The Chilliwack Progress from Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada • Page 8

A8 THE CHILLIWACK PROGRESS, Wednesday, December 11, 1991 I A Progress si 4f Sexual abuse time. Society isit takes on a speck About a month ago The Progress and other media outlets received an anonymous letter from a woman who claimed to belong to a local Men-nonite church. Her words are a compelling plea to end the secrecy that harbors abuse, in the church, in the community or elsewhere. Here is an excerpt: Please help me and other women and girls in our church who endure physical and sexual abuse within the male-dominated structure of our Mennonite beliefs. I have secretly written this letter to bring a serious injustice to your attention (my husband is a member of the church council and my punishment would be severe yet my faith and traditions do not permit me to leave my our men understand the pain they inflict on us in the name of God perhaps they will stop hurting us.

crimes are comfit shadow oftheic Walter Aaroril cast the Mention glare of publicity traditionally peal God, are dealing which shake the their faith. Here's the stol A hypocritical peace "The church is full of sin. The sooner we recognize that, the better." Pastor David Ortis both inside and Pastor Dave Ortis believes it is time churches deal with abuse among their members and the clergy. "If we deny this is a problem in the churches, then we're lying to ourselves, lying to God, and lying to the countless victims," he Storid Paul Bu Christiri said. At the request of the Conference of Mennonites in B.C.

Ortis, pastor at Emmanuel Mennonite Church, recently attended a conference in Seat 41 tle which dealt with abuse of l2 clients by professionals, in particular, clergy. Like other care-givers and professionals, pastors for their own gratification, may take advantage of people in emotional turmoil justice issues. To me, if there has been injustice abuse then our peace is hypocritical." Abuse in the home and in the church has been ignored, kept secret, he said. "Secrecy is the great ally of the abuser." As a reflection of the greater openess about abuse in society, congregations want the churches and pastors to deal with both victims and abusers, Ortis said. "The victims have to be able to understand there is an avenue through the church to justice and healing.

We have to create an environment of safety for women in the church. We must believe them." Victims are encouraged to seek professional help. Offenders are confronted and encouraged by the church to seek help themselves. If there are minors involved, the cases must be reported to police. Ortis admits that some members of his congregation are having difficulty dealing with these ideas, because they test the traditional understanding of male and female relationships.

Members of other churches will simply be outraged, but Ortis said he is prepared to deal with their anger. "There are other theological views in marriage and in the church that need to be explored." Still, he believes the church will survive this crisis. "It won't destroy the church. The honesty will bring forth integrity. For 2,000 years, the church has been abused by some of its leaders.

This kind of thing has been going on for a long time." ORTIS "But power is the issue, not sex," Ortis reminds. Ortis equates ministerial abuse to incest. because of the trust the victim puts into the pastor. While there is abuse in all religions, "it is particularly acute in conservative ones because there is a tendency to view the world in a hierarchy," said Ortis. And usually the victim is made to feci at the bottom of that holy order.

Ortis believes that Mennonites, and other churches, need to get away from maintaining the pretense of harmony at any cost. "We've valued peace and harmony above A prominent past A nonite Church in C( Sunday worship at revealed several Angry parishone vacate his office. Church-going families not shielded from abuse purification, churcl crisis in the church of the pastor's fun and burned it. A Mennonite Br fessor found that a nonite church-goer: sexually violated Wayne nonite Central Com ministries, said man ed about the recca rampant sexual abu Although several tions have been esta with womens' issue yet to develop a poll assault cases, North Several women tion of anonymity within the Mennon by Paul Bucci Although there are no similar studies for the west coast, a ground-breaking study shows that sex abuse is rampant among Winnipeg-area Mennonites. Isaac Block, a theology professor at Winnipeg's Mennonite Brethren Bible College, found that 27 per cent of female Mennonite college students sampled were "sexually violated" during their lives.

An additional 26 per cent of randomly-chosen church-going female Mennonites also reported that they had been sexually abused. Male Mennonites also reported a fairly high level of sexual abuse. Fifteen per cent of male college students reported sexual violations. Block said he wasn't surprised by the results, which tend to mirror national averages of sex abuse. However, he was disappointed that the rates of abuse were so high.

"I would have hoped that people who are in the Mennonite faith tradition or any Christian tradition I would have hoped that they would have acted more appropriately," Block said from Winnipeg. However, at only seven per cent, the reports of sexual abuse among randomly-chosen male Mennonite church-goers was significantly lower. Mennonites in the Chilliwack and Abbotsford areas maintain strong ties with Manitoba Mennonites. Many of them have relatives around the Winnipeg and Steinbach areas. dominated fundartie Block surveyed about 200 members of Men- nonite churches.

Block didn't ask specific questions that measured respondents' dedication to Christianity. But the people who did respond went to church an average of 3.55 times a month. Victims were most often sexually abused by brothers, other male relatives and friends, Block found. A series of high-profile Mennonite sex assault cases, including one instance where a pastor was dismissed for allegedly fondling four mental patients, has pushed the old taboo of sex abuse into the limelight. Block said media awareness, coupled with his study, has allowed many Mennonites who were sexually abused to come forward and tell their stories.

"It has opened a lot of windows for a lot of people to begin to talk," he said. Block's study, disturbing as it may be, has been generally accepted among Mennonite church-goers. "The response to my work has not been uniformly positive," he conceded. "But it has been generally positive." Why has sex abuse remained behind closed doors in the Mennonite Church for so long? Why is it coming to the forefront now? "I think there has been a lot of permission to talk about it, and a tremendous amount of community support or else it would be very threatening," Block said. by Paul Bucci A crisis is erupting within the Mennonite Church one that has shocked some members to the core.

A people who are traditionally known as peace-loving followers of God are having to face the fact that sex assault and abuse is widespread within the church. No one seems to be immune both Mennonite church members and clergy have been indicted. And like other women in society, those in Mennonite churches are crying for help. They charge that some Mennonite churches are filled with men who dominate women, abusing them emotionally, physically and sexually. Lending some credence to those claims is the fact that several high-profile church members have been caught in compromising positions in the last few years.

Mennonite pastor of music Walter Rempel was convicted last month on two charges of sexual assault against two Chilliwack area teenage girls. A further two charges were dismissed. A Mennonite pastor was kicked out of the pulpit last year after an internal church investigation into alleged sexual molestation of four female outpatients at the Eden Mental Health Centre in Winkler, Man. Northey, who-ei speak in any offn nonites, says churcl dominated hierarch written within pan Northey saysrth toward women can. If you are now, or have been, a victim of sexual assault, these agencies can help: Chilliwack RCMP 792-4611; Chilliwack Community Services, Child Sexual Abuse Program 792-4267; Ministry of Social Services 795-8281; Victim's Compensation Fund, which can pay for counselling: 1-800-972-9972.

Ministry of Social Services and Housing: 795-8281, 858-2231. There are also a number of private counselling agencies in the Chilliwack area that deal with sexual assault. Some of these include: Integra Counselling Group 792-9690; Oakhill Therapeutic Service 792-4391; Phoenix Counselling Group: 795-3549. tual way is a "huge The Bible pan ment is filled wit Northey says. violence is axe Christians.

"It is not Jesus' what God wants! vl violence.".