The double jeopardy of abuse victims

How is this for an example of double jeopardy reported in today's Edmonton Journal?


First jeopardy. A Quebec priest, Paul-Henri Lachance, betrayed the trust of a young girl and her family and abused the girl, Shirley Christensen now 36, over a period of two years between the ages of six and eight. He pled guilty in 2009 and was sentenced to 18 months jail.

Second jeopardy. Christensen's parents informed the archbishop after their daughter confided in them. The Archbishop told them Lachance would be dealt with and not to disclose the information to others. Being good and obedient Catholics they did what the archbishop told them. As an adult Christenson tried to sue the Archdiocese of Quebec City as being responsible for Lachance and turning a blind eye after the allegations were brought to the attention of the archbishop. The same archdioces that traded on the parents' trust and instructed them not to disclose the information dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that more than three years had passed since the alleged abuse.

Hello? Is anyone listening out there in the presbyteries and bishop's residences? Please can we have some actions to give credibility to the Pope's words to the Irish victims of abuse and their families?

"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential institutions must have felt that there was no escape from your sufferings. It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel." (Letter to the Church in Ireland)


The first betrayal of trust can be put down to the depraved human weakness of an individual priest. The detached, calculating meanness of the second betrayal is, in my eyes, the greater scandal because, apart from making a mockery of the Pope's apology, it denies or invalidates the pain/anger/shame/guilt/humiliation that abuse victims have carried with them ever since their abuse first began. In effect, this woman has been victimised yet again. As the Pope said, it is understandable if she finds it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church.

Clearly, the Pope does not have a handle on the feelings of all his bishops when he speaks about "the shame and remorse that we all feel." There are at least some who do not feel enough shame and remorse as to act on it.

Perceptions of the Roman Catholic Church

Curious about how atheists underpin morals and ethics I read an interview in the Globe and Mail with Sam Harris who has just written a book on the subject. I did not expect him to be sympathetic to religion and he lived down to my expectations. However, one of the things that he said about the Catholic Church made me sit up and take notice.

"Here is an institution that is more concerned about preventing contraception than preventing child rape."

This resonated with me because I have heard exactly this from practising Catholics loyal to the Church. I have often wondered about what perception the world must have of the relative importance in the eyes of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of something like contraception compared with the paedophile behaviour of priests who were reassigned many times over into situations which, in spiritual terminology, were "occasions of sin" for the priests and, more importantly, occasions of danger for children. What is the message that the Church has given to the on-looking world when it comes to the relative amounts of money that have been spent to buy silence, on out of court settlements, court-imposed settlements, lawyers' fees and the like compared to unfettered, no-strings-attached, gratuitous offers to pay for treatment and counselling for traumatised victims?

Please understand that what I am talking about here is perception. There is no shortage of apologists who will tell me that the reality is different and, of course, the hierarchy is very concerned. Didn't the Pope meet with victims, more than once? Haven't there been documents and statements from episcopal conferences? Maybe, but for perception to change there needs to be more than isolated events such as these. The perception remains that the Church is more concerned about preventing contraception than preventing child rape. Indeed, the perception is that the Church is straining out the gnat but swallowing a camel (Mat 23:24).

There is no perception that the Church hierarchy is genuinely interested, in an on-going way, to seek out and help victims of paedophile priests. The perception is that the cover-up continues to this day.

I was very pleased, even excited, when one parish of my acquaintence added to the Prayer of the Faithful during Sunday mass a prayer "for those who have been sexually abused as children by ministers of the Church." To my disappointment it was a once-off event and has not been repeated.

It seems to me that the leaders of the Catholic Church are not trying very hard to change these perceptions. Just how important is attending to victims and their healing relative to other priorities in the Roman Catholic Church today?

Sex abuse by priests. Where is the disgust and outrage?

I am not a saint. I have been to confession enough times over my life to prevent my forgetting that. I still try to go every month or so which is probably not often enough. Somebody told me that the late Pope John Paul II went every day!

I have had the experience of confessing a particular sin to one priest who accepted it in stride along with my other sins and gave me some helpful advice. Another priest flipped on the same sin. He told me I was going straight to hell.

I tell you this not for the sake of making any public confessions although it does no harm to establish that it is not my intention to take a holier-than-thou attitude on this blog. I doubt that any of my readers consider themselves without fault or sin. Even the meticulous pharisees had the integrity to walk away when Jesus suggested that the one without sin should cast the first stone.

My purpose is rather to give an example of someone having a sense of outrage at sin. Not meaning to say one priest's response was better or worse than the other, or less or more appropriate. My comparison is rather with that of the response of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, to the release of a 200-page report on September 10, compiled by an internal commission set up by the church to document charges of sex abuse. Two hundred pages!

According to a New York Times article headed, Belgian Church's Response to Abuse Lacks Specifics, ( http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=659343&f=110 ), the report included harrowing testimony from victims and said that one had been abused from the age of 2. Thirteen people are thought to have committed suicide as a result of abuse, the report said.

FROM THE AGE OF TWO!!! THIRTEEN SUICIDES!? What the ....?

According to the New York Times, Archbishop Léonard said at a news conference that suffering had caused a "shiver" to run through the church, but that it was too soon for a detailed response to the crisis. A shiver through the church? A SHIVER? Which church is the archbishop talking about? He and I must be in different churches. His church might be experiencing a shiver but my church is vomiting in disgust. If my confessor blew an indignation valve over what I had confessed then the poor man must be suffering one serious meltdown if he is aware of this report out of the church in Belgium.

Why do I get the impression that lay people are more outraged and disgusted by this stuff than are bishops and priests?

Training future Catholic paedophiles

I came across a posting by a Belgian lay woman, Dr. Alexandra Colen, who describes her quest to have a Belgian catechism textbook, Roeach, removed from Catholic schools in Belgium.

I do not consider myself a prudish Mother Grundy. I was sadly disappointed when a few years ago some Catholic parents wanted Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale removed from being prescribed reading for English in local Catholic high schools. They had never read the book but had read the page where the main character talks about f*ck*ng. (I had not read the book either. The controversy led me to read it and I would say that it should be on everyone's "must read" list along with Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.)

Roeach (pronounced Ruach where the ch is like the Scottish och) is very different. It had the Imprimatur of the Archbishop's office. The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. It has some drawings of babies and toddlers with bubble texts that led Colen to conclude, “When I see this drawing and its message, I get the distinct impression that this catechism textbook is designed intentionally to make 13 and 14 year olds believe that toddlers enjoy genital stimulation. In this way one breeds pedophiles that sincerely believe that children actually think that what they are doing to them is ‘groovy’, while the opposite is the case.”

For some insight into the context of the scandal around resigned bishop Roger Vangheluwe read Colen's blog entry, The Fall of the Belgian Church (http://www.alexandracolen.nu/node/45). Warning, it has a cartoon from the catechism that some might consider pornographic.

I thought I was going to have some support.

“Why do you feel sorry for him and not me? You always try to defend him. I thought I was going to have some support.”

With these telling words it is clear that yet another victim of Roman Catholic, clerical sex abuse was again made to feel victimised. To the victim, at least, it seemed that the perpetrator of the abuse was being defended and he, the victim, was given one course of action - forgiveness.

The case, which has caused huge turmoil in the Catholic church in Belgium, seems to be summarised pretty comprehensively in the New York Times of Sept 1, 2010 under the headline, "Cardinal, Who Mediated in Belgian Abuse Case, Says He Was Misled."

Timeline summary of events.

As a priest Roger Vangheluwe sexually abused his nephew, his own brother's son, for 13 years from the time the boy was 5 years of age.

Even after Vangheluwe was made Bishop of Bruges in 1984 the sexual assults continued until the victim was 18 years old.

Vangheluwe sent his nephew gifts of money, unsolicited, on his birthday, Easter, New Year and (wait for it...) Valentine's Day.

For the next 24 years the nephew kept his childhood abuse a secret.

The nephew told some members of the family who together asked for a meeting with Vangheluwe.

Vangheluwe arranged a meeting with himself and half a dozen members of the family, including the nephew and his father, Vangheluwe's brother. There would be a "mediator". The family thought the mediator would be the new Bishop of Bruges, Archbishop Léonard. Instead Vangheluwe brought in his old friend, Cardinal Danneels, recently retired head of the Church in Belgium.

The nephew secretly recorded the meeting which took place April 8, 2010.

At the meeting Danneels urged the nephew to stay quiet, at least until Vangheluwe could retire. "It might be better to wait for a date in the next year, when he is due to resign. I don't know if there will be much to gain from making a lot of noise about this, neither for you nor for him."

In another meeting later the same month Vangheluwe offered his nephew an apology which was rejected. “This is unsolvable,” the victim said. “You’ve torn our family completely apart.”

Vangheluwe resigned on April 23, 2010, after admitting to sexually abusing "a young man years ago" and has gone to a Trappist monastery.

In August the nephew released the tapes.

Observations and Comments

This is really shocking by any standards. The victim was 5 years old when the abuse started! Five! ...and the perpetrator accepted a nomination to the epicopate while this was going on and continued thus for some years into his time as bishop!

Cardinal Danneels had been chairman of the Belgian Episcopal Conference from 1979 to January 2010. He must have known that this needed a formal investigation by the current bishop. He should not have touched this with a barge pole. Instead we find him trying to influence the course of events and prevent or delay due process laid down by Canon Law. According to an earlier New York Times article on August 29, “The bishop will resign next year, so actually it would be better for you to wait,” the cardinal told the victim. “I don’t think you’d do yourself or him a favor by shouting this from the rooftops.” (Belgian Church Leader Urged Victim to Be Silent.) The cardinal warned the victim against trying to blackmail the church and suggested that he accept a private apology from the bishop and not drag “his name through the mud.” I gather from this that an apology would mean the end of the matter.

One has to wonder if Daneels himself had something to hide. According to the same New York Times article, a retired priest, the Rev. Rik Devillé, said he tried to warn Cardinal Danneels about the bishop’s abuse of his nephew 14 years ago, but was berated by the cardinal for doing so.

They just don't get it, do they? When will they get it that it's not about "The Church" and its reputation or the protectionism of the Old Boys' Club? It has to be about the victims. An apology that is a cloak for a request to be let off the hook is no apology at all. Preaching forgiveness and pushing victims to forgive without demanding that perpetrators attempt to make restitution and take the consequences of their actions doesn't merely ring hollow - it rubs salt in the wound, invalidates the pain and trauma of the victim and exacerbates the sense of victimhood. It's the stuff of hypocrisy. Jesus had his harshest words for hypocrites.

Restitution or buying silence? Giving with the left and taking with the right?

This morning I was reading my home-delivered copy of the Toronto Star's front page article "The Price of Silence," changed to "Basilians say money was to help alleged victim heal" for the online version.

The pith of the article is as follows.

High school teacher Ted Holland laid a complaint with police that Basilian priest Rev. William Hodgson “Hod” Marshall, Holland's teacher and basketball coach in grade 9, sexually abused him three times between November and December of 1969, when he was 14. On one of these occasions another student was present who was also abused.

The abuse stopped after Ted Holland's father, a miner, visited the school and told the principal what had transpired. According to Holland, “My father told him what happened to me, and Father Lococo said, ‘Well, other teachers I’ve talked to said your son has a vivid imagination’ . . . so he turns it around to make me look like the bad guy. I don’t know if he believed me, but my father said (when they left Lococo’s office), ‘Just go to school, learn and don’t be a miner.’ ”

The Congregation of St. Basil offered Holland a cheque for $21,000 in 1998. Holland said he didn’t want the cheque and wouldn’t sue the religious order. He only wanted an apology. They offered him $30,000 a year later which latter Holland accepted and signed an agreement not to pursue the Basilians in court.

Father Marshall was sent to a professional treatment centre in the United States in 1996. Now 88, he is cooperative with the Basilians and the legal authorities.

A few things struck me while reading the article:

1. The Basilians offered a cheque for $30,000 which was accepted. The congregation's vicar general said this was "to offer financial assistance to cover any cost of psychological counseling or therapy required.”

2. Holland signed an agreement not to pursue the Basilians in court.

3. The response of the principal, Father Lococo, was worse than specious and definitely not Christian. He was basically saying,"So just try and take this further and we'll make you and your boy look bad."

4. Holland, it appears, is still waiting for an apology.

5. Holland says he doesn’t hate his abuser. “I’m not angry. He had good qualities. He was a great math teacher. Yes, I have forgiven him, yes. I have to.”

What disappoints me here is the continuous stress on the legal on the part of Catholic priests and religious when it comes to their own failings. We get these great sermons on the correct spiritual approach to confession, penance, repentance and seeking forgiveness. What we really need is some good example and modelling behaviour that moves from words to "Watch me. This is how you do it." My wife and wise mother to our five children, who does not pretend to be a theologian, speaks about "the 3 R's of repentance": remorse, resolve and restitution.

Remorse. Regretting what you have done and saying sorry to the person you have injured as well as to God. Remorse also means accepting the consequences of your actions, including the acceptance with a good heart of any punishment that is due. If the judge, formal or figurative, decides to mitigate punishment, that should be taken as undeserved largesse, not a right to be wheedled by bargaining or bribery.

Resolve. Making up your mind to stop and taking the necessary steps to ensure this does not happen again. As children we were taught "to avoid the occasion of sin." Adults who have care for children, officers in the army, superiors in religious congregations and others in authority such as bishops have a corresponding obligation to consider "the occasion of sin" when making assignments.

Restitution. If you steal something you have to give it back. If you damage something you must bear the cost of repair. If you injure somebody emotionally you must bear the cost of psychological counseling or therapy required. This is not to be confused with noble generosity. It is simply an obligation. Using restitution as a bargaining chip for avoiding consequential punishment vitiates such restitution and neutralizes the spirit of remorse.

I know that bishops, priests and vicar generals do understand this because they have preached this stuff to us ever since I can remember.

Pope Benedict said in his letter to the Church in Ireland, (para. 7), "You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals... God’s justice summons us to give an account of our actions and to conceal nothing. Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy."

My plea is that bishops, vicar generals and others in ecclesiastical authority just get on and DO what the pope has said, or do they think he was only speaking to the clergy in Ireland?

To those who are obsessed with trying to defend the reputation of the Church

I am going to repeat myself on what is the most important point of my ealier blog - and try to keep it simple. This is addressed to those who are obsessed with trying to defend the reputation of the Church, the Pope and the bishops. Please understand that this is counter-productive. Instead of converting, it drives those you are hoping to convince even further away and alienates the victims of Church based paedophile abuse even further, causing them even more pain and anger.

If you cannot speak to the pain of those who were sexually abused as young children by priests and workers in the Church, if you cannot speak of the need for repentance and redress, and of the need to seek forgiveness not only by those who perpetrated these evils but also, and even more so, by those shepherds in the Church who conspired to cover up the scandals by eliciting or buying promises of silence and thereby protect and harbour the wolves in sheep's clothing who ravaged the flock, if you cannot see past "reputation" in the eyes of the world to the plight of all the victims, not only those who have come forward loudly but the many more who have chosen to remain muted, who even now endure depression, confusion, disturbed sleep, dysfunctional relationships with family, friends and with God to name just some of the chronic pains they endure, then please be quiet and say nothing or you will simply make a bad situation worse. Try praying for wisdom and understanding, and a heart of compassion.

This article was originally published on Kwa-McCann ( http://terryin-sites.blogspot.com/ ) on 25 April 2010.

Another Victim's Response

I received the following response to my last blog in an email from a lady who has given me permission to publish but wishes to remain anonymous.

Hi, VERY TOUCHING!!! I read it with many mixed emotions surfacing. I too have been personally affected by abuse. Not by clergy, but by relatives and a doctor. For a long time I was angry at the people who I confided in who failed me...people I loved and trusted...(my mother and my husband) so I understand why abuse victims, who have already been violated beyond words feel betrayed by those who could have stopped it!! But, in their defense I have to add culture was different then. You just did not talk about such things! It seems (if we did not acknowlege that it was true, we did not have to deal with it and maybe it would just go away...plus the victim was often viewed as the guilty party.This was not uncommon in rape cases where lawyers attacked the character and good name of the victim in order to let the abused get off) I think some of those who could have made a difference felt that they were doing all that they could, because they confronted the abuser, and more or less disciplined him/her, by transfering them or by taking away certain freedoms....I believe ignorance is the WORST enemy of TRUTH!

Like you, in the context of prayer groups and sharing sessions I have met a very large number of women (and some men) who, like me, were abused by older brothers or other relatives. Does that mean that all boys can't be trusted??? I hope not!

All that having been said, when I hear the media reports they enrage me!!! I want them to tell the truth and they are NOT!! There is a blatent 'Anti-Catholic' sentiment among journalists...to the point that some in the Jewish community have jumped to the Holy Father's defence...which only fuelled the anti-Catholic agenda of the media.

Here are some noteworthy facts to help keep things in perspective:

-- physical and sexual abuse, especially of children, is a mortal sin and a dispicable act, it always was and always will be and justice should be done, if it is not done in this world we can be sure it will be in the next.

-- to that end, no one has done more than Pope Benedict to eradicate this foul stench from the Church and the clergy...yet the media continue to attack his credibility reporting situations falsely and twisting the facts to sell news

-- of all those guilty of sexual abuse of children, 2% are Catholic Clergy.

-- almost all cases of sexual abuse by Catholic Clergy happened more than 30 years ago...yet, many innocent and holy Catholic Clergy are viewed as suspect to this day.

-- Jesus promised, when he founded The Catholic Church naming St. Peter the first Pope, that the gates of Hell will not prevail against Her (the Church). In the eye of the storm I cling to this Truth!

Human nature wants to lash out, to punish those who hurt us...to get even. But, that is not what Jesus wants...only by His grace can we forgive those who have sinned against us which is what He wants to help us do, and then leave justice up to Him.

This article was originally published on Kwa-McCann ( http://terryin-sites.blogspot.com/ ) on 14 April 2010.

Musings on the Catholic Church by a Paedophile Victim

Background

Up until now (April 2010) it has not been widely known that I was abused by a paedophile as a boy for over four years from the age of ten (1957) till I was fourteen (1960) and old enough to say, "Enough. No More." Let me say right away that my abuser was not a cleric, but a lay man closely involved in parish activities that parish boys were involved in. My mother had her suspicions and once, when I was sick, asked our parish priest to visit me and question me about the relationship. I denied that there was anything taking place. Why? Because my abuser had made me promise not to tell anyone. I kept that promise. Sick, isn't it?

Other than telling my wife in vague terms I buried the secret deep down, seldom thinking about it, keeping that promise for about forty-five years, right up until 2006. In that year I went to a Catholic Charismatic rally in Toronto where, at one point, one of the leaders said that God was wanting to heal victims of rape. I had NEVER thought of myself as a victim of rape. Rape, for me, was something I had conceived of in rather narrow terms with a heterosexual, never homosexual, component; and rape is always forced, isn't it? My molester never "forced" me into things; I "allowed" him to do what he did. At this invitation, however, it was like something smacked me on the side of the head. There was a sudden, very sudden, realization, "I am a rape victim. That's me. God wants to heal me!"

Without hesitation I stood up and looked for some designated person available to pray with me. The only group available was a family - father, two teenage sons and a teenage daughter if I remember correctly. I gulped and then remembered that I was younger than any of them when this had happened to me. To keep it brief let me just say that the dad did a great job and seemed to be inspired with understanding and compassion. I experienced healing, forgiveness and freedom. Within a week I had shared my story with each of my children and the prayer group that I go to weekly and felt relief and exhilaration. It was no longer this terrible secret that I was too ashamed to tell anyone about.

The Scandal Goes Public

As far as I was concerned I was healed, it was over, and I could get on with my life. But then the clergy scandals started to rock the Catholic Church. Victims were coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of priests. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. Allegations turned into charges and many of the charges stuck. I read about dioceses that had to sell churches in order to pay for court costs and awards for damages. I started to feel increasing anger over the amounts of money being squandered, in my mind, for the defence of priests who seemed to be less than forthright in admitting their guilt, with diocesan defence lawyers making victims publicly recount and "prove" their allegations. That money had come from hard working Catholics who had given to provide for the needs of the Church. This hardly seemed to me like a "need" of the Church and was certainly not promoting the Gospel. My perception was that the ecclesiastical hierarchy had moved into damage control mode and was wanting to minimise the proven guilt and the financial amounts to be awarded in damages thereby compounding one set of injustices with another.

My freshly healed wound started to fester with a new pain which came from the realisation that bishops and their diocesan functionaries seemed to be more concerned with "reputation" and "scandal", and money, than seeing to the restitution due their victims and obtaining their forgiveness and becoming reconciled with them as deeply hurting members of the Body of Christ. Worse, by the protestations offered by some well-meaning "defenders" of the Church, victims and their protagonists were viewed as churlish and opportunistic revenge seekers who were exaggerating the pain and suffering they had endured for so many years in order to maximise their payout. "The Church" was becoming the innocent martyr if some people were to be believed.

Why "come out" now?

At this point I need to pause to explain why this sudden "coming out". Please understand clearly: I, personally, am not looking for sympathy; I do not need or want your sympathy, but I do want your acceptance. A lot of people are expressing their opinions about the clergy abuse scandal that is currently rocking the Church, from the vitriolic vultures that are calling for the head of the pope on a platter, to the frenzied fervour of religious faithful who are portraying the pope as a living martyr who must obviously be innocent of any and all charges before they are even enunciated. The first group includes some victims and their supporters but also seems to include opportunistic journalists who smell the blood of a good story that can give them lots of mileage and the appearance of being knights in shining armour. I am not enamoured of the extremists of the first group, certainly not of those who seem to be baying for blood without any apparent benefit to the victims except some kind of revengeful satisfaction at seeing the pope humiliated. However, I am even less appreciative of the Well-Meaning But Misguided who have set themselves up as Pro Deo or Pro Bono defenders of the Pope and those accused of shielding paedophile priests. I don’t seem to hear this group calling for any acknowledgement of the cause or sufferings of those abused as children at the hands of priests or lay workers in the Church except, occasionally, as an after-thought or single-line item. More often I hear the plaints, largely true it seems, that Catholic clergy per capita are no worse than clerics of any other Christian denomination.

My reason for "coming out" as a victim, then, is to establish my credentials. If these others can pen or voice their opinions about the sexual abusers of children and those who shielded them, then so can I, with more right and justification than many of the most vociferous; and I have a deeply personal perspective to bring to bear that I wish to share.

Trying to defend the Church

God does not need us to defend him; we need him to defend us. In the Garden of Gethsemane when a well-meaning but misguided Peter tried to use the sword Jesus told him that, if he wanted, he could ask the Father who could send more than twelve legions of angels to defend him. There was a chalice to be drunk. By the same token it is presumptuous to think we can defend the Church rather than the other way round. However, by faith, hope and love, and continuous repentance leading to holiness, we can build up one another in love. This is our surest defence and offence. I am convinced that if we try to "defend" the Church in any other way our efforts will backfire. It is futile to try and defend reputation in any other way than by good example and the truth. There is only one way by which Jesus wants his disciples to be recognised: by their love for one another. As for those who would seduce children and lead them to sin Jesus said that it would be better for them to be cast into the sea with a millstone tied around their necks. To these Pope Benedict said in his recent letter to the Church in Ireland, "You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals... God’s justice summons us to give an account of our actions and to conceal nothing. Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy." (Emphasis mine.)

The Pope's Priorities

I am not aware of Pope Benedict ever asking anyone to defend him or any other bishop. I am aware of the pastoral priorities that he laid out in his pastoral letter to the people of Ireland. To the extent that preachers and others who speak in the name of the Catholic Church ignore these priorities and try instead to deal with this scandal by defending the Pope and the Catholic hierarchy as an end in itself they will muddy the waters instead of offering the pure Living Water. Let's not try to mitigate the Pope's own words to the bishops ofIreland: "It cannot be denied that some of you and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse. Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations. I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that grave errors of judgement were made and failures of leadership occurred. All this has seriously undermined your credibility and effectiveness. I appreciate the efforts you have made to remedy past mistakes and to guarantee that they do not happen again. Besides fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse, continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence." (Emphasis mine.) It is not impossible that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faithmay have to own up to just such failure as well.

The victims of abuse and their families

The Pope is way out in front here and most dioceses and parishes are so far behind that they don't even know there is a gap to be closed. Here is what the Pope had to say: "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential institutions must have felt that there was no escape from your sufferings. It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel." Many people criticized the Pope's letter saying it did not go far enough. Maybe, but I was very touched and appreciative of the above acknowledgement of shame and remorse by the Holy Father, just as I was appreciative when our parish priest made some similar acknowledgement in the homily at the Easter Vigil.

The victims that we are aware of are the noisy ones who have come forward - and they have a right to be noisy and to be heard. To them we owe a deep debt of gratitude for exposing this festering boil so that it could be lanced and cleaned. But there are many, many others, too ashamed or hurting or embarrassed or just plain shy. No one will ever know they were victims; they will take their secret to the grave. Some of these victims may or may not be next to you, in front of you or behind you in the pew on any given Sunday. We tend to think of abuse victims being somewhere else, in another country, or in another part of the country, "up North", "down South", out east or west but not in my parish, that's too close for comfort. How would I deal with him/her? What would we say? How can we acknowledge these victims and help them feel accepted and, to some degree, understood?

Here I have a practical suggestion to offer parishes. Please can you add the following or similar petition to your Prayer of the Faithful?

For those who have been sexually abused as children by ministers of the Church, that the Divine Mercy will help them find healing and freedom, and for the shepherds and pastors of the Church that they may have the wisdom, humility and compassion to bring Christ's love to those still suffering from such abuse, we pray to the Lord.

If entire parish communities can pray for this intention on a weekly basis it just might help us all shift from our defensive postures to the openness and acceptance without which we cannot become the “Church purified by penance and renewed in pastoral charity” of which the Pope wrote.

This blog, “Musings on the Catholic Church by a paedophile victim” is copyright © 2010 by Terry McCann. Permission is granted to reproduce excerpts or the whole for non-commercial purposes provided source and copyright is acknowledged and this URL is referenced. Commercial publishers should apply by email to kwamccann@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on Kwa-McCann ( http://terryin-sites.blogspot.com/ ) on 11 April 2010.

A Blog Dedicated to This Topic

These next three blog entries were originally published on my family blog - Kwa-McCann. I decided to set up a separate blog dedicated to the issue of sexual abuse of children by paedophiles in the context of the Roman Catholic Church.