wfn.org | Report details child sex abuse in Congo

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Note #7454 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

01-October-2002
02379

Report details child sex abuse in Congo 

Preventive measures recommended; survivors' courage lauded

by Jerry L. Van Marter

LOUISVILLE -  Officers of the Presbyterian Church (USA) should be required to
report any knowledge of physical or sexual abuse of children or
mentally-impaired adults, an investigative committee has said.

That is one of 30 recommendations of a group that investigated reports of
abuse by at least one Presbyterian missionary - the Rev. William Pruitt - in
the Congo.

The suggestions came in a gut-wrenching, 173-page report released Tuesday
that details the molestation of at least 20 daughters of missionary parents
at a boarding school in the Congo. The abuse took place between 1946 and
1978.

Pruitt died in August 1999, while Grace Presbytery, of which he was a member,
was looking into charges lodged against him by eight victims in December
1998. The executive committee of the General Assembly Council (GAC) later
appointed a five-member Independent Committee of Inquiry (ICI) to conduct a
complete investigation and propose corrective measures.

The ICI report - which didn't mention Pruitt, or anyone else, by name - also
recommends that any adult found guilty of abusive behavior be "summarily
dismissed" from mission service; that a telephone "hotline" be set up at the
Presbyterian Center here to receive reports of mistreatment of children of
missionaries; that a "missionary child advocate" be hired "to receive and
investigate complaints of misconduct"; and that a "Missionary Response Team"
be created to coordinate the church's interventions in cases of reported
abuse.

"This day is a long time coming," the Rev. Marian McClure, director of the
Worldwide Minstries Division, said during the somber press conference. "It is
due to the survivors' courage to tell the truth - theirs is a gift, a mighty
act of faith for healing and change."

A spokeswoman for the survivors, the Rev. Ruth Reinhold, an associate pastor
at Walnut Creek (CA) Presbyterian Church, said that, despite the release of
the report, "the process doesn't end today; it just begins."

Reinhold praised the PC(USA) officials "who heard and believed us when we
came forward" - among them McClure, who learned of the Congo abuse in the
summer of 1998. She said the members of the ICI were "our knights in shining
armor."

In its report, the ICI said the evidence against Pruitt was "more than
compelling, it was overwhelming." The committee concluded that denominational
administrators and field supervisors knew about the abuse, and that, "had
they acted more aggressively and decisively on information they had, further
abuse might have been averted."

Geoffrey Stearns, an attorney from Santa Barbara, CA, who chaired the ICI,
said by telephone that "key opportunities to intervene were missed."

Many of the ICI recommendations are intended to prevent such tragedies from
happening again by tightening policies and procedures on sexual misconduct
and creating a process for reporting abuse to PC(USA) officials in
Louisville.   

John Detterick, executive director of the GAC, said the council is
"determined to do more immediately." He announced that the hotline has
already been established "to listen, and to listen with open hearts." The
hotline number is 1-888-728-7228, ext. 5207.

"Today is a day of sadness, but also a day of hope," he said, "because of the
grace of God and the strength of these (surviving) women."

In addition to the mandatory reporting, the report suggests eight other
changes in the denomination's Book of Order, including a mandatory
leave-of-absence for any church officer indicted for sexual abuse or
misconduct; mandatory disclosure of basic information about sexual-misconduct
cases in the church; and a provision for restitution in cases where people
are found guilty of sexual abuse.

The ICI also recommends that people found guilty of sexual abuse be removed
from ordination, even if they have died, and that the title "honorably
retired" be removed from any retired minister found guilty of such abuse or
misconduct. Those recommendations, along with the establishment of the
hotline, "are very important to the survivors group," Reinhold said.

The church has agreed to reimburse each survivor up to $15,000 for
psychotherapy and spiritual care, and has conducted a retreat for survivors
to aid in their healing process. A second retreat is planned.

The committee also has asked for investigations of allegations of abuse at
Presbyterian mission schools in Alexandria, Egypt, between the 1950s and
1980s, and in Elat, Cameroon, in the 1960s.

The report details the extraordinary circumstances under which Presbyterian
missionaries in Africa worked, and the sacrifices they - and their children -
made to spread the gospel. 

In 1958 there were 171 Presbyterian missionaries in the Congo, including
doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers, vocational instructors and builders.

Harsh living conditions (including lack of schools), intense workloads and
political unrest made far-flung mission outposts unsafe for children. So,
beginning in 1928, the church established boarding schools in population
centers for missionary kids. The first was Central School at Lubondai in
Congo's interior. In 1968, Central School closed and Presbyterians and
Methodists built a hostel in the capital city of Kinshasa, where missionary
children attended The American School of Kinshasa.

In such circumstances - far from their own country and hundreds of miles from
their parents - these children were particularly vulnerable, the report said:
"Sometimes (they) desperately hungered for adult attention, affection and
security. Such circumstances provided an ideal climate for a man who was not
really their kind 'uncle' but a sexual molester."

In painful detail, the ICI documents 48 specific incidents of abuse by
Pruitt, involving 22 girls. It speculates that the exact number is probably
significantly higher, and recommends the creation of an "abuse-review panel"
to receive any additional reports. 

Pruitt's abuse continued after he returned from the Congo and while serving
as associate pastor at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas. The
report lists two incidents of child molestation at the church, and four
others that took place during "pastoral calls at person's house."

Although Reinhold said the report "far surpassed our every expectation," she
said the survivors wished it had "said more about Highland Park Presbyterian
Church." 

"We know there are more there who've been abused," she said, "and we haven't
felt like the congregation there has been open to the truth."

Officials of the United Methodist Church's General Board of Global Missions
and Board of Pensions declined to cooperate with the investigation on the
grounds of confidentiality.

McClure said that Pruitt would have had access to Methodist children at the
hostel in Kinshasa. Reinhold said Methodist women are in the survivors group.

Stearns conceded that not all the former missionaries interviewed by the ICI
supported the investigation. But he said fears that uncovering Pruitt's abuse
might taint the decades of spectacular missionary activity in the Congo are
unfounded. "The actions of one individual, or even a few, should not color
the church's overall effort in the Congo," he said.

Detterick agreed, saying, "In receiving this report, the GAC executive
committee was in awe of what God has done through missionaries for decades,
and we are more determined than ever to keep that work going."

Reinhold, who has served as a missionary in Jamaica, said she has "no
reservations" about recommending mission service to Presbyterians. "I'd
probably be out in the mission field somewhere right now if I wasn't married
to my husband," she said.

McClure, the WMD director, said, "Our task is clear: to continue to care for
these survivors, to prevent abuses from ever happening again, and to continue
to support the mission work of the church."

The survivors' task also was clear, Reinhold said, recalling an African
proverb: "One who conceals disease cannot hope to find a cure."

In addition to Stearns, an Episcopalian, the ICI members were the Rev. Howard
Beardslee of Grantham, NH, a retired Presbyterian minister and
psychotherapist who also served as a missionary in Africa; Lois Edmund of
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, a psychologist and daughter of former Mennonite
missionaries; the Rev. James Evinger of Rochester, NY, a Presbyterian
minister and nursing professor who has written about clergy sexual
misconduct; and Nancy Poling of Evanston, IL, a Presbyterian laywoman who
works as an academic tutor and editor.

The complete ICI report is available by calling Presbyterian Distribution
Services at 1-800-524-2612 and asking for product #5171002001. 

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