to us are i would manage as such theres absolutely no transparency some afraid i dont take any comfort in any assurances from the vatican that theyre taking this seriously because to this day no pope has told the plain truth not a single pope no senior representative of the vatican has ever honestly acknowledge the fact of the coverup theyve denied theyve suggested its a lie and when theyve begun to acknowledge that the myth may have been a cover up in recent years theyve pointed the finger to bishops at the local level despite all of the evidence that clearly exposes the fact that this cover up was directed at the most senior level from the vatican i always wonder why those most of this. You know if you ponder upon using why do all this sex abuse and sex scandals are within the Catholic Church maybe being celibate is not something that is required for a precise by the bible right now its not required for critique or set up a church for my priest has like 8 kids so other Christian Churches do not require celibacy from chris the Orthodox Church like i said even encourages priests to have families at some point the roman chris could marry as well if i remember correctly so maybe if. It isnt something that is set in stone could it be overturned do you think that could partially help the problem could the pope say one day enough of this and go and find wives would that maybe help get rid of this problem but a couple quick things i mean 1st of all we know about whats happening within the roman Catholic Church i think in part because of its size and scale and its global influence the fact that weve been able to expose much of whats happening right across the Roman Catholic world thats become a huge and significant issue but i should say that as a as a therapist ive worked with many people whove been abused within different faiths and within different religious sessions and churches so its not unique to the roman Catholic Church and the roman Catholic Church is perhaps unique because of its global reach and scale. On the question of the link between celibacy and pedophilia i dont think the link is a direct one in the way that youre suggesting as. Indeed theres no research to suggest that that it has and just personally as a man i dont understand how a requirement to be celibate would somehow turn. An adult into somebody who was sexually assaulted child if im in a position where im being forced to be celibate and i dont feel that i can manage that i may well decide but i have a clandestine sexual relationship with another adult but not with a child. Require our you know needing to break the requirements. Celibacy doesnt turn people into child rapists it perhaps turns people into people who have hidden sexual i dont relationships and you know that theres no link to suggest something between between the 2. However the fact that. The Catholic Church is an institution and the priesthood is a vocation an institution within which one hides one are denies ones sexual south that itself may or may be one of the reasons why he explained people with very dark and sinister aspects to their sexuality or their Sexual Conduct are attracted to it and equally its a role that gives and has given people extraordinary access to children and i dont question control and access to children so the ability for a sexual offender to access victims to be free to abuse with with impunity has been extraordinary so i think those are the dimensions of the church its structure the structure of the priesthood the fact that the church not only want to prevent abuse from happening but it will collude in it being corrupt it will facilitate it is often seen the priest almost as a victim and the child as the temper of the priest its over its concern has generally been for the priest and for the institution another model for the victim just really bristly because were running out of time but if you take away the white colors and organs sounds other stories of sexual abuse will end up looking very similar to those who just discussed the way i talk to women who suffered rape in the u. S. Military the same attempts to cover up to shame the victim are there its the same there are many cases of sexual abuse of minors in boarding schools orphanages you mention that as well is the church really that different from the rest of the world and as regards i feel like its probably maybe a marrow of the society. Absolutely no i mean the church at the end of the day despite its proclamation of itself as a Divine Institution its a Human Institution its run by people its run by men and we are flawed and we dont always conduct ourselves properly or appropriately and institutions generally work to protect themselves on the more powerful the institution the more money the more authority the more position of house the more aggressively and even violently its inclined to protect itself and we see that right across the world i worked for many years in the United Kingdom we saw their major investigations into historic abuse of children in council run homes and in homes in institutions that were run by the state their institutions walk to protect themselves and again thats why its incredibly important that we have laws put in place by the states and that ensure and demand good Child Protection practice what all sold but punish those who would cover up or facilitate these crimes as well as those who perpetrate them called thank you so much for. Your interview for your time for this inside will wish you all the best of luck in that was that youre doing. Thank you very much and i hope you succeed for talking to call mom bormann survivor insider against sexual abuse the man who set the vatican about the crisis the Catholic Church is going through its latest child sex abuse revelations thats it for this edition of so ill see you next time. Leg. Length. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy. Let it be an arms race in. This very Dramatic Development only really. Very critical time to sit down and talk. 2006 i was substituting for a 5th grade class all of sudden its kids come bursting a library really agitated one of the boys to the health and on the way he collapsed the next morning. We were not spraying anything but the teachers had actually gone out and taken pictures when all this chaos was going on the school and students were being and they were spraying right in the fields right adjacent to. A follow up study was done on that 32. 00 page study the last 4 pages or the chemicals that they have found. We have shown an association between organophosphate exposure as measured by those metabolites in the mothers urine during pregnancy and shorten just station abnormal neonatal reflexes decreased Mental Development in the children at 2 years of age decreased i. Q. At age 7 and 10 years of age pervasive developmental disorder which is like. Symptoms. Attention problems and schooling for executive functioning in preadolescents and we have also shown that there are some populations of people that might be more affected than others i have virtue of their genetics. Hurting our kids from chemicals is a common sense thing that everybody can get behind its lead points to examples in recent years of students getting sick from pesticides use