#129 - Nassar

What can I do to help protect children from the likes of the Larry Nassar’s of this world?
As a mother of three daughters, in the wake of the Larry Nassar sentencing and having listened to all the tragic, emotional testimonies of the beautiful, courageous women whose lives he impacted, I want to compel every member of our community, especially our parents, to consider participating in a couple timely, informative and relevant programs coming up here at CTR.

In the United States 1 out of 4 girls/women and 1 out of 7 boys/men are victims of sexual predators. The first step in lowering these appalling statistics is by becoming informed and aware ourselves.

The Catholic Church is, of course, no stranger to sexual scandals. In fact, the failure of our own leaders to protect the children in our care was one of the first big cover ups to come to public light. If you haven’t seen the movie Spotlight yet (which won the best picture Oscar in 2016), do. It is an important film about our own dark history that helps raise awareness of the insidious ways we sometimes unwittingly participate in systemic failure and abuse of power that can lead to such unfathomable tragedy.

Since the time of our own scandals, the Catholic church, to our credit, has lead the way in the research, development and prolific offering of some stellar, free programs that provide top notch guidance in how we can work together to keep our children safe from harm. Here are some that are coming up in the next few weeks here at CTR:

Circle of Grace

Sunday, Feb. 25th all are welcome to join us for a quick 20-minute presentation on safe environments and right relationships that will serve as an introduction to the curriculum being presented to our children at our March Faith Formation classes as required by the Archdiocese of Detroit. Some great safety tips, signs to look for and very helpful resources will be shared. Anyone who cares about children and/or has young people in their lives can benefit from this short course. No RSVP necessary. Just grab a donut, some coffee and join us after Mass in the chapel.

Called to Serve
This interactive safe environment training program designed for teens grades 9-12 will be held here at CTR on Sunday, April 15th from 1PM-4PM. The important information shared is empowering and absolutely essential to every young person in our community. It is an Archdiocesan requirement for all our teens who volunteer with children in our parish. Please register with Lisa Andridge at highschool@ctredeemer.org.

Protecting God's Children
This safe environment training program for adults will be held here at CTR on Saturday, March 3rd from 1PM—4PM. The Archdiocese requires that ALL of our adult volunteers who work with children attend this workshop which alerts adults to signs of child abuse but, more importantly, offers a variety of ways to ensure the safety of our children. It is an excellent program which ALL the adults in our community could benefit from. The kindness of an RSVP is requested to Gabriela at eduadmin@ctredeemer.org.

For both Called to Serve and Protecting God's Children we bring in (in mine and many other people’s opinion) THE best local presenter, Michelle Pittel, who works with teens at Notre Dame Prep. All participants WILL leave enlightened and informed. The three hours with Michelle truly flies by. This workshop is time well spent, not only for the good of our parish, but for the safety of ALL children in our lives.

These programs grew out of our own great failure. Let’s do our due diligence as a community to inform ourselves so we can be protectors and advocates for our children and work together to put an end to the horrors such as our own church scandals and those propagated by Nassar and others who pose a threat to our most precious gift; our children.

Send your "Crazy Catholic Questions" Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at: http://crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com.