Meeting with Pope Francis His Holiness Pope Francis Domus Sanctae ...

  Mark Vincent Healy   [email protected]  Survivor Campaigner seeking ‘Rescue Services’ and ‘Safe Space Provisioning’ for survivors of clerical child sexual abuse 

http://www.thejournal.ie/author/mark‐vincent‐healy/      

7th July 2014  RE: Meeting with Pope Francis    

His Holiness Pope Francis  Domus Sanctae Marthae  00120 Vatican City,  The Vatican.     

Your Holiness,    I wish to thank you for this opportunity of meeting with you as a survivor of clerical child  sexual abuse along with others from Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany.  The world will indeed be curious about our meeting and wondering what will come of it.  There are opposing opinions about such a meeting ranging from high hope on the one hand,  to scepticism, if not derision, that nothing positive can possible come of such a meeting. For  my part I can only hold out hope.   I contacted other survivors and their families to let them know I had been accorded this  opportunity. Many do not trust the Catholic Church and for good reason considering the  enormous betrayal of trust which was later followed by the enormous distress in seeking  remedy and redress. However, I feel any opportunity to dialogue and lay out the realities of  Clerical Child Sexual Abuse is not to be squandered. I am not sure I have what it takes to  give the sort of presentation this subject requires but I will be happy to have made the effort  than to have lost the opportunity in not even trying.  THE PROBLEM  I have poured over reports, letters, articles and papers attempting to find words appropriate  to this occasion which might strike sufficiently loudly on the alarm bell. These matters could  not be more serious.   The scandal of clerical child sexual abuse (CCSA) is an existential crisis in God’s house,  played out for the world to see. It is about the children of the living God and how they have  been treated by the ministers of the living God. 

The Lord Jesus promised, ʺYou shall know the truth and the truth shall set you freeʺ (Jn. 8:32). Scripture bids us speak the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) 

BACKGROUND AND ORIGIN  Though the sexual abuse of children by ministers of the church has been going on for  centuries, there is arguably a ‘ground zero’ to the current worldwide scandal. It is founded on  events in Louisiana in 1983, where the Rev Gilbert Gauthe was convicted in 1985 of sexual  rape and assault of 37 altar boys from seven to ten years of age. He later was to abuse his  youngest victim who was only three years old.   The failure of Bishop Gerard Louis Frey of Lafayette Louisiana (1972‐1989) exacerbated the  situation and facilitated further abuse and crimes against children. Gauthe is believed to  have abused over 100 children.  IRISH SITUATION  The Louisiana ‘case’ was to set in train the approach that would be adopted by the Catholic  Church to the scandal of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse as noted in the response taken up in  Ireland by the then Archbishop of Dublin, Kevin McNamara.   Throughout 1986 and 1987, it was noted that Archbishop McNamara had turned his  attention to managing the liability of the Irish Catholic Church to such criminal scandal.  The first reaction was to take out insurance and secondly to call in the lawyers on how to  manage the scandal. The third option was how to manage public outrage, at what was a  pending horror of abuse on children by the religious through a state that had absented itself  from its constitutional obligation to the bodily integrity and welfare of its citizens, to its most  vulnerable, to its children.   It has taken till 28th January 2014 for a brave woman from Cork, Louise O’Keeffe, to  vindicate her contention that the Irish State was and is responsible for the welfare and  wellbeing of children attending Irish schools. Louise’s victory against Ireland at the  European Court of Human Rights secured children’s rights in 48 European countries. The  judgement in her case holds those countries liable to its school going children’s welfare.  Again and again all the press statements indicated that the child was paramount,  preeminent, the first consideration, but if that were so, why was the first reaction not to find  out WHO had been abused and secondly WHAT do we need to do to help them.  Indeed this was the very question I put to my former school principal who sought to transfer  my two abusers to the foreign jurisdictions of Canada and Sierra Leone, with the help of the  then Provincial for the Spiritan congregation in 1971 and 1973 respectively.   The reputation of the school was paramount back then and no consideration or assistance  was made for any of the children that had been abused. They were abandoned.  The centre of this matter is the child, the victim, the survivor. The first response cannot be  how much is the insurance, what are the financial damages and what advice do the lawyers  offer. Those consideration were quickly followed by assuaging the anxieties of parents  regarding the welfare and wellbeing of their children now and in future. 

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The first response ought to have been to ‘rescue’ the victims and the second to deliver ‘safe  space provisioning’ to traumatised children, to traumatised survivors.   The response to this existential crisis and scandal has not come from the Holy Spirit, or the  Catholic Church would not have reacted the way it has.  The acknowledgement of the life‐long and intergenerational impact that clerical child sexual  abuse causes has been confirmed in numerous studies and reports. This ought to be reflected  in the multi‐disciplinary response to such comorbid conditions found in survivors. Perhaps  this profound impact does not serve legal liability and its consequences.  Listening to many survivors I would have to say the response services leave a lot to be  desired in treating them at all times with ‘dignity, justice and compassion’.  LEGAL  The legal arena poses enormous dangers to witnesses and plaintiffs and is crying out for  reform. Survivors are processed in a manner by the legal system which clearly inflicts  violations to their dignity in unsympathetic, unethical and immoral practices representing  real and present dangers to their wellbeing and life. It is perverse to seek justice and be a  victim of injustice by the very process involved. Suicide, attempted suicide or self‐harming  are an unacceptable consequence of legal process.  MENTAL HEALTH  Engaging in mental health services also poses certain stresses on survivors who can be  limited in their choice of therapists, restricted by a service cost cap in certain jurisdictions,  and asked to forfeit the level of confidentiality that should exist between a therapist and a  client. As one survivor put it ʺwe will pay for your counselling, will own the reports and  will tell you how much counselling we will pay for based on our assessment of your needsʺ 

HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL CONSEQUENCES OF CLERICAL CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE  Clerical Child Sexual Abuse (CCSA) ruptures one’s life with the self, family, community,  society and the greater human family.  ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES   Recent studies show there is a direct correlation between economic wellbeing and success  where CSA victims live in households with incomes that are found to be 40% lower than  comparable households (Goodman et al 2011). An Irish study found that male victims are  four times more likely to be out of work due to sickness and disability. This research is very  relevant in the legal context where restitution ought to reflect these findings (Barrett et al  2012).   

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HEALTH, LIFE AND SUICIDE RISKS  Sexually abused children suffer from higher rates of serious mental health and social  problems during adulthood, including anxiety disorders, chronic depression, PTSD, sexual  re‐victimisation, and relationship problems including breakup, separation and divorce  which weaken the ‘positive factors’ or increase the ‘risk factors’ attributed to incidents of self‐ harming, parasuicide and completed suicide.   CSA victims have a higher propensity to self‐harming which can and does escalate in some  cases to drug addiction and onto a life of crime and penal service.   Indeed the latest studies show that a propensity to suicide does not diminish in more elderly  survivors who dread the idea of returning to an institution in their later years (Arensman  and O’Riordan 2007).   The evidence is clear, the suffering is life‐long on a number of levels. It is a life that is  reportedly cut short by 20 years on the average life span. It is a life that is characterised as  one in which the victim is four to six times more likely to commit suicide depending on the  research.   RESTITUTION  Provision and restitution is paltry and inadequate. Capping compensation or setting limits  on making restitution to victims fails to deliver justice. In Ireland the residential board set  the limit at €300,000, where the average ‘pay out’ was just €62,500. In the Netherlands the  limit was set at €100,000 and in Australia the cap was set at AUS$50,000. The criteria used in  determining the level of compensation was considered unsatisfactory in Ireland and hugely  distressing to some victims who called the redress board, the re‐abuse board.  JUSTICE  Justice is illusive to the vast majority of survivors with very low conviction rates reported by  the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at just over 1% and by national audits at 6%.  Adult rape convictions in Ireland are just under 1% so I am more than suspect of the  national audit figures of 6% for clerical child sexual abuse convictions. How children should  be more successful in obtaining a conviction for sexual crimes than adults, raises questions  over the data and processing of the data. 

 

SPIRITUAL CONSEQUENCES  To put it in one phrase and most succinctly I would say, ‘The message of salvation is not  served by the response of the Catholic Church to the scandal of Clerical Child Sexual  Abuse’. The appropriate response is simply Matthew 18:12, leave the ninety‐nine and go  find the one that was scattered. 

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This is a scandal about children, their families and their communities who have been  abandoned and betrayed, not by God but by their ministers. Their ministers have tried to  save themselves, their assets and their reputations.  LOSS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE  The  problem  is  that  this  betrayal  and  violation  of  the  vulnerable  child  is  perhaps  not  appreciated  for  what  it  is  and  the  matter  trivialised  and  minimised  in  the  idea  one  can  possess  control  over  this  phenomenon  without  addressing  the  fundamental  spiritual  damage. We are dealing with ‘evil’ is the best way I can put it but that demands far greater  understanding than any critique of societal or church failings.  “A particular effect of abuse by a priest or religious is the harm which may  be done to the person’s religious faith. The shattering of trust by a priest or  religious who abuses may destroy the person’s trust in the Church and  confidence in its ministers. Distrust of priests may result in the experiencing  of significant difficulties in participating in the Eucharist and receiving the  other sacraments. Indeed, the victim may feel unable to continue to be a  member of the Church. Abuse may even damage or destroy belief in God.”  p.12, CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE ‐ Framework for a Church Response  The primary damage from which all other damages flow is the spiritual damage inflicted.  Spiritual life is the internal dialogue with self and the world of experience through the  unique gift of one’s abilities to interpret those experiences. The damage and impact of  clerical child sexual abuse is a theological question as to the identity of those involved – the  victims/survivors are the children of the living God as declared by Catholic teaching from  their Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation as children.   VICTIMS – CHILDREN OF GOD  The Catholic Church talks of ‘children’ abused but does not say ‘children of God’, otherwise  disassociating itself from its own family, from God’s children who had been treated in such  an abominable way. I said the same when I addressed the Generalate in the Spiritan House  in Rome in October 2012, concerning matters of family, God’s family.    The Spiritan leadership, as much as Catholic Church leadership, needed to take cognisance  and  responsibility  in  its  pastoral  role  as  the  declared  shepherds  and  servants  of  the  living  God to the members of His family entrusted to their care.   To those who were scattered by such unspeakable violations and abuse it will take great care  to  attempt  to  win  back  those  so  devastated  by  a  Church  that  is  perceived  as  even  more  monstrous in its response to those brave enough to have come forward. The way was made  far too difficult for those offended by a frightened leadership and sadly some survivors took  their life before any help had arrived.   The message of salvation in Matthew 18:1‐18:14 in the commission of Christ Our Saviour to  the pastors was a warning not to harm His ‘little ones’ and to go find the lost sheep. 

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Insurance and lawyers are not in that call to pastoral ministry. The Catholic Church’s  response was not indicative of love but of fear. Just as the fabric of the human family has  been rent from the epicentre of the life of a violated child so too has the spiritual family been  rent by such a great evil on his ‘little ones’.  Plainly the moral response to such crimes against children was to reach out and rescue those  children already abused wherever they were and at whatever time in order to end their  ordeal. This very action omitted by the church was clearly stated in two apologies issued to  victims and their families by the Irish government.  On 11th May 1999, An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised on behalf of the Irish Government  to its citizens who had been abused in institutions as children. He specifically apologised for  “our collective failure to intervene, to detect your pain, to come to your rescue”.  On 26th May 2009, An Taoiseach Brian Cowen apologised on behalf of the Irish Government  and all our citizens, “I want to sincerely apologise to the victims of childhood abuse for the  failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue”.  I confront all that is hopeless and helpless in caring for survivors who deserve the very  rescue which appears so obvious to all but so absent to survivors.  I campaign for ‘Rescue Services’ and ‘Safe Space Provisioning’ as the only morally  acceptable response to this scandal. Had the Catholic Church responded likewise I have no  doubt it would not be suffering the collateral damage of large numbers abandoning their  church unable to fathom or accept the levels of deceit and denial which has characterised the  Catholic Church’s response.  The moral example of the Catholic Church is in question and people are looking on awaiting  ‘action’ and not just acknowledgement of the shameful response by the ministers of the  living God to the children of the living God, acknowledgement of the cover‐ups and denials,  acknowledgement of coveting of assets and reputation over the very lives of children,  children of the living God.   In Matthew 18:12 is the answer which is ‘Rescue Services’ and ‘Safe Space Provisioning’.   

Your brother in Christ,                 Mark Vincent Healy    Survivor Campaigner seeking ‘Rescue Services’ and ‘Safe Space Provisioning’ for survivors of clerical child sexual abuse 

 

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REFERENCES  

THE HOLY WORD OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL 34:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 34:2 Son of man, prophesy

against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? 34:3 Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. 34:4 The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. 34:5 And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. 34:6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. 34:7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 34:8 As I live, saith the

Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; 34:9 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 34:10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, Iam against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. 34:11 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 34:12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is

among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. 34:13 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 34:14 I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. 34:15 I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD. 34:16 I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

The Lord Jesus promised, ʺYou shall know the truth and the truth shall set you freeʺ (Jn. 8:32). Scripture bids us speak the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15) 

REFERENCES  

THE HOLY WORD OF GOD IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SAINT MATTHEW

18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 18:2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 18:3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 18:5And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and thathe were drowned in the depth of the sea. 18:7 Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! 18:8 Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast themfrom thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. 18:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. 18:11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. 18:12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? 18:13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

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REFERENCES  

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH - 1986 “The Lord Jesus promised, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free" (Jn. 8:32). Scripture bids us speak the truth in love (cf. Eph. 4:15). The God who is at once truth and love calls the Church to minister to every man, woman and child with the pastoral solicitude of our compassionate Lord. It is in this spirit that we have addressed this Letter to the Bishops of the Church, with the hope that it will be of some help as they care for those whose suffering can only be intensified by error and lightened by truth.” (During an audience granted to the undersigned Prefect, His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, approved this Letter, adopted in an ordinary session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and ordered it to be published.) Given at Rome, 1 October 1986. JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER Prefect ALBERTO BOVONE Titular Archbishop of Caesarea in Numidia Secretary

   

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