Healing the Body of Christ - but who's listening?

(Vatican Radio) Sr Nuala Kenny is a member of the Sisters of Charity of Halifax in her native Canada and her passion is paediatric care – she’s received numerous awards for her commitment to child health and medical education. That’s why she’s often found herself kneeling at her desk in tears with a copy of the New Testament in her hands as she considers the damage that’s been done by the sex abuse crisis.

Sr Nuala was a key speaker at the conference on overcoming the abuse of power in church and in society that took place at St Mary’s University College in Twickenham this week. She tells Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen the meeting is picking up on the Holy Father’s question of what lies behind the sex abuse crisis. She also appeals to Church leaders to listen and to let themselves be guided by the many experts in this field…

Listen:

"Almost 25 years ago I was a member of the Newfoundland St John’s archdiocesan commission of enquiry into sexual abuse in that province. It produces a landmark paper on what happened...and why. That was published in 1990 and I was then asked by CCCB to go on their ad hoc committee on child sexual abuse… and I assisted on the committee that produced the document ‘From Pain to Hope’, the first set of national guidelines anywhere in the world, published in 1992.

I then went back to my career in paediatrics and then bioethics – it was only in the last 4 years, with the arrest of one of our St John’s bishops on pornography charges, I had this clear sense of calling… that we had raised issues and that we had not finished the job. So this conference for me is picking up – it took us a while – on the answer to the Holy Father’s question, what was it about our way of living the Gospel, that let us behave as we have in relation to this crisis?

The Church has now surely become a world leader in terms of policies and protocols, but we have been a slow leader and this conference is asking why. How does power and our sense of Church, the inactivity of the laity, our inability to have good, positive, loving experiences between priests and people, how has that made us fail to accept the difficult challenges in our Church?

I entered religious life 50 years ago, I have a ministry to care for children …. there have been days when I’ve had to kneel at my desk and physically hold onto the New Testament because I’ve been so overwhelmed by how much harm and distress has been done, not just to individual victims, but to the whole Body of Christ. I have wept about this but I know in my heart that the Holy Spirit is leading us somewhere graced…
Walking away is not an option, this is my Church…I do know that despair is the unforgiveable thing and this conference is an enormous grace to realise and to help – especially through Mgr Charles Scicluna – to let the Vatican and the hierarchy know that there are so many who want to help them. And then - this is the challenge - the hierarchy is all male and men don’t always like to accept help – but there are wonderful people who understand this and have committed themselves as well!