Allegations Along the Watchtower
By Elisa Batista
2:00 a.m. May 25, 2002 PDT
Between the ages of 4 and 11, Erica Rodriguez was raped once a week by a member of her Jehovah's Witness congregation in Othello, a bucolic town of 5,800 in central Washington state.
Rodriguez's story and others like hers are posted on Silentlambs.org, a website launched by an ex-Jehovah's Witness who was dismayed at the lack of action taken by the congregation against members he claims are sexual predators.
"Silentlambs offers them a place to put up their stories," said William H. Bowen, the website's founder. "To put it on paper is a form of healing."
Most recently, Bowen has accused the Jehovah's Witnesses of excommunicating members whose stories were posted on Silentlambs.org.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are a Christian sect of 6 million worshippers worldwide. Commitment is exhibited through a strict regimen of door-to-door evangelism and adherence to rules against blood transfusions, the celebration of secular holidays and displays of patriotism, such as saluting a flag.
The congregation denies Bowen's allegations but it has recently been in the spotlight over some of the child-abuse accusations presented on Bowen's website. There are currently two outstanding lawsuits against the congregation ?- Jehovah's Witnesses do not call their religious institution a church -- for intentionally harboring child molesters.
Other religious denominations are also feeling the heat, especially the Catholic Church, which has admitted to shuffling around priests accused of sexual abuse.
Those who say they've been abused and their attorneys contend the current attention paid to sexual abuse in religious institutions is due to the courage of victims to come forward ?- and not from information on websites such as Silentlambs.org, Survivorsnetwork.org, Factnet.org and Thelinkup.com. But they also say the websites have been instrumental in victims' healing.
The websites, run by people claiming abuse, offer personal and mostly anonymous stories, news articles on the current scandal in the Catholic church, legal advice, discussion boards and tips on where to go for therapy.
Silentlambs.org asks for monetary donations to help victims.
Silentlambs sent Rodriguez a plane ticket from Sacramento, California, to Washington state to appear in court.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which runs the Survivorsnetwork.org site, holds informal therapy sessions ?- similar to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings -? in various cities across the country.
"Those two websites (Survivorsnetwork.org and Silentlambs.org) have been enormously instrumental in giving refuge and information to survivors looking desperately for resources they can trust," said Jeffrey R. Anderson, an attorney in St. Paul, Minnesota, who has pursued 500 sexual abuse cases against churches of all denominations in the last 20 years.
Anderson is currently suing the Jehovah's Witnesses on behalf of Rodriguez.
"The sad thing is our mainline institutions -- the churches -- have not been victim-friendly," he said.
Anderson said he doesn't actively recruit clients from the websites, although its readers are often encouraged to take legal action. He has, however, found witnesses on them.
He recently subpoenaed Bowen, of Silentlambs.org, to testify in Rodriguez's case.
"He has a key understanding of the inner workings of Jehovah's Witnesses," Anderson said, referring to Bowen.
The Jehovah's Witnesses congregation, with headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, denies it has excommunicated members who have contributed to Bowen's website.
But David Semonian, spokesman for the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, admitted the group sometimes looks at the website "when necessary." He also said it attempts to "readjust (the) thinking" of those who post material critical of the religion on the Web.
"This is what the Bible directs," Semonian said. "If someone is writing or causing dissension, we would meet with them -- two elders (congregation leaders) usually -- and discuss the matter. If indeed, he were causing dissension as the book of Ecclesiastes describes it, we'd 'readjust the man in a spirit of mildness.' You'd calmly discuss it together so you can bring them back to their senses. There is no automatic excommunication. We want to keep our members."
Semonian declined to comment on Rodriguez's case.
Rodriguez, 22, recalled reporting what she claimed was regular abuse to two elders. She said they promised to "take care of it" and told her that if she told anyone else she'd be "disfellowshipped" or excommunicated.
No action was ever taken by the congregation against her perpetrator, Manuel Beliz, an elder.
A few years ago, Rodriguez reported the abuse to Sacramento police. Beliz was tried and convicted of raping her. He is currently serving an 11-year sentence in a Washington prison.
Rodriguez is now seeking damages against the Jehovah's Witnesses, charging it knowingly harbored a child molester, she said. Anderson said the Othello congregation violated a mandatory child abuse reporting law in Washington.
"A lot of pain and suffering could be prevented if they would forget about the church's image, take sexual abuse seriously and start reaching out to the victims," Rodriguez said.
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When an organization arrogates to itself un-Scriptural powers and authorities and then threatens people who do not submit to it with un-Scriptural punishment, then that organization becomes a racket. --Fred Franz (1943)