Introduction
“Still Reeling From Bad Touch Fiasco”
by Christopher Manion (The Wanderer, Mar 31, 2005)
Chris Manion, a parent, who lives in Manassas, VA reports on the history and current status of the controversy regarding “safe environment program” implementation in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia. His bishop is Bishop Paul S. Loverde. Manion refers to the huge parental outcry when the diocese imposed “Good Touch Bad Touch” on Catholic school children in 2004. As the name implies, the sexually graphic material foisted on the youngest of children, was hardly in keeping with Vatican directives. Manion further describes their diocese’s current efforts to replace the earlier program with the Virtus program and to keep parents “in the dark” as much as possible. According to Manion, Virtus’s “Protecting God’s Children” perpetuates the “Bad Touch” theme that emphasizes the feelings of the five year old as the final arbiter of modesty and purity. It places the responsibility for avoiding abuse on the child by urging him to judge “touches” on “how they feel” – a feature that has been called a “roadmap for predators.” According to the diocesan web site, the required programs teach first graders, when someone touches you and you feel it is not(sic)good touch, or it hurts, you should tell that person, whether they (sic) are another child or an adult, to “STOP.” …Like “Bad Touch” parents are prohibited from teaching the program at home. Only teachers trained by chancery experts can do so.
”Virtus Program is Time Well Spent”
by Elizabeth Foss (Catholic Herald, November 18, 2004)
Elizabeth Foss, who is a columnist at the Catholic Herald, writes as if everything is and always has been wonderful in this diocese. She says:
“I recognize that it (child abuse) could not have happened here because both our family and the diocese were already essentially operating under the five-point plan explained in VIRTUS. My children and most children I knew were never in dangerous situations because their parents instinctively never put them there and because the Church had in place safeguards that never presented dangerous situations.”
This comment ignores the years of sex education programs and child abuse incidents which have hurt so many children in this diocese, as well as the experimental “Good Touch Bad Touch” program which caused such controversy in 2004. Ms Foss flip flops on the Virtus program’s mandatory status-first calling it a mandate, and then saying that parents can opt out, but why would they want to… She likewise claims that she is against sex education but then applauds the Virtus sex education program for children in the classroom. Next, she affirms parents’ rights, but then says she has complete confidence in a priest who has devoted his life to protecting our children! Elizabeth Foss continues the familiar theme of safe environment programs such as Virtus, i.e., Children will learn that anyone can be a sexual predator – while priest types are essentially overlooked.
The obvious disparity in these two articles reveals a lack of honesty on the part of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia. It manifests clearly that the safe environment programs are “Of the bishops, for the bishops, and by the bishops,” They violate the privacy of children and the rights of parents.
Be sure to scroll down to read each of the two articles.
The Bishop In The Bunker….
Arlington Diocese Still Reeling from “Bad Touch” Fiasco
By Christopher Manion
ARLINGTON – It has been a long year for Virginia’s Arlington diocese. A year ago, on January 12, 2004, the chancery held a meeting at All Saints Church in Manassas to introduce parents to “Good Touch, Bad Touch,” a “sex-abuse education” program that the chancery intended to impose on all Catholic children ages five and older. Some 300 parents from around the diocese attended the tumultuous meeting, virtually all in opposition to the program’s secular nature, its prurient content, and its violations of traditional Church teaching.
Manassas marked a turning point for Arlington.
First off, no further public meetings on “safe environment” programs were offered by the chancery. Moreover, after Manassas, the chancery made it clear that, as far as it was concerned, the notion of “transparency” regarding safe environment programs was a dead letter. (Article VII of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted by the USCCB in June 2002 and cited by Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde as the authority for his “safe environment” programs, reads: “Each diocese/eparchy will develop a communications policy that reflects a commitment to transparency and openness.”)
Last, but not least, the chancery’s emerging strategy for responding to the clerical sex-crime scandals has become clear: blame the laity.
In the year since Manassas, the chancery can be best described as secretive, contradictory, and chaotic. Catherine Nolan, the first director of the diocesan Office of Child Protection and Safety, had hosted the Manassas meeting. A few weeks later, just days after she refused to endorse the Church’s position in defense of life at a diocesan parents meeting, Miss Nolan abruptly departed the staff and returned to her position as a “child abuse expert” in the federal bureaucracy.
Nolan was succeeded by Jennifer Alvaro, her erstwhile chancery assistant. Alvaro zealously advanced the notion that diocesan children need to be “desensitized from their sense of embarrassment and shame” about sex. Mrs. Alvaro later defended the “safe environment” programs even more strenuously, telling diocesan religious educators that “children are safer with homosexuals than with heterosexuals,” presumably including their own parents.
Countless parents and teachers in the diocese were outraged, but to this day, no one in the chancery, including Mrs. Alvaro, ever apologized for this insult to Bishop Loverde’s flock.
After Mrs. Alvaro’s comments appeared in the Wanderer, an “emergency meeting” was called in the chancery, and Mrs. Alvaro abruptly left the staff. There was no public explanation regarding her departure. To this day, however, Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde has never publicly apologized for her remarks.
Bishop Loverde’s edicts reflect the strong influence of the secular social-worker Alvaro and federal bureaucrat Nolan. He appears to view the clerical sex scandals as primarily political, not moral, and his own role as the voice of reason in a Church threatened by political extremes. In June, he told the Knights of Malta “how much our beloved Church needs healing, so that the divisions within her, on the extreme left and on the extreme right, will be overcome.” Indeed, for Bishop Loverde, contemporary challenges to the Faith appear to be all about “right and left,” not about “Rome and wrong.” (In fact, chancery sources report that Bishop Loverde complains that he has been restricted in his efforts to deal with his critics because “Rome won’t back me.”)
Accusation and Denial
Since the departures of Nolan and Alvaro, the bishop’s apparent hostility towards the people in the pews was even more pronounced. Last spring, confronted with widespread parental opposition to his “safety” programs, he defended them to a group of parents by alleging that “sometimes parents are the abusers.” Since parents, not clerics, are the likely abusers, Bishop Loverde logically insists that children be taken from their parents to be taught explicit sex-abuse prevention programs.
The bishop did not point to a single case of parental abuse, and his allegation directly contradicted the findings of the John Jay report, which had appeared in February 2004, shortly before the bishop’s outburst.
Apart from accusing unnamed parents in his flock of child abuse, Bishop Loverde has also frequently cited another source for his authority to remove children from their parents when teaching them about sex abuse – namely, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted by the bishops of the USCCB in June 2002. In fact, the bishop does not cite the Charter itself, but a mysterious “clarification” of the Charter by an unidentified member of the USCCB bureaucracy.
Bishop Loverde first mentioned the elusive “clarification” in the Arlington Catholic Herald of November 23, 2003; ever since, however, he has refused to share the text with parents, in direct defiance of Article VII of the Charter. Repeatedly ignoring requests made with explicit appeals to the Charter’s transparency requirement, Bishop Loverde continued to exercise his right to remain silent. On March 20, 2004, he finally directed his canon lawyer, Fr. Mark S. Mealey, O.S.F.S., to respond. Father Mealey emphatically declared that the chancery intended to keep the text of the “clarification” secret, and the bishop has never revealed it.
THE BUNKER MENTALITY
The bunker mentality appears to be contagious in the chancery, as other officials in the bureaucracy refuse to answer questions – all of which invoke the Charter’s demand for transparency – about their role in the “Safe Environment” programs. For instance, Dr. Timothy McNiff, the director of the diocesan schools, once publicly praised the “Bad Touch” program, but has steadfastly refused to respond to repeated requests for comment regarding his approval of “pilot programs” – publicly confirmed by Bishop Loverde – in which diocesan children were subjected to the prurient secular version of the “Bad Touch” program – before it was formally rejected by the diocese.
Other senior chancery bureaucrats have also refused to respond to hand-delivered requests invoking the Charter’s demand for transparency. Diocesan spokesman Soren Johnson did not even reply to a simple request for past statements by the bishop on homosexuality. Father Mealey, the bishop’s canon lawyer, also refused to respond to a request for comment on possible breaches of the Charter by chancery personnel. When pressed on whether the “safe environment” programs had any basis in Church teaching, Fr. Mealey could only cite procedural provisions of Canon Law: only Bishop Loverde, he said, “possesses the proper and immediate power of a legislative, judicial, and executive nature for governing the Diocese.”
CHARTER? WHAT CHARTER?
Fr. Mealey even refused to confirm or deny whether Bishop Loverde was uniquely exempted from the Charter, especially from its requirement of transparency. The Bishops in Dallas had taken great pains to amend the Charter’s original reference to “clerics,” which includes bishops, to read “priests and deacons,” which does not.
Hence, since Fr. Mealey was responding to a letter addressed to the bishop, he refused to answer whether the bishop is “exempt from the Charter’s provisions that do apply to priests and deacons.” He also would not reply to another question, regarding his role as a canon lawyer and chancery official: “If you yourself [Fr. Mealey] are aware of an infraction of the Charter, and you have done nothing to stop it, are we to understand that you yourself are liable under the Charter?”
Like Bishop Loverde, Fr. Mealey ignored the Charter and chose to remain silent.
While thus deep-sixing Article VII of the Charter, Bishop Loverde ironically cites the Charter’s Article XII as his authority when requiring “safe environment” programs for children. His citation of the Charter’s binding character was so profound that many parents took that assertion to mean that the bishop thought that the Charter’s authority prevailed even over the authority of traditional Church teaching regarding the primacy of the rights of parents to educate their children.
The chancery’s “sex abuse education” advocates had also cited the Charter in rejecting the teaching of Truth And Meaning in Human Sexuality. That Vatican document forbids the introduction of unnecessary sexual information into the child’s “latency period,” the period of childhood innocence that lasts from birth until puberty. [NB: the “safe environment” programs are intended for children as young as five years of age]. Likewise, Truth And Meaning in Human Sexuality confirms the primacy of the role of parents, not the bishop, in all such matters.
The bishop and his staff are thus apparently quite comfortable rejecting Article VII of the Charter while claiming that Article XII is so authoritative that it overrides centuries of Church teaching on the central issue of the moral education of children.
Surprisingly, such “flexibility” in applying the Charter, while certainly startling, is hardly illegal. In fact, Mark Chopko, General Counsel for the USCCB, confirms that the Charter – including Article VII and Article XII – actually has no binding force in Church law!
It appears, then, that Bishop Loverde and his colleagues across the country are free to pick and choose among the Charter’s provisions. Bishops can proudly point to the Charter as an “achievement” reflecting their “commitment,” but it appears that they are free to interpret them as they see fit and decide which articles they can defy and which they might regard as binding – or merely convenient.
A “Roadmap For Predators”
After the abrupt departures of Miss Nolan and Mrs. Alvaro, Bishop Loverde quietly jettisoned the “Bad Touch” program without any explanation or further public consultation with parents. Exercising the “complete authority” cited by his canon lawyer, the bishop abruptly announced the adoption of “Virtus” for adults and, some months later, a children’s program called “Protecting God’s Children.”
This children’s program perpetuates the “Bad Touch” theme that emphasizes the feelings of the five-year-old as the final arbiter of modesty and purity. It places the responsibility for avoiding abuse on the child by urging him to judge “touches” on how they “feel” – a feature that has been called a “roadmap for predators.”
According to the diocesan website, the required program teaches first-graders, “when someone touches you and you feel it is not good touch [sic], or it hurts, you should tell that person, whether they [sic] are another child or an adult, to STOP.”
The conditions under which the program is taught are important. Like “Bad Touch,” parents are prohibited from teaching the program at home. Only teachers trained by chancery experts can do so, and the child must be taken away from his home and his parents to take the course.
On the Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 13, the Arlington Diocese held its “Commitment Sunday.”
Bishop Loverde ordered all pastors to interrupt all Sunday Masses and to distribute fundraising materials for the “Bishop’s Lenten Appeal,” and then to delay the Mass until they had filled out the forms (chancery sources have complained that many faithful have reduced their donations to the bishop’s fund-raising appeals). Many pastors, concerned at the potential breach of Redemptionis Sacramentum, the Norms for Divine Worship regarding the proper order of the Mass, made the announcements before Mass began, or after it was over.
Virtus Program Is Time Well Spent
By Elizabeth Foss
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 11/18/04)
It was with more than a little reluctance that I dragged myself to the mandatory VIRTUS presentation “Protecting God’s Children.” I was not looking forward to sacrificing four hours on a gloriously beautiful fall afternoon to discuss child abuse. I assure you it was four hours well spent.
Since the abuse scandal was first uncovered, I wondered how such atrocities could have happened on the scale that they did. I was operating within my own paradigm, thinking of my children’s involvement in parish activities and that of my friends. It was inconceivable. Now, I recognize that it could not have happened here because both our family and the diocese were already essentially operating under the five-point plan explained in VIRTUS. My children and most children I knew were never in dangerous situations because their parents instinctively never put them there and because the Church had in place safeguards that never presented dangerous situations.
On that afternoon, parents who already had a good sense about childhood safety learned some very valuable things about how pedophiles think and behave that will forever change the way they look at all relationships their children have with adults. Perhaps most importantly, we learned how perpetrators groom their victims, the families and the entire community. Now I understand how entire parishes let widespread abuse happen right under their noses, and I am confident that it won’t happen in my backyard because I wasn’t alone at my VIRTUS training. It won’t happen here because here there is a large team of people who are educated to ensure that it won’t.
I think a good argument can be made that a program like this should have been implemented long ago. And we can all mourn the losses that we suffered in its absence. Now we have a program that equips us to recognize the realities of a fallen world. We have the tools necessary to protect our children and our parishes from the forces of this particular evil. The Catholic Church has been in the spotlight far too long as an example of what can go wrong. This program will put us all in the position to show the world at large what can be done to ensure that truth and beauty are what defines the lives of our children, not evil. We can be light to the world.
So, now I’m a firm believer in this program for adults. I have been an outspoken critic of any program that seeks to teach children about sexual abuse in a classroom setting. I still am. But after the VIRTUS training, I see the need to systematically equip parents to educate their children regarding safety and, on a broader scale, regarding chastity itself. Even the most committed, concerned, protective parents can benefit from an education in protecting the children whom God has entrusted to them.
In my opinion, one of the greatest strengths of the VIRTUS program in our diocese is Father Terry Specht, diocesan director of Child Protection and Safety. During the presentation and in subsequent conversations with Father Specht, it has become very clear to me that God has called this man to this position in this diocese at this time. He is devoting his life to protecting our children. He is remarkably committed to this cause and very well-educated regarding all components of child protection, safety and chastity. For Father Specht, there was never any question that there would be a program for children. And there was never any question that the program would respect parents’ roles as primary educators and be fully in accord with Catholic teaching on the dignity of the human person and morality. He was willing to assemble the considerable talent and expertise in this diocese to write a wholly orthodox program if need dictated he do so. Father Specht is an advocate for children and as such he was committed to protecting their innocence, whether it was threatened by abusers or by a program that taught them inappropriate content at inappropriate times.
The program would not be a secular program with some Catholic lingo thrown in; instead, it would be a program solidly built on a Catholic foundation and infused throughout with Catholic wisdom. He found such a program and we owe the Harrisburg Diocese a debt of gratitude for it.
This is a wholly orthodox program that teaches the truth and meaning of human sexuality to children on an age appropriate level. It draws from the riches of the Church in its examples of the saints and its faithfulness to Church teaching on chastity and dignity. From the program description: “The elements of this program do not simply look at how our human sexuality operates, or a list of the acceptable or unacceptable actions. Our goal is to provide an overview of how our spiritual, social and physical elements are shaped by a truly Christian understanding of a life characterized by joyfully living the virtue of chastity.” That program is available for parents to review at the diocesan Web site: www.arlingtondiocese.org/childprotect/index.html.
There is complete disclosure. Parents can view every lesson, every prayer, every aspect of this program. They can be present for the few classroom lessons. Or they can exercise their option to “opt-out.” One of the objections expressed to the “opt-out” option is that when most of the children are taught something, that content is “in the air” in the parish environment. When that content is the holy example of the parents of St. Therese, the chaste courage of St. Maria Goretti, and the quiet dignity of St. Gianna Molla, I’d say the air quality in that parish is very good indeed.
With the implementation of this program, the diocese has faithfully met its obligation as outlined by the Church. The diocese will provide faithful, quality resources that will equip parents in teaching the faith — and in this instance, the Church’s teaching on chastity — to children. Now, the responsibility for ensuring the safety and innocence of their children rests squarely on the shoulders of the parents.
Firstly, I think all parents should attend a VIRTUS presentation. Four hours is small investment if we can, indeed, together, reach the goal of protecting all God’s children in our lives. Though the diocese has taken all steps to ensure that churches and parochial schools are safe environments, the information learned in a VIRTUS session is applicable in all other corners of a child’s world. As we learned in horrifying detail, pedophiles can be skating instructors, female English teachers, camp counselors, and the Dad next door. Even parents who are very protective of their children must recognize that abuse can happen in families or in close circles of friends. All of us have a responsibility toward children to educate ourselves in this regard.
Most parents who have been to VIRTUS presentations come away convicted of the importance of sharing the information with their children on an age-appropriate level. And many are ill-equipped to find the words or the structure. With “Formation in Christian Chastity,” the Church provides the information and insight that a parent will appreciate in beginning the dialogue with children. The papers will come home. That is certain. What happens to that information after it is given to the parent is up to the parent. Ultimately, the responsibility for keeping a child safe is the parent’s. Parents will have to read the information that is provided to them and they will have to act on it.
The bottom line is that the Diocese of Arlington will take every step necessary to ensure that churches and schools are safe environments for children. The diocese will take every step necessary to ensure that staff and volunteers are educated and vigilant with regard to sexual abuse. And the diocese will provide to parents all information necessary for self-education and the education of children. We will all know how to be certain that every aspect of our child’s environment is safe. And if we are all diligent and we all do our duty toward the children in our care, we can be absolutely certain that repeated abuse will never happen in our corner of the world.
Foss is a freelance writer from Northern Virginia.
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