Victim of Abuse Addresses Vatican Conference
Vatican Radio
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… 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.”
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