Catholic sister leads Lenten prayer effort for clergy sex abuse victims

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Gallup Independent
March 10, 2014

http://gallupindependent.com/

GALLUP – While the Diocese of Gallup has garnered headlines because of its bankruptcy proceedings, Sister Rene Backe has given a lot of thought to a group of people who live in the shadow of those headlines.

After praying about what she could do to support victims of clergy sex abuse, Backe, the director of Gallup’s Sacred Heart Retreat Center, decided to invite others to pray the Stations of the Cross during Lent and pray for victims of abuse. Everyone is welcome to participate in the prayer services, held at 6 p.m. Wednesdays in the retreat center’s chapel.

“In my own mind it just didn’t seem enough to offer people money for the pain they endured,” she said in an interview at the chapel Friday. “It’s a sin against the whole body of Christ. Sin hurts us all.”

Backe, a member of the Congregation of St. Agnes, said she wanted to get a group of people to pray in atonement for the sin of abuse and to pray for the victims’ healing. Since Lent was approaching and praying the Stations of the Cross is a favorite Lenten devotion for many Christians, Backe thought it would be an appropriate way to pray for abuse victims.

Backe said she talked with Bishop James S. Wall and that he was supportive of the idea. He wrote a special prayer for abuse victims, she said, and he celebrated Mass during the first Stations of the Cross service on Ash Wednesday. Except for this week, Backe said, the bishop plans to attend each Wednesday gathering and give a short talk.

“I think too he feels this needs to be done in addition to the money part,” she said.

About 30 people attended the Ash Wednesday service, Backe said. “I’m hoping they will continue to come Wednesdays and pray for the victims,” she said.

“Many people make the Way of the Cross by themselves privately as a Lenten devotion,” Backe said, explaining it is a “walking prayer” that commemorates Jesus’ suffering and death.

As she prays for victims of abuse, Backe said, some of the Stations of the Cross have special significance for her. The fourth station, where Jesus encounters his mother, reminds her to pray for the mothers of abuse victims. The fifth station, where Simon of Cyrene is forced to help carry Jesus’ cross, reminds her of the need to help carry the burdens of abuse victims.

On Friday morning, Backe said, she was particularly reminded of abuse victims in the church’s daily scripture reading.

“Is it not sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor; if you see someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin?” Backe read in Isaiah 58:7.

It was a “powerful prayer moment,” she said, a reminder that abuse victims are her kin in the family of God and in the mystical body of Christ.

Although Backe said she has never met a survivor of clergy sex abuse, she has offered spiritual direction to a number of women who were sexually abused as children by uncles, grandfathers or brothers.

Abuse strips away a person’s dignity, Backe said, and it is her prayer that each victim of abuse can be “clothed with healing and grace and a sense of dignity” and know “they are God’s beloved child.” “I guess I would just like them to know that their fellow Catholics and Christians are praying for them,” she said.

The Sacred Heart Retreat Center is located about 2 miles south of Gallup. Everyone is welcome to participate in the prayers each Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Information: Sister Rene Backe at (505) 722-6755