Safe Environments Training: Protecting the Church or Protecting Children?
An Examination of Its Failures Through the Lens of TentMakers of Louisiana’s Mission: Hope, Healing, and Justice
The Catholic Church’s Safe Environment Training claims to safeguard children from abuse. But is it truly designed to protect children—or the Church itself? At TentMakers of Louisiana, where our mission is hope, healing, and justice, we know that real prevention begins with honesty, survivor-centered solutions, and systemic change. Decades after clergy abuse scandals, this training still prioritizes institutional protection over genuine prevention.
Protecting Reputation Through Soft Language
Soft language undermines prevention efforts by downplaying the severity of abuse and masking the Church’s accountability. When vague terms replace clear language, it weakens awareness and leaves gaps for predators to exploit. The training repeatedly uses vague terms like “maltreatment” instead of “child sexual abuse,” softening the reality of abuse and shielding the Church from confronting its own history. Notably, the training avoids directly identifying clergy as potential offenders—a glaring omission, considering the Church’s documented scandals. Naming the problem is the first step to preventing it.
The Illusion of Prevention: The ‘John’ Scenario Problem
The scenario about “John,” a volunteer exhibiting obvious boundary violations, oversimplifies grooming. Real predators, including clergy, often use subtle grooming tactics such as excessive flattery, special favors, isolating victims gradually, and building trust with parents and the community. Unlike the clear-cut ‘John’ example, real grooming rarely looks suspicious at first. Without addressing these real-world tactics, this training leaves participants unprepared to detect the behaviors survivors know all too well.
Institutional Protection Masquerading as Reporting Protocols
Despite instructing individuals to contact civil authorities, the training also requires reporting to church officials—an approach that has enabled cover-ups. For example, past cases such as those revealed in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report showed how internal reporting shielded abusers and silenced survivors. True prevention demands fully independent reporting mechanisms to remove the Church from policing itself.
Ignoring Vulnerable Adults and Community Education
The training excludes vulnerable adults—a critical oversight. Vulnerable adults are individuals who may be at higher risk of abuse due to factors such as disabilities, age, mental illness, or dependent relationships. They are often targets of abuse, including by clergy. Additionally, by limiting education to staff and volunteers, the Church excludes families and survivors—the frontline in recognizing and preventing abuse.
Silencing Survivors, Ignoring Solutions
The training fails to incorporate survivor voices—the very people whose experiences are essential for understanding and preventing abuse. Survivor-led policies have improved prevention outcomes elsewhere, such as in community-based programs where survivors help design training that identifies grooming behaviors and supports early intervention. At TentMakers of Louisiana, we know survivors are not just victims; they are the experts in identifying what the Church is missing and what real prevention requires.
A Call for True Prevention: The TentMakers Perspective
- Name the Reality: Identify clergy as potential offenders and call abuse what it is—child sexual abuse.
- Expose Grooming Tactics: Train communities to recognize the subtle, manipulative behaviors of predators.
- Implement Independent Reporting: Remove the Church’s control over abuse investigations.
- Educate Families and Children: Prevention should empower the entire community.
- Listen to Survivors: Survivor-led insights should guide prevention policies.
- Address Vulnerable Adults: Include protections for all populations at risk.
What You Can Do to Support These Changes:
- Share survivor stories and advocate for survivor-led policy reforms.
- Contact church leaders and demand the implementation of independent reporting mechanisms.
- Promote community-based prevention education for families and children.
- Support survivor organizations like TentMakers of Louisiana that are fighting for systemic change.
At TentMakers of Louisiana, we believe that survivors deserve more than surface-level reforms—they deserve a system that truly protects children and vulnerable adults. Until Safe Environment Training confronts these failures, it will remain a tool of compliance, not protection. We advocate for change not only because of our mission of hope, healing, and justice, but because survivors have taught us what prevention really means.
#HopeHealingJustice #StopTheAbuse #TentMakersOfLouisiana
