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Book Review
Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church
Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea,
Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville TN, 2007
When accepting an invitation from American bishops to speak about effects
of abuse in Dallas in 2002, Dr. Frawley-O'Dea was ignored by her own NY Bishop.
After the publication of this book, ignoring her won't be easy. O'Dea is compelled
to write from a perch of truth as she sees it.
Encouraged by Notre Dame theologian Richard McBrien to speak in Dallas, the
author thanks him, America editor James Martin, S.J., Thomas P. Doyle, O.P.
and other priests for theological assistance. She notes they do not always
agree. Why their perusal? O'Dea comes out of her traditional Irish Catholic
upbringing swinging her lens wide. Perversion of Power explores Church culpability.
A March National Catholic Reporter book review faults O'Dea for failing to
inform our understanding of psychopathological and other factors causing perpetrators
to abuse minors. O'Dea doesn't limit this book to a perspective on victim/survivors
and perpetrators. She holds Church power-based relational dynamics and atonement
theology under a light. "Offer it up" valorization of suffering disturbs
this psychoanalyst.
Though toughened by 25 years of clinical experience, O'Dea highlights the
difficulty
Catholics have with "bishops presiding over depravity" in
admitting her own difficulty. The author follows the advice of former Link-up
director
Susan Archibald that healing is found in returning destructive emotions to
rightful owners. She confronts the source of her pain. Ending each day with
the Abuse Tracker, O'Dea knows the range of clerical abuse and roots it in
systemic flaws. It is the abuse of power, facilitated by denial and secrecy
and ensuing Church defense based on projection of blame. The author faults
the refusal of American bishops to hold themselves responsible for their creation
of child protection documents.
O'Dea fronts a figure closer to 50,000 minors abused over a 50 year period,
based on her own experience and knowledge of unreported abuse. After a crisis
overview in the first chapter, she asks readers to immerse themselves in "soul
murder" of victims. She underscores lifelong abuse effects with a client
quote. "It is something I've thought about every day of my life" is
trumped by another quote about learning to adjust to "a nasty pet you've
had all your life." This brings a survivor complaint of feeling different
from anyone else home to the reader.
The author points to polygraph surveys of abusive priests to discount the
early Church contention that most child abuse was a blip or misstep in vocation.
The victims of many abusers can't be counted on both hands. O'Dea insists this
is facilitated by the system. O'Dea adds the fact of an average age difference
of at least 20 years between abuser and victim is another indication that sexual
abuse has an orientation in power dynamics. When O'Dea moves to Church treatment
of sexual desire and dualistic theology of sex, deficient in her opinion, she
draws out the power dynamic thesis. Clerics are trapped in a conflation of
surrender with submission, unable to develop a culturally normative adult male
self image. She notes that sadism, related more to a drive for recognition
and power than pleasure, may devolve from calcified relational templates.
There is real pastoral value for lay and cleric alike in the O'Dea call for
less objectifying relational dynamics in our Church. Victims would not be treated
as threats and accused clerics would not all be treated in the same way. O'Dea
has changed her mind in disapproval of cutting an abusive priest off from his
emotional home base. She now favors the approach of Religious Orders. There
is also value in the last quarter of this book, a mini abuse reference and
research library. Anne Southwood
[SEE DIOCESE/State Watch for VOTF New York invitation to hear Dr. O’Dea
on May 7.]
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