In the context of the reflection that is taking place during these days of the Symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal”, we remind ourselves that we are here this evening not only as believers, but also as penitents.
The tragedy of the sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by Christians, especially when done so by members of the clergy, is a source of great shame and enormous scandal. It is a sin against which Jesus himself lashed out: “It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Lk. 17:2). Abuse is a crime, in fact, which causes an authentic experience of death for the innocent victims, whom God alone can truly raise to new life in the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, with profound conviction and awareness of what we do, we turn to and implore the Lord.
This gesture of purification involves the entire Church, and each one of us – Bishops, Religious Superiors, educators, all Christians – feels the pain of what has occurred. We ask that the Spirit of God, who heals and radically renews all things, come down upon us.
As members of the Church, we must have the courage to ask humbly for God’s pardon, as well as for the forgiveness of His “little ones” who have been wounded; we must remain close to them on their road of suffering, seeking in every possible way to heal and bind up their wounds following the example of the Good Samaritan. The first step on this road is to listen to them carefully and to believe their painful stories.
The road of renewal for the Church, who will continue to educate people and establish proper structures to help prevent similar crimes, must include the sentiment of “never again”. As Blessed John Paul II said, “there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young” (Address of Blessed Pope John Paul II to the Cardinals of the United States, April 23, 2002, n. 3).
It is intolerable that the abuse of children would take place within the Church. Never again!Sadly, we observe all too well that the sexual abuse of children is found throughout modern society. It is our profound hope that the Church’s commitment to address this great evil will foster renewal among other communities and agencies in society who have been affected by this tragedy.
In this new path, we Christians should be aware that only faith can guarantee an authentic work of renewal in the Church: faith understood as personal, as a true and life-giving relationship of love with Jesus Christ. Mindful of our own lack of living faith, we ask the Lord Jesus to restore us all and to lead us through the agony of the cross towards the joy of the resurrection.
Sometimes the violence was committed by deeply disturbed persons or by those who had themselves been abused. It was necessary to take action concerning them and to prevent them from continuing any form of ministry for which they were obviously not suitable. This was not always done properly and, once again, we apologize to the victims.
The Shepherds of the Church, having learned from this terrible and humiliating experience, have a grave duty to take responsibility in the discernment and acceptance of candidates who seek to serve within the Church, most especially those seeking ordained ministry.
Still shocked by these sad occurrences, we hope that this Vigil liturgy helps us to view the horrible sins that took place among the People of God in the light of salvation history, a story which we have retraced together here tonight. It is a story that speaks of our misery, of our repeated failures, but most of all of God’s infinite mercy, of which we are always in need.
And so we entrust ourselves entirely to the powerful intercession of the Son of God, who “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7) in the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption, and who has taken upon himself every evil, even this evil, destroying its power so that it would not have the last word.
The Risen Christ, in fact, is the guarantee and the promise that life triumphs over death; He is capable of bringing salvation to each person.
As we continue with our prayer service, we pray, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, for a more profound appreciation of our respective vocations, so as to rediscover the roots of our faith in Jesus Christ and to drink deeply from the springs of living water that he offers us through his Church (cf. Pastoral Letter of Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholics of Ireland).
May the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who is always at work in the world, descend and help us through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, whose powerful intercession sustains and guides us to be obedient and receptive to divine love. Amen!
+ Marc Cardinal Ouellet
Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops
I could not help thinking of Archbishop John Hepworth, the outgoing Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, and the abuse he suffered. And how sad it is that he is not able to enter an Ordinariate, not even as a layman. I am reminded of a beautiful charge to the Anglican Catholic Church of Australia Synod Hepworth gave in 2010 before he made public the story of the abuse he suffered.
But the abuse within the Church by those in positions of sacred trust, whether they be religious or clergy or laity in positions of trust and influence – is generally and rightly regarded as more corrosive of victims’ lives than that which occurs elsewhere. The innate contradiction between a priest who can sodomise teenagers and go from that to handling the Son of God himself at the altar is as vast as any contradiction we can encounter. Both Hitler and Stalin attempted to destroy the church by destroying its priesthood. Neither succeeded. Martyrs are the lifeblood of the church. But in the past 50 years the priesthood has begun to destroy itself. And let us be quite clear. The verbal abuse that destroys a person’s confidence in their own personality, the physical abuse of unreasonable punishments and sadism, and the sexual abuse that ranges from inappropriate touching to sodomy and rape protected by blackmail are simply different points on a pathway that has destroyed not thousands but tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives that the Church has touched – but not for the better – in our generation. Ireland admits that one in five of its population have been abused by someone within the church. Parts of Australia have a percentage almost as high.The aftermath of abuse is destructive for the abusers. To hold the heights of depravity and the heights of sanctity within a single personality is utterly destructive. The church has an ultimate responsibility to everyone within it and to all people even to the ends of the earth. To minister to those whose ministry has turned to abuse is one of the most difficult and complex tasks that confront the church in our time. That we have people prepared to go into prisons and remand centres and sit for week after week and year after year slowly seeking to crack the tough shell with which these people try to protect themselves from themselves is an inspiration to us but more importantly places massive demands on the prayers and the sacrifices with which we support them.
And the aftermath of abuse is destructive for the victims. Victims experience the most powerful sense of shame and guilt, passionately believing that they provoked and invited the things that happened. They believe that their relationship with God is beyond redemption and their attitude to God turns often to anger and rejection. They struggle with minds that are dominated by images of their sexual experiences and often turn to drugs and drink to escape their own minds with which they cannot live. In over 40 years to priesthood, I have done too many funerals of young men whom I think now must have been victims because of the way in which they killed themselves. Because of their image of being un-clean victims will have problems with things that are sacred. Because their social development in key areas is often frozen they will fail consistently in relationships. And especially if they are men they will find it almost impossible to speak of what has happened. Often they may come to speak later in life and only because of some cataclysmic stimulus in which speaking suddenly becomes possible. And then there is the trauma of remembering and the trauma of trying to learn what parts of their life might have been a product of abuse and what parts might genuinely have been products of a sinful mind. There is in fact no known escape for the victims.I know of these things now because a bishop is bound in today’s Church to learn what there is to know. He must ensure every way possible that the past is not repeated. And since only the church can heal what the church has done, it is the responsibility of the Bishop to ensure that his clergy and people will respond with healing when they encounter the one in five or 10 that our statistics still tell us are waiting, perhaps longing, for the chance to tell someone in the church the story of their own lives. A victim will often only try once to turn to the church for help, and everything hangs on the spiritual and professional skill of the one to whom they turn to, be it lay or be it clergy. Each of us has the responsibility to be prepared. Only the church can heal what the church has broken. And until the church learns to heal its victims, the church will itself remain broken and unhealed.I also know these things because it is impossible to be a priest and Bishop and not encounter abusers and victims in the day-to-day reality of our ministry.
Perhaps one day I will be able to share with my Synod other ways in which I know the reality of what I am saying. I pray it may be so.
From what I understand now is that the Melbourne diocese investigated Hepworth's story of abuse and found it credible and compensated him. The Adelaide diocese conducted its own study and found the claims had no merit and that its more recent study took precedence.
The handling of this breaks my heart. I will be entering the Catholic Church on April 15 with my parish. This move on our part would not have been possible without the leadership and vision of Archbishop John Hepworth, who shepherded us out of our branch ecclesiology into the fullness of the Catholic faith. Those most faithful to Hepworth and his vision, will be entering the Church to be part of an Ordinariate, a provision in Anglicanorum coetibus that quotes back several phrases from the eloquent formal Portsmouth Petition of 2007 that Hepworth drafted requesting our entry into the Catholic Church. It is sad that Hepworth himself will remain outside of this provision, unreconciled to the Church he loves, in a diocese that has, for all intents and purposes, branded him a liar.
No one understands the sexual abuse issue within the Catholic Church better than Hepworth, frankly, and few can speak more eloquently about the damage it has done, and the need for forgiveness than he. Too bad he's never invited to any of these things.
ONLY THE CHURCH CAN HEAL WHAT THE CHURCH HAS BROKEN
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