Make clergy members mandatory child abuse reporters
This commentary was first published by the Times Union on April 2, 2023.
Imagine you are a child in a devout Christian homeschooling family. Your parents are your teachers. You rarely see a doctor. Police, social workers or other mandated reporters? You are taught to fear them.
Now imagine that someone in this tight-knit circle abuses you. Who can you tell? Who will help?
Pastors are some of the only people who might notice child abuse and neglect in homeschooling families. And unless the CARE Act passes, those pastors aren’t required to report it.
Even if you’re not one of the 54,414 homeschoolers in New York state, you may be a church-goer. In recent years, every Christian denomination has reckoned with failed responses to child sexual abuse. What has gone wrong?
Strong evidence suggests that child sexual abusers are more likely to be regular church attendees. One study found that predators who maintained religious involvement from childhood to adulthood had “more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims, than other groups.”
Donna Eshuys and Stephen Smallbone, “Religious Affiliations Among Adult Sexual Offenders” Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 18, no 3 (2006) 279-288.
If caught, sexual abusers often rely on Christian teachings on forgiveness. Predators performatively “repent,” and churches welcome them back in the name of “grace,” granting them access to children.
Well-meaning pastors are not qualified to rehabilitate offenders. Coupled with naivete about recidivism, this leaves children vulnerable to continued abuse. Instead of offering abusers endless chances to “repent,” pastors should focus on immediately protecting victims.
Pastors are front-line responders to disclosures of abuse; their failure to report concerns or suspicions leaves a gaping hole in critical response efforts. The CARE Act would make members of the clergy required reporters of mistreatment.
Reporting establishes a paper trail about the abuser, helping other people take safety measures. The most common method of screening for child sexual abusers in churches, schools or daycares is criminal background checks. However, background checks cannot catch abuse that has never been reported.
Reporting abuse can stop the predatory pattern. Multiple studies confirm that child sexual abuse is widely underreported and that child molesters generally have multiple victims. If an abuser is reported after the first child, they cannot quietly move on to new victims.
Finally, reporting communicates to the congregation that abuse is not something to dismiss without consequences. And when a pastor reports abuse, it tells predators that this church is not a feeding ground for wolves.
Some oppose the CARE Act on the grounds that abusers may be less likely to confess their sins to a pastor. This scenario is highly unlikely: Sexual offenders rarely want to confess their crimes; they continue until they are caught. Others argue that adding clergy to the list of mandated reporters might make victims less inclined to report abuse to their pastors. This assumes that child victims are responsible for reporting their abuse and seeking justice. Child safety is the responsibility of adults. Even if a child does not want their molester reported, it is still the pastor’s responsibility to protect that child and all other children in the congregation by reporting abuse.
A good shepherd protects the sheep by keeping wolves out of the pasture. Clergy have a moral and biblical obligation to protect people, especially vulnerable children. Let’s make that obligation a legal one, too.
Abbi Nye is an archivist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She attended CFC from 1986 to 2005.
