A couple of weeks ago, 5 year old Samantha Runnion was snatched off the street in front of her mother's house by a beast dressed in human skin. The news reports that he had her alive for several hours before he strangled her (one cannot imagine her experience). Then he placed her by the side of a remote road less than an hour's drive from where I live - placed in such a way that it reduced the man who found her to hysterics (I heard the 911 recording). A couple of days ago they held her funeral where a picture was taken of her mother over her coffin with an expression on her face not to be borne (but still published on the front page of the LA Times - such are our times).

Now, the question must be asked, Where was God? By this, I mean the Judeo-Christian God we find in the Bible - the God who numbers each hair on our heads and sees the fall of a sparrow. The God we find in Jesus who called the little children to come to him, and of whom I sang as a child that he "loves the little children of the world." Where was He when this unutterable act occurred? I've given it some thought and come up with a few answers:

1. He was on vacation.

2. He does love us and wishes he could intervene, but for some reason cannot. Maybe he's too weak, or he's constructed reality in such a way that, say, causing Alejandro Avila's car to have a blow-out or run out of gas there on the condo road would be cheating.

3. He's really indifferent to our suffering.

4. He's evil.

5. It's a mystery.

This all brings to mind Ivan Karamosov in Dostoyevsky's novel, "The Brothers Karamosov." He, too, confronted the terrible mystery of children who have been victimized by adults. He says, in part, that after the day of judgment when all is revealed and set right...

"You see, it's quite possible, if I'm still alive or am resurrected on the day the mother embraces her child's murderer, that I may join them all in their praises and shout with them, 'You were right'; but as of now, I do not want to join them. And while there is still time, I want to dissociate myself from it all; I have no wish to be a part of their eternal harmony. It's not worth one single tear of the martyred little girl who beat her breast with her tiny fist, shedding her innocent tears and praying to 'sweet Jesus' to rescue her in the stinking outhouse. It's not worth it, because that tear will have remained unatoned for. And those tears must be atoned for; otherwise there can be no harmony. But what could atone for those tears? How is it possible to atone for them?"

He has more to say and I recommend it (especially the chapter, "The Grand Inquistor"). However, I don't have the stamina to type it all.

But the question hasn't been answered: Where was God? Religions have been constructed to answer this question, of course, and have various answers, none of them particularly useful, I think. I don't believe there is an answer, really, unless you count the Cross of Christ. Maybe when we accuse God, and point the finger in accusation at Him, He will point, in turn, to the undeserved agony of the innocent on the Cross. It's an existential matter, I think, and not fully capable of being verbalized or formulated or dogmatized. Of course, it doesn't really answer the question for Samantha: it didn't provide her any succor when that demon jammed himself into her or put his hands around her throat. Can those acts and her suffering be wiped out in Eternity? Can they be atoned for through the sufferings of God on the Cross?

How is it that we can bear it, day after day, going about our business: eating, dressing, working, making love, having fun. T.S. Eliot said "mankind cannot bear very much reality," so we go into denial mode. It didn't happen to me or mine; it's just so much TV, more of the daily round of tragedy and evil to which we've become accustomed (alas for us). And yet that child lay on the hard ground in that manner, dead for who knows how many hours with only God for company (if He exists or cares). (This also brings to mind Matthew Sheppard, hung on the crossbars of the fence, dying and alone.)

Oddly, I'm not depressed about it. Perhaps, after so many Samantha's I, like you, have become innured to it. But I'm still puzzled. The mystery of evil is black and inpenetrable, and we see as in a glass, darkly. But I'm put together in such a way that I must grapple with the mystery. I believe in the loving God, and yet He has seen fit to construct me with a sense of empathy which I'd rather do without. So I wrestle with Him like Jacob in the tent, and seek an answer.

The only answer I can come to is no answer at all. The only thing I can think of is to suffer in solidarity with Samantha and her mother as Christ did with all of us. The next step is God's.

louis

I see, so you believe that, in some sense, Avila's rape and murder of Samantha Runnion was "rational" and that, if we can only "understand" him and his motivations we could have prevented his depredations.

I suggest you go see "Minority Report": the only way we'll ever be able to prevent the likes of Avila is to foretell the future. Otherwise, your quaint belief that human evil is "rational" and "understandable" hearkens back to a 19th century optimism which has been shattered by 20th c. events (at least). If you want to believe that Samantha's horrific end was somehow "understandable" and not, in fact, inhuman & irrational, you go right ahead. I won't try to dislodge such discredited Englightenment notions if they make you happy.

The sexual offender literature does not answer the question of "why" in any rational sense. it doesn't even try. Understanding of the offender won't help to prevent offences. There are 'theories' of why, but they are not practical in terms of prevention of offences. The theories were not created by those who do the work with offenders.

What can be done is to provide a continuum of superivision and treatment: lock up those who are most at risk to offend and leave them there, supervise those who have access to the community (this may be electronic monitoring or accompanying the offender when they go anywhere), and others with less than that if they are responsibly consulting and monitoring regarding risk. One of the biggest problems with sexual offenders is that people assume that once out of jail or through a course of therapy or a treatment program, the problem is taken care of. We need more lifetime supervision orders, where the offender can be yanked back into custody when the risk rises. We need to identify those at ongoing risk and intervene before they reoffend. I am not familiar with the the Runnion case, but I will bet that the offender had a record of other offences and then showed signs of increased risk, which should have been acted upon by the authorities. If the authorities didn't have the power to monitor and supervise (e.g. previous supervision order ran out), then the system is busted. This ain't theory, this is common sense, and having the ability to respond to the risks.

Some prediction can be done, and this reduces reoffence rates markedly among certain groups of paedophiles. There is a tracking sample of nearly 30,000 offenders in Canada, which shows that stranger-rapists are essentially untreatable and almost nothing will change reoffence rate, that incest offenders are the most treatable in terms of prevention of reoffence, and other offender groups are intermediate. I'm wondering if this Avila person is a stranger-rapist? To prevent incest offenders, you gotta make sure they don't develop a new relationship with a woman with young children post-jail (this ain't rocket science). And you have to monitor who their friends and acquaintances are, and make sure these people know the history of the offender. This is the job of the community supervisor of the offender. The stranger-rapists, you just lock up and leave there (untreatable people who are locked up don't reoffend, again not rocket science). This sort of management has been partially installed in Canada and New Zealand, and a few places in the USA, like Washington state, with dramatically reduced reoffence rates. The key to management is to properly identify risk and handle the offender accordingly. I am not an apologist for correctional services, but I have assessed about 2500 offenders over the past 15 years or so (I stopped doing this regularly about 5 years ago). We have to unemotionally stack up the risk factors and then statistically and clinically make a conservative assessment, keeping in mind that the primary interest is protection of other people.

Actually, paedophilia is not just sexuality. It is also about power and control. It differs from disease b/c it is a volitional behavior. The comparison to disease reminds me of the idea that alcoholism is a disease. Interesting disease: it makes you take the top off the bottle, bend your elbow, pour it down your throat, and swallow.

We are not likely to prevent first offences, but most of these first offences are likely to be less extreme than sexual killings. These "less intrusive" offences and the dynamnics of the offences do predict subsequent behavior to some degree. Because of the risks to children and others, we have to be conservative and protect potential future victims.

-J. Arnold

I couldn't do the work I do without the theology. It is the raison d'etre, and the only motivation. Theology, or as I would say it - faith - keeps me grounded, sane in insane situations, and provides the value base in which to develop the tools and to work. Of course, many social scientists deny the religious basis for what they do and how they think, but this is simply denial. (Just try writing the date without acknowledging the years since Christ's birth [even if the calculation is slightly off]). You can't study or work with people without acknowledging one of their core attributes, their religiosity.

-J. Arnold

On the subject of Robin Hood and Arthur being as historically probable as Christ: BULLSHIT. We have maybe ONE gueniune historical reference to Arthur, (And it's only a remark on another that "he was no arthur")

I don't remember the stats on Robin, but my guess is they're just as shakey. Whereas with Jesus we have several outside sources.... they may not be as good as you want them to be, but they're not as ambiguous as "he was no arthur".

Get your facts straight before you start making baseless accusations. Are you a historian, btw? What WOULD you know about Arthur or Robin Hood?

Pax,

Leslie.