Novena Seeks to Promote Healing in Wake of Abuse Crisis, by Christine Williams, Catholic Online, May 15, 2006

Novena Seeks to Promote Healing in Wake of Abuse Crisis

By Christine Williams
Catholic Online
May 15, 2006

http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=19838

BOSTON, Mass. – Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley is inviting Boston Catholics to join him in a novena and "pilgrimage of repentance and hope" that will take him to parishes throughout the Boston Archdiocese that have experienced "an especially painful history" of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

BOSTON CARDINAL SEAN P. O'MALLEY – Boston Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, shown at an April 2006 press conference, said he will lead a novena and pilgrimage to various archdiocesan churches to promote healing in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The novena was to begin on Ascension Thursday, May 25, at the Boston cathedral.
Photo by the CNS/The Pilot

The novena to the Holy Spirit is designed to promote healing and renewal of the archdiocese in the wake of the clergy abuse crisis, which burgeoned into a national scandal following a January 2002 expose in Boston of decades of clergy sexual abuse of minors.

"Publicly acknowledging the church's faults and failures is an important element of asking forgiveness of those who have been harmed by the church," said Cardinal O'Malley in a statement announcing the parish visits.

"The sexual abuse crisis has caused intense suffering for survivors and their families and has been a source of shame and sorrow for our entire church community," he added. "Our hope is that these services will bring together survivors, their families and friends, as well as clergy, parishioners and members of the broader community."

He invited all in the archdiocese "to join us as we call upon the Holy Spirit to assist us as we work to bind up the wounds of abuse and restore the faith of our community."

The novena was to begin on Ascension Thursday, May 25, with a Mass at Holy Cross Cathedral in Boston. On each of the following nine days the cardinal planned to make a pilgrimage to a different parish that has "experienced an especially painful history of sexual abuse."

The parishes are in Stoneham, Middleton, Brockton, Lowell, Needham, Weston, Hingham, Bellingham and Brighton.

The novena was to conclude on the vigil of Pentecost, the evening of June 3, with a procession from the archdiocesan chancery building to St. Columbkille Parish; both are in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston.

"The novena services will acknowledge in a particular way the sins of clergy sexual abuse that violated the innocence of children and are an offense against God," Cardinal O'Malley said in his letter to the faithful.

"The service will include an act of reparation that will enable the clergy to join me in an expression of repentance for priests and bishops whose actions and inactions gravely harmed the lives of children entrusted to their care," he added.

The services are intended to bring together survivors and their loved ones as well as all members of the community whose lives have been affected by clergy abuse.

Everyone from priests to parishioners to community members is invited to attend any part of the novena, said Barbara Thorp, director of the archdiocese's Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach.

"All are really encouraged and welcome to attend any part of the service that they feel moved to participate in," she said.

Thorp said Cardinal O'Malley asked her office to assist with planning the novena, through which he hopes to reach out to the community and acknowledge and atone for the suffering of abuse victims.

"Cardinal Sean is really responding to this from the heart of the church and the heart of our identity as followers of Christ," she told The Pilot, Boston archdiocesan newspaper.

"We know that the process for survivors and their families of healing is long," Thorp added. "For people to experience their cardinal and the priests of the archdiocese really coming to them in love and with truly penitent hearts over all this will be very important for survivors and family members of survivors.

"The survivors have endured the suffering of this since their childhood, since they were first harmed," she said. "When all of this was held in darkness, its effects were insidious and profoundly damaging. I think it's actually a grace that this is brought out of darkness and into the light."

Thorp said the nine parishes chosen to host the novena are representative of all parishes touched by the abuse crisis. They were selected from the archdiocese's five regions to encourage as much participation as possible.

It is significant that Cardinal O'Malley chose to pray a novena to the Holy Spirit in the week leading to Pentecost, she said.

"We really can turn to the help of the Holy Spirit to help to bind up the wounds that have so separated and so deeply wounded our community as well as the survivors themselves," she said.