BROTHERS CMM

Column
FROM THE SUPERIOR GENERAL
On Tuesday, November 20, 2012, I returned from Brazil. An article in ‘ncr.next’ entitled ‘Children’ drew
my attention. A columnist wrote about her friend. A little boy sat next to him in the plane and, resting
against him, had fallen asleep. “He was so small and lovable”, he told his friends. They observed that he
could not say something like that just to anyone because people could become suspicious.
A negative explosion has occurred that resulted from
the various accounts of sexual abuse of the past few
years. We have lost spontaneity when we interact with
children. The story reminded me of my own experience
in Rome during May of this year when I attended the
bi-annual meeting of superiors general. The shortest
way to get from my lodging to the bus stop took me
through a playground. On an earlier occasion I regularly
took that route. This time I hesitated and did not use
it. Yet later I did it very deliberately. I clearly sensed
how the fact, that I personally had to confront the
consequences of these abuses continue to affect me.
The victims’ stories I hear reveal to me how difficult it
is for them to have simple physical contact with their
children and how much grief it causes. I definitely
can sense this and it also brings me a feeling of
helplessness. How much do all of us wish that things
were different.
must exist between keeping a distance and being close.
May we meet children with spontaneity and without
restraint.
One week after my return from Brazil I left for Nairobi,
where one of our Kenyan fellow-brothers made his
profession for life. The morning after my arrival I
looked through the Daily Nation, Kenya’s largest
newspaper. Immediately the problem of sexual abuse
confronted me again. The paper reported the results
of a government investigation. It presented shocking
numbers: 32% of the girls and 18% of the boys in
Kenya up to eighteen years old endured some form of
sexual abuse. Again it hit me how this problem has
gone global and how hard all of us have to work to
eradicate this evil.
This short newspaper article shows how easily we can
lose a healthy balance. Because of it children are in
danger of getting short-changed and not receiving the
affective attention they need. A wholesome equilibrium
Brother Broer Huitema
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