Ray Donovan: Showtime-We Salute You! While Donovan does the dirty work for LA’s top power players, he still holds the Catholic Church’s feet to the fire, for childhood sexual abuse. Our hats are off and I give my personal thank you, to Ann Biderman, writer and creator of Ray Donovan on Showtime. Although superstars, athletes, and business moguls are able to make their problems disappear, not so with the Catholic Church and the sexual abuse of children. Biderman doesn’t let them off the hook, and follows the lifelong devastating affects, with power, truth, and incisive accuracy. With new and upcoming TV shows dealing with issues such as child abuse by the Church as well as sexual abuse of male victims, one has to wonder if the media really has it right. In this case, the media has it spot-on. I believe the TV show Ray Donovan on Showtime hit this issue with laser like precision. Ray Donovan is the “go-to guy who makes the problems of the city’s celebrities, superstar athletes, and business moguls disappear.” However, not even Ray Donovan believes the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse of children should escape justice. In fact, Donovan orders the murder of the wrong priest confusing him with the actual sexual predator who abused Donovan’s brother as a child. The brother’s smashed life cannot be put back together again even with the 1.4 million he received as his share of the archdiocese settlement. I am all about seeking justice, and using the only method the legal system has to hold perpetrators accountable—money. Can money really restore to survivors of childhood abuse, what has been stolen from them, ripped away? Ray Donovan’s brother is a perfect character to demonstrate that money can buy therapy, healing, can aid to recovery, it cannot repair a soul so tattered, torn, and battered, that even this amount of money has little capacity to heal him. It is true that we can begin to give justice to those survivors of abuse, but the only way the legal system knows how is with monetary damages Hope, trust, faith, and childhood innocence are never to be gotten back. These things take time to heal, and some people may never fully recover from the trauma. Now, it isn’t to say we shouldn’t seek justice. I want to simply bring to light the fact that monetary awards will not heal the damages from the childhood abuse, nor will it make the memories magically vanish. I know this as truth. I am such a survivor of childhood abuse. This brings me to the real topic. What do we need to do to stop childhood abuse? We need to focus on healing the victims and prohibiting the attackers not simply masking the issues in the first place. What would repair our broken lives? We can start with the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts, Coaches, and families to have a zero tolerance policy for sexual abuse or sexual conduct of any kind between a minor and an adult. Under no circumstances should this kind of sexual abuse be occurring especially in our own families, in our own homes, and in organizations and institutions we trust. Second, we need our families and all of those institutions to keep the pledge they made to us: To love us, protect us, take care of us. We were, after all, simply children trying to grow up, have a normal life, be loved by those who pledged to love us, be protected by those who promised to keep us safe. We were innocent And lastly, a serious wake-up call needs to be given. These institutions, schools, Olympic Teams, Coaches, families, extended families, and churches need to stop protecting perpetrators. They need to start protecting and believing the child victims, many of whom are now adults, still living with the scars of childhood trauma. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to each other, but most importantly, we owe it to our children. We need a little bit more Ray Donovan in each of us. To be willing to do “the dirty work” by speaking up and standing up to protect the helpless. I want to extend a big thank you and pledge of gratitude to the writers, producers and directors of Ray Donovan. You show us the truth. You do if fearlessly. And as a survivor, you got it right. Thank you. Shari Karney, Esq.
