The urgent need to change the culture within the Church to ensure zero tolerance of
all sexual abuse: that was the starkly clear message that emerged from the Tuesday
morning session of the conference on ‘Healing and Renewal’, going on behind closed
doors at Rome’s Gregorian University. Bishops or their representatives from over a
hundred countries are attending the four day meeting which also includes a penitential
liturgy and the launch of a German based centre for child protection to provide resources
for church leaders across the globe. Philippa Hitchen reports…
Listen:
Sometimes
shock tactics are needed to shake people out of denial, complacency or the refusal
to confront a particularly painful problem. That’s what participants at this conference
got on Tuesday as they heard a middle aged Irish victim of abuse describe in detail
how her experience led to decades of despair, depression and deep loss of trust in
the Church. As a 13 year old girl, Marie Collins was abused by a hospital chaplain,
who was then protected by his archbishop and went on to abuse and rape other children
over a period of 30 years. Though she was sickened by his actions, Marie says she
herself felt guilty and was unable to tell anyone about what he was doing. The fact
that he was a priest simply added to the confusion in her young mind: “those fingers
that would abuse my body the night before were the next morning offering me the sacred
host” she told the conference, adding that “my abusers’ assertion that he was and
priest and could do no wrong rang true with me”. Speaking alongside Marie at that
morning session was psychiatry professor Sheila Hollins, who recently accompanied
British cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor on his visitation to hear victims of sexual
abuse in the Irish diocese of Armagh. She spoke of the devastating psychological damage
suffered by victims who feel dirty, ashamed, unable to enjoy normal relationships
and often go on to either abuse others or seek refuge in alcohol or drug abuse. Those
mental health problems are simply made worse if their story is then not believed or
played down, as many bishops in the past have done. Both women stressed the vital
importance of listening to survivors stories and providing them with ongoing psychiatric
and spiritual support
“Certainly in my experience there was very little spiritual
support….the hierarchy look at us as outside the Church, angry with the Church….and
I said I thought it was wrong”
Another key speaker at that morning session,
American professor and psychologist Msgr Stephen Rossetti then stressed the urgency
of changing the culture in the Church worldwide, to break through the denial and to
learn from all the mistakes of the past. He listed six areas where Church leaders
have got it wrong in the past – from not listening to victims, not heeding the tell-tale
signs, underestimating the problem in their own dioceses, or believing that abusers
could be cured and returned to parish ministry. Describing the symposium as an intensive
‘bishops’ formation course’ he said it’s time to stop seeing sex abuse as an American
or Western concern and learn how to act fast and effectively
“Hopefully this
conference will help people learn faster …change happens slowly but when the Church
finally ‘gets it’…it can be a powerful force for change.”