FRONTLINE'S "THE SILENCE"

Did you watch PBS Frontline's "The Silence" on child abuse last night? I did, and it was one of the most difficult shows to for me to sit through ever. The show focuses on years of abuse committed by a Roman Catholic priest, Fr George Endal, and a "volunteer", Joseph Lundowski, on Native American children in the small village of St Michael in Alaska. I wanted to turn away from the horrifying stories of the abuse by the adults who suffered at the hands of the two men when they were children. To say I was shaken is an understatement.

"I was just a kid," Ben Andrews tells FRONTLINE of the years of abuse he suffered at the hands of Father George Endal and Joseph Lundowski, a layman who was training to be a deacon. "Father Endal and Joseph Lundowski, they couldn't stop molesting me once they started. It was almost an everyday thing. Father Endal kept telling me that it would make me closer to God."

"I'm still having nightmares of Joseph Lundowski molesting, having sex with me," says Peter "Packy" Kobuk. "I get up sweating, angry, feel like I could hurt somebody, but I never meaned [sic] to get angry at my children, but the anger went on my children also."

Since some of the victims of abuse have not come forward, no one knows the number of children who were molested over the years, but the estimate is as high as 80% of the children in the small village.

After the litigation settlement, when he was free to talk to the survivors, the present bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Donald Kettler, finally met with the group of people in St Michael who had come forward. When he heard the stories and saw their suffering, he seemed to grasp the grave harm done to the people. In some cases, the abuse continued into the next generation, as those who were abused, abused their own children.

Ben Andrews told of the occasion when he told his father of the molestation. His father beat him, went out and got drunk, came home and grabbed a gun which he pointed at his wife, and shot and killed another son who was standing near his mother. Ben sees himself as responsible for his brother's death because he told his father about the abuse.

What a wrenching 30 minutes! If you have the stomach for it, you can watch the segment from the link above.

Endal and Lundowski were not the only representatives of the RC Church who were molesters. It seems that the Diocese of Fairbanks may have been one of the chosen locations to send priests who had been in been in trouble elsewhere for abuse of children and young people.

Lord, have mercy! I know that other denominations, including my own, have their share of clergy who abused children, but the appalling policy of the RCC of covering up to protect the institution, rather than moving to protect the children, allowed widespread abuse to take place over so many years.