Taiten, thats a great question--what was going on with the ward personnel that they allowed this predator access?
I can offer some stories that might be informative. May not account for the negligence on that particular psych ward. But may be informative, nonetheless.
One bit in my autobiography I did not mention was being in a units of chaplaincy training. The program is called Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) for short. I had too many things going on with me, so I didnt do too well. But I also was in a couple of CPE units that were badly run and I crossed paths with some abusive people.
One of these abusive persons was a priest who was in a religious order and a staff chaplain. I later learned from two other sources that he was, indeed, a bastard, and it had not been my imagination that he was an emotional sadist.
One source was a woman whose brother died from AIDS at the hospital where Father X was chaplaining at the time. X gave her brother shit because he had no interest in the Catholic sacraments. (Father X was also gay and would go out clubbing--he told me this)
My other source was a priest in the same order as Father X and who had had to live with him. When I mentioned Father X, this priest shuddered from head to foot.
"You mean you shared a toilet seat with Father X?" I yelped.
"Unfortunately, yes." Father X said. "Want to know the joke we have about him? For every person he has persuaded not to commit suicide, ten others jump."
This fellow spent a lot of time counseling patients on the psychiatry unit. Perfect. Anyone who complained, would be written off as crazy.
The woman who told me about Father X said that when her brother was dying from AIDS, he and she got a lot of shit from Father X. But when they complained to the ward nurses, they were ignored. Why?
Because Father X could turn on charm when with authority figures. He was strategic. So the people he charmed, who ran the wards he was on, had no framework for comprehending patients who told them Father X was quite different with them.
The woman's brother was not on a psychiatry ward though. He was on a medical ward. Maybe Father X claimed to the nurses that the man had AIDS dementia, further invalidating whatever the man would try to say to the nurses.
So...thats one way hospital personnel can be fooled by predators who get onto wards. Unless burned, few of us understand how abusive people can turn seductive charm on and off. My cousin said his parents were vicious to him. Yet when his school friends came to visit, his parents would turn on the charm. So his friends just didnt believe him when he told them how much crap he put up with at home.
However, I can tell you this. Persons on psych wards are vulnerable in other ways. Any complaint they make can be easily written off as paranoia--even if they're describing a religious predator or some other type.
Ditto for persons who are living on the street in homeless shelters or marginalised in other ways.
Because these persons are so easily ignored when they try to describe.
Yet another item I omitted from my autobiography was spending 2 and a half years working or volunteering in various homeless service jobs.
I met some wonderful people, many I know and love today.
In these same organizations or in organizations that assisted our organizations, we had some persons who were charmers, abusers and, in some cases, dangerous.
I saw some real con artists in the peace movement too.
Here is the take home lesson. In situations where society feels impotent and has a lake of psychic guilt, such as how to help homeless people, or festering issues in society, or human rights catastrophes where decent citizens see the news and dont know what to do, feel ashamed to be housed, fed, and have jobs, skulk past a myriad beggars and touts per day and feel mixtures of shame and boiling resentment--
Be careful. Because persons and organizations that arise to help can attract opportunists who know that this work will give them an automatic halo, society will be so grateful they have stepped forward to help where most of us just skulk and feel impotent that in very many cases, bona fides and resumes will not be fact checked and one feels like a cad (and will be made to feel like a heartless cad) if one dares to critique financial accountability. Allowances will be made.
No one will want to imagine that a social justice hero might be beating his wife or girlfriend (or boyfriend) in private. Or that a female social justice heroine might be disrupting marriages by pressuring male employees to sleep with her.
The infamous Jim Jones of San Francisco got his big jump to prominence by being a charismatic social justice hero. Legions of politicians and powerful religious figures supported him and looked the other way when early complaints were made about Jone's authoritarianism.
So...psych wards, social justice crises, homeless service work, prison work -- never hesitate to fact check resumes and keep even the supposedly saintly charismatic tireless religious worker accountable.
If an organization brings in lots of money, always demand, demand demand that someone besides the charismatic hero track how the money is being allocated and never let money be used as a personal piggy bank.
Keeping charismatic types accountable is the most difficult thing to do. They often tap our greatest hopes and give a sense of possiblity where we are feeling guilt ridden and accountable.
When a charismatic helper and social justice leader turns his or her public appearances into celebrations of his or her personality and mere presence, instead of focusing on the issue at hand--watch out.
For a recent example, look here. In the US we were guilt ridden about the human rights crises in Afghanistan and horrified by the information coming out on how horribly women and girls are treated. Yet, thousands of miles away, what could a citizen do?
Into this emotional painful storm, someone stepped forward not only offering a solution but seeming in his PR to embody the solution to these woes.
When I saw how this guy seemed to draw the focus again and yet again to his smiling face, I hoped nothing would go wrong.
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Whenever someone or something attracts millions and turned into a media charisma festival -- beware. Getting millions of dollars is intoxicating. And even the janitor can be tempted to embezzle ("I'll pay it back later, am going through a rough patch")
Charisma deflects accountability. Charisma makes us feel good. Charm makes us feel good.
Critical thinking just doenst give that kind of glowing pleasure.
Thats why charisma has to be held accountable--it means we have to forego the easy pleasure of being soothed and made high.
And that may be how the minister got 'round the ward supervisors of the psych unit. He may have charmed these stressed out people, made them laugh, made them feel good. they didnt want to give that up, by heeding complaints from the patients in their care-complaints that Pastor so and so was being intrusive.
To face that would not have felt good. Investigations and disillusionment hurt. But its our duty as adults especially those with vulnerable persons in their care to endure the ascetic discipline of questioning charm and charisma when warning signs and complaint are made.