Years after alleged abuse, boy found ‘liberation’ in sermon

Five years after his teacher allegedly seduced him inside a classroom at
Gray Middle School in Tacoma, Wash., he claimed it was a church sermon that gave
him the courage to come forward. The truth will “set you free,” the
pastor told the congregation, unsure if anyone in the pews that day had
been molested as a child.

The boy, who is 17-years-old, told his mother after church that he had
been abused by his sixth grade teacher at the age of 12. His confession
led to the arrest of Keshia T. Shaw, 33, on charges of child rape. She
pleaded not guilty Friday to five counts.

Prosecutors allege that the abuse began in April 2007 behind a locked
door in Shaw’s classroom, where she performed sex, oral and otherwise,
on her young student.

Shaw began to give the boy rides home, according to court documents,
and once paid him $80 after a sexual encounter in a parking lot.

She told the boy to keep their relationship a secret, prosecutors say.

“The sex began in school, in her classroom, in the building,” said Pierce
County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist. “It eventually migrated to his house
when the student’s mother was not home.”

The abuse went on for a little more than a year, until Shaw “lost interest”
in the boy, Lindquist said.

Until now, the boy told no one, save a few close friends, about the abuse
he suffered at the hands of Shaw.

It is unclear what prompted the boy’s pastor to speak about molestation,
although the sermon was delivered sometime in May, in the midst of the
child sex scandal involving former Penn. State Assistant Football Coach
Jerry Sandusky.

The power of a well-placed word

It is common for pastors to draw inspiration from events happening
around the world, said Father John Whitney, pastor of St. Joseph Parish
in Seattle.

“Otherwise religion becomes something in an ivory tower, behind a wall
far away,” Father Whitney said Friday. “What we want to speak of is a
faith that lives in the world. You need to show that connection.”

The violence in Syria, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, immigration and
the current presidential campaign are all topics Father Whitney said
have “sowed the seeds” for his sermons.

But child molestation, he said, is among the most important topics on
which he can preach.

“I have spoken about it from the pulpit many times,” he said.

As former provincial for the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus,
Father Whitney has spoken with over 200 victims of child sex abuse and
fought to bring to light abuse by people in positions of authority, including
religious leaders.

“As a Catholic, I know that we’ve experienced some great pain,” Father
Whitney said of past accusations of abuse against leaders in the
Catholic Church. “Out of that pain, if it is to serve anything, it needs to be
a call to people to find some sort of liberation. That we, above all, can
say ‘it’s not a good thing for society to cover that up.'”

Father Whitney said victims are often in need of an invitation to speak
about their abuse.

“I believe that the fundamental thing that we’re called to do is to invite
people into their own depths … in order to find the liberation and the
hope that only God can bring,” he said. “It’s like opening the door for
them and saying ‘you have permission to speak.'”

The story of the boy in Tacoma and the sermon that “set him free,” he
said, shows the power of a well-placed word.

“You don’t have to be religious to know the power of words,” he said.
“Words still have the power to liberate us. Words still have the power to
show us a way out of the darkness which we can find ourselves in … “