“QUENCH NOT THE SPIRIT”
(St Paul’s 1st Epistle to the Thessalonians 5:19)
A message to the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church in these troubled times of Sexual Abuse Allegations.
by Brian Mark Hennessy.

 
Truth is an eternal constant. It has no hues, nor tints, nor shades. It cannot fade, nor change, nor disappear, nor dwindle over time. Nor can Truth be weathered by wind and rain, nor dissolved and nor replaced. Truth shines in the darkness. Even a diamond of hardest stone has no light of its own in the darkness of night. A diamond can be cut and multi-faceted only to reflect and steal its glints and hues from the myriad lights of God’s own day. Truth has no malleable form. It is not like iron in a blacksmith’s forge where a muscled arm and hammer and anvil can bend or twist and turn its shape or flatten it, or plump it out or pierce it with an eye.

Truth has an unearthly quality. Truth humbles the great and enriches the poor. It cannot be bought with money nor power, be altered by Popes or Bishops, or Kings or Queens, nor Emperors, nor oligarchs, nor strength of numbers, nor generals with armies bristling with swords. Truth cannot be concealed by robes and britches or gowns and cloaks, nor by cassocks and vestments and fancy dress. Nor can it be hid beneath crowns, nor mitres, nor scarlet tassled Cardinal’s hats, nor Judges wigs . It is without blemish and distortion. Truth cannot be changed by lawyers words and legal arguments, by a comma here, a semi-colon or a full-stop there in documents and legal writs and lengthy briefs. Truth is never daunted or dimmed, nor will ever be overwhelmed with fears, nor bought by gifts or gold.

 
Truth is healing. It is the balm that soothes a wound and assuages pain. It refreshes like the first raindrop to fall on a parched desert. It is the Bearer of peace, the Forgiver of enmities, the Reconciler of adversaries and the Announcer of new beginnings. It is the Hand of friendship and the Bestower of joy and grace to aching hearts and the Comforter of the dying man. Truth is consolation. It wipes away tears, calms anxieties, steadies a racing pulse, relaxes the tensions on a traumatised face. Truth dispels the agonies of a heart and the tortures of a mind. Truth casts out doubts and fears and dries our weeping tears. Truth is Justice. It is a victory, both for those who bore ill and those who were maligned. Truth heals rifts and discords and forgives wrongs, replaces stolen innocence with contrite tears and restores the treasures of the heart that were taken forcibly by trespassers and thieves.

 
Truth is the Light in darkness. It blesses him that speaks it and those who hear it. Truth brings Hope as does the distant shine of a lighthouse in a tumultuous sea. It sparkles in the eye of a blind man. It is the sudden glimpse of dawn in a dark night, a sunbeam escaping from a clouded sky. It is the first day of Spring at the end of a bitter winter or the first spark of a fire in a cold room. It is that lingering glint of sun on a shimmering sea and more constant than a distant star in a spiralling galaxy.

Truth is Godly. It welcomes God into our hearts. Truth is God’s gift to man: for the man who utters Truth shares in a moment of the goodness of His godliness, senses a brief second of God’s infinity and absorbs one smallest jot of His wisdom. When Truth is said a man will grasp it in his hand and never let go. He will store it in his heart, stare at it when it is writ down. His fingers will trace its letters on a page over and over again and others seeing it will point to it in recognition, bow their heads before it and repeat it aloud to teach their babes. God demands that Truth be spoken and not hid.

A CHURCH IN TROUBLED TIMES
By Brian Mark Hennessy
A Survivor of Clerical Sexual Abuse

 
I read in a recent article in CRUX that Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, USA, had said that “not every defeat is a disaster” – and he continued – “Our failure might simply be the work of the Holy Spirit teaching us that we must go in a different direction.” The Cardinal also said that sometimes God wants for those who follow him to “go through a different door,” and that the need for pastoral conversion sometimes stops the faithful from going through that door.

 
With a characteristic level of obscurity for a Hierarch, Cardinal Tobin was talking about the plight of the Catholic Church following the revelations of catastrophic numbers of incidents of clerical sexual abuse within the Church – and the extraordinary lengths to which the Church has covered up the evil of clerics in their midst and protected them from justice. Most seriously, he was pondering upon how it was that the Church had ignored the very victims of those heinous clerical crimes. He was searching for a new direction, but did not seem very clear where to find the door, that when opened, would reveal the signposts to the land of the solutions and revelations he sought.

 
My personal simple rule of thumb is simply to go back to the Scriptures – to a world not bowed down by the weight of theological essays derived from obscure texts on the meaning of every word of the pronouncements of the Councils of the Church or the ‘Confessions’ of the Saints. The stories of both the Old Testament and the Gospels are where solutions can be found – and the lessons therein are both simple to comprehend and enlightening. Fundamentally, the difference between that ancient Church and the many-tiered hierarchical structure of Catholicism today is that the Early Church was a ‘family’ of friends who would gather together around a table and they would reach solutions to local difficulties by discussing the lessons that could be drawn from the written heritage that had been bequeathed to them.

 
If my memory serves me right, the first person to coin the phrase “Catholic Church” at the end of the first Century was Bishop Ignatius of Antioch. That was at a time when Christians met together in their homes, not churches, and the format of the occasion was generally informal, but had its base on the Synagogue with readings and anthems. The clergy were not then set apart from the faithful, but they were one family, often around a shared table, where each could express their thoughts, inspiration and spiritual enlightenment. It was a time of innovation, exciting change – and the spiritual creation of “Christianity”. They would debate and recount experiences and each had a voice as an equal participant. It was a joyous gathering and they all owned it – including the infirm, the widows, the poor and slaves and freemen. The Gospels had not long been written down by then. Paul’s letters had only just been formed into a book. The New Testament was just beginning to take shape. The Divine Office was in its infancy.

 
This Church in embryo was so popular that it grew and grew – to such a size that Emperors suddenly decided that it could be a threat. The dark days came and Roman Emperors persecuted the Christians. Constantine I changed all that – and the Church was set free again. Yet, even by that time, the Church had managed for centuries to go without any formal Canons to guide it and the dogma was not permanently set in stone until the time of the Council of Nicea in 325. That was a momentous event. The Emperor Constantine pushed for it as much as did the Bishops because he wanted strife within his Empire to cease. Nicea formalised, amongst other things, who were Catholics and who were not – and some former esteemed Fathers of the Church suddenly found themselves outcast and labeled as heretics. The Catholic Church, guided increasingly by dogma – rather than the Lessons bequeathed to them in the Books of the Bible – then persecuted the heretics for a good 1000 years or so. By the time of the dawn of the 20th Century, the Catholic Church had, through the dint of its many Councils, accumulated some 10,000 Canons and countless library archives full of dogma. To be fair, they have greatly reduced the number of Canons. They had to – as so many of them contradicted each other.

 
So what is this Catholic Church in the 21st Century? Certainly it is nothing like the early Church. For a start, the laity are regarded as having no right of input, nor any genuine intellectual or spiritual enlightenment at all. They have to wait to be asked – and then, it seems, their opinions are just consigned to a filing cabinet in the Vatican. Whoever asks a widow or the road sweeper or the garbage man what they think? If they did ask, would anybody take any notice or give their opinions one jot of credence? Dogma remains dictated by princes of the Church – men like Cardinal Burke – a figure somewhat out of context in the world of today and better suited perhaps to the role of an Inquisitor. He is about as far removed from the Early Church as he is from the 21st Century. In fact, he has an aura of Medievalism about him. Then there is a clergy set apart – but not a clergy that is allowed to think and respond by itself, but a clergy whose minds are enslaved – a clergy that is allowed only to speak the talk and do the walk of the Institution.

 
It is of little surprise, therefore, that the group, known as the “Mirfield 12” who are alleged Victims of sexual abuse by clerics of the Church have been totally ignored by the Comboni Missionary Order, some of whose priests allegedly abused them.

It is of no surprise whatsoever that not one of the one hundred or so Bishops and Religious Leaders of the Catholic Church in these British Isles responded to a document forwarded to them. It is a document that contained allegations of some 1000 crimes of sexual abuse against UK child seminarians and the details of a hierarchical process of re-victimisation that amounts to discrimination – a crime against humanity.

It is of no surprise because those Hierarchs do not know what to say or do – because they live in the dark room of an establishment where nobody has yet told them what to say or do. Yet if anyone in the Hierarchy thought to ask any layman – they would have a view on the matter.

 
The Early Church was not like this sad state of affairs. It was free and innovative as it rejoiced in the Gospels and the Scriptures of the Old Testament. Those books contained lessons that talked not of prelates in palaces, not Religious Orders on great estates, nor of a Vatican Bank of enormous accumulated wealth and property assets – and not either of Dogma and Canons. The traditional Religious texts were the Writings of the meek and the poor, of the sick and the vulnerable and of spiritual enlightenment and redemption. Those inspirational writings were the gift of everyone, of both princes and paupers, of both the old and the young, of each and everyone in equality as they embraced one another in the Christian message of joy and peace.

 
In contrast to Cardinal Dolan, who appears unaware how to respond to injustices heaped on the victims of sexual abuse by clerics in the Catholic Church, Father Hans Zollner SJ, (a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since its creation in 2014 and the president of the Centre for Child Protection at the Vatican’s Gregorian University) received a text of a reflection by Fr. Gerry Hefferan that related to a story from Susannah & Daniel in Chapter 13 of the Old Testament Book of Daniel. The story is well known. Susannah was falsely accused by two old lusting men who were Judges of a crime that warranted death. When they condemned the innocent Susannah, David rose up and protested and was invited to examine the two Judges separately. He proved their stories to be false – and Susannah, the Victim, was saved. Daniel demonstrated that the misuse of authority by the two Judges had the intention of evil in covering up their own crime and laying the blame on the innocent. Thus they were complicit in an act of evil and were guilty of corruption. Susannah had maintained her personal authority even whilst being condemned.

 
The story distinguishes clearly the contrast between God’s continual love for individuals who are innocent and the church’s damage to people’s lives. The Hierarchy need to have a deeper awareness about the damage that sexual abuse can cause to a person’s spirituality through self-doubt and isolation and shattered trust. That spirituality, that brings healing to self-doubt and isolation and inner suffering, also needs to restore personal authority and identity. Daniel is presented in the Book of Daniel as someone who listens to God. That is the lesson for Cardinal Dolan today. He must abandon the convoluted complexity and contradictions of man-made Canons that emanate from Church Councils and open the door to the rich lessons of Scripture and look in there to discover the road that he seeks. He will find simple stories of simple souls who have an inspired gut-feeling for right and wrong and how to redress any evil in their midst.

THE CHILDREN OF GOD ARE WALKING AWAY FROM THE CHURCH
By Brian Mark Hennessy – A Victim of Clerical Sexual Abuse
I was born a Catholic. Christ was not born a Catholic. It is about time clerics of the Catholic Church realised that Christ died not for the Redemption of Catholics alone – but for all men. Christians do not need the Churches to earn Redemption, for, in accordance with their own teaching, Christ has already earned their Redemption by his suffering and death.

 
It is the Churches, the human institutions who “claim” to represent Christ’s Gospel on earth that need Christians, not because they offer anything that will contribute to their Redemption, but because they, with a self-perception of high status in society, need their church-going congregations’ money to live a standard of life that, in many cases, is well above that of the average person in our secular communities.

 
Thus while Churches fail to deliver the messages of the Gospels by their example – rather than by their hollow words – men and women will walk away from them. They will both seek and individually live the spirit of their Redemption elsewhere, in direct good works and help for the poor, destitute, old and sick. They will continue to assist those in need of comfort in the countless corners of this world which suffer from war, strife and natural disasters. In a humbler way they will care for their families and teach them the moral standards consistent with living in our diverse societies.

 
In this day and age, Christians of all creeds are less and less prepared to have their contributions to the needy of the world “creamed off” to allow clerics to live a life of relative luxury, false esteem and rotten corruption, which are the only words to define child abuse and the protection of paedophiles. So the children of God are already walking away from Church doors and they will continue to walk. They know that men who live in palaces are not pricked by the suffering at their doors and that they live a life that is in denial of the humble life of the Gospels that they preach.

 
So, when Popes vacate the Vatican (Francis, bless him, got that one right when he moved into Santa Marta) and Bishops vacate their palaces, the people of God will start to listen again. When the profane and excessive material wealth of those Church Palaces is sold or consigned to museums and galleries and all the proceeds are given to the poor and needy, the people of God will start to listen again.

 
When all clerics of all ranks get out into the communities which they serve and live in modest housing, in the shanty towns and in the slums of this world – and live with the same hardships, toil and worries and eat the same food as the long-suffering, under-privileged and impoverished people of this planet, then the people of God will start to listen again.

 
Yet, even if the clerics of this world do all those things, the people of God will still keep walking away if the Catholic Church, together with its Bishops and Religious Orders, continue to sordidly harbour and foster the criminal paedophile clerics amongst them and malevolently neglect the crimes committed against Victims by those same paedophiles.

 
Some Religious Institutions, like the Comboni Missionary Order, against whom 1000 crimes of sexual abuse against UK child seminarians have been alleged, have no conception of the defilement of the innocence that was suffered by those Victims when they were children – who were deserving only of cherishment and care. Nor do they have the vaguest idea of their needs, and nor do they care one jot of their suffering. They have refused dialogue with the Victims for two decades – yet daily they continue to recite the Holy Office of the Hours of the day.

 
In secular societies a “liquidator” is appointed to wind up the affairs of financially bankrupt institutions. The Vatican must do the same for “morally bankrupt” Church Institutions and they have the very organisation to do it, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, until 1908 still called the “The Papal States Inquisition”. Pope Francis, through the Prefects of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Religious Institutions retains the power and authority to appoint an “Inquisitor”, for want of a better name, to take control of Orders, investigate them and appoint “clerical trustees” to administer them whilst a new enlightened hierarchy is put in place to run them in the future.
Alternatively, he could, ‘in extremis’ dissolve Orders totally and put them in the hands of another Religious Order which has demonstrated faithful attention to the Gospel Word and has exhibited the moral courage and the rectitude that the people of God both expect and demand.

 
The World still waits for definitive and decisive action in the matter of child abuse and will hold Church leaders to account for any obfuscation, neglect and inaction for generations to come.

When the Gospel spirit is visibly witnessed by clerics amongst us, instead of being preached from high pulpits by morally bankrupt clerics who ignore it, then we, the people of Christ, the Redeemed children of the God of all peoples, will start to listen again.

 
Until then, we will say our own prayers in high mountains and green, shaded forests, by the running river waters and by the foaming waves and the sea breezes of the deep oceans – and under the starry galaxies of God’s own great and wondrous Cathedral of Creation – and our prayers will be honest and simple:
“Oh Lord, forgive me three sins that are due to my human limitations.

 
Thou art everywhere, but I worship Thee here.

 
Thou art without form, but I worship Thee in these forms.

 
Thou need’st no praise, yet I offer Thee these prayers and salutations.

 
Lord forgive me three sins that are due to my human limitations”.

(Prayer written by M M Kaye: “The Far Pavilions”)

Victims and survivors are not the enemy of the church. We want to move on. And, for many, that will only happen when we are truly listened to by the Church that abused us. All most victims want is their life back.

Mark Stephen Murray

Hans Zollner SJ: Church Needs Readiness for Self-criticism
The child protection expert Hans Zollner demands of the church on the topic of abuse “an inner attitude of readiness for constant self-criticism”. The Church needs it as well as the consequent “readiness to turn back to their own ideals,” said Zollner. He added: “Church institutions of all kinds need clear guidelines and clear definitions of responsibilities, violations of standards and related penalties, transparency in legal and administrative procedures, and ongoing training on intervention and prevention to foster a culture of mindfulness. ” Zollner is a Jesuit priest and was born in Regensburg. He manages the Child Protection Center at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is a member of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission.

 
Zollner also said in relation to abuses: “The inability and unwillingness to comply with the laws of the state and the church was fueled by fear of confrontation and hard decisions as well as misunderstood – and for all very harmful – over-identification with the institution.”

 
Attention to the victims of abuse and their commitment to prevention are a major task of the Church. “It must be normal and natural to think of all activities – in parish, school, leisure time – that children and adolescents should be safe,” said Zollner. “This is not an ‘add-on’, that is the DNA of the Church, which embodies the core of the Church’s message, and to do so requires a wholehearted willingness to address issues openly and address them with vigor and decisiveness.” (CBA)

Hans Zollner in a Question & Answer Session
The Jesuit Hans Zollner, 50, is head of the Child Protection Center at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and is one of the most renowned sexual abuse prevention professionals. In an interview, the member of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission talks about a change of mentality among bishops and about the future of the commission.
Question: Pope Francis issued a new law in June . According to this, those bishops who are not sufficiently prosecuted for sexual abuse in their diocese can now also be prosecuted. Is this sufficient from the point of view of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission?

 
Hans Zollner : In the end, this so-called Motu Proprio is what the Commission wanted. The new legal basis goes beyond our proposal in one point. So it affects not only the local bishops , but also the higher religious superiors – these had not been explicitly mentioned. It is crucial that bishops, provincials and superiors may now also be held responsible under church law for neglecting their official duties and disregarding their due diligence. Behind this is the view that superiors in the legal sense have a share of responsibility for the actions of their subordinates. In the Anglo-Saxon area, this has long been required.
Following a decree by Pope Francis in June, those bishops who are not sufficiently concerned about sexual abuse in their diocese can now also be prosecuted.

 
Question: Do not you fear that such “soft criteria” could open the door to defamation of unwelcome bishops?

 
Zollner : This fear is not unjustified. However, it is not yet clear how often such cases occur. Allegations can also hit the wrong person. As with any charge, the accused has the opportunity to defend himself legally. It is clear that the name of the person in question suffers irreparable damage in public. But that cannot be avoided even in these cases.

 
Question: What can one imagine under a neglect of official duties? How are the new regulations applied?

 
Zollner : The decree officially came into force at the beginning of September. Concrete implementing regulations are missing so far. Therefore, some things are still unclear. But one thing can already be said: The message has arrived at the bishops. Suspected cases are now reported more quickly. Apparently, the bishops have become more active through this measure.

 
Question: Who determines the implementation of regulations?

 
Zollner : Pope Francis has four authorities, which are responsible for bishops and higher orders in the Vatican. Apart from the Congregationof Bishops , these are the Eastern and Conventual Congregations and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. He asked them to develop appropriate criteria for their area. Compared to a detailed instruction from above, this has the advantage that the employees are involved and have to make their own thoughts on the topic and the procedure. The unity is to ensure a separate advisory commission of the Pope. Their composition is, however, not yet determined.

 
Question: In 2014, the papal child protection commission was initially put to trial for three years by Francis. This trial period ended in December 2017. What’s next?

 
Zollner : The topic of sexual abuse will continue to accompany the Catholic Church in the coming years and decades. Therefore, there will certainly continue to be an institution that deals with it at world level. However, it is currently still open regarding in which form this will happen.

 
Question: You are also head of the Child Protection Center at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Is its future secured?

 
Zollner : The child protection center relies on donations from church institutions and private individuals, because our training courses on abuse prevention focus primarily on those countries in the southern hemisphere in which we cannot demand any money. For years, our biggest donor has been the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. Added to this are the children’s missionary work ” Die Sternsinger ” and other donors. Currently, our annual budget is around 500,000 euros. In the future, we will need between € 300,000 and € 400,000 to adequately meet the fast growing demand worldwide.

Interview with Fr Hans Zollner: Confronting the reality of abuse

By Catherine Sheehan – September 5, 2018

Father Hans Zollner SJ, President of the Centre for Child Protection at the Gregorian University in Rome and a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, is the Vatican’s foremost expert on safeguarding minors. In Australia last week, he spoke to Catholic Weekly journalist, Catherine Sheehan, about what the Church has learned through the sex abuse crisis.

Fr Zollner, how extensive is child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church? For example, can you say what percentage of clergy or religious have abused?

There are very few reliable statistics and research being done. Only from a few countries. One is Australia, another one is the US, and maybe five other countries. The extent is more or less consistently of about three, to five, to six per cent of priests in a specific period of time, which relates mostly to what we know, where the research has taken place, from around 1950 to 2010. Whereas over the past 10 to 20 years, depending on the country, the numbers have dropped almost to nil. Of allegations referring to these last 10 to 20 years … where a church has decided to introduce Safeguarding measures, and codes of conduct, and guidelines to implement them … they work. And where information on Safeguarding are obligatory and supervision on that is mandatory, it works.

So the Church began implementing these measures ten years ago?

It was in 2002 in the US they introduced the so-called Dallas Charter, guidelines and mandatory information sessions every year. In Australia, as has been shown by the Royal Commission … in almost all dioceses the number of allegations referring to the current years, not 50 years ago or 30 years ago, is almost nil.

The impression is often given through the media that child sexual abuse is rife in the Catholic Church. Is it possible to say that it is more likely to take place in the Church as opposed to the wider society?

We cannot say it is more likely and people who say so can’t present statistics. For the simple fact that … There is no other institution, there is no other Christian denomination or religion, that has been investigated as thoroughly as the Catholic Church. So there is no real comparison to that. And even within professional groups, there is not research that would cover, for example, school teachers in public schools … psychologists, doctors, police, music or sports trainers. So we don’t have a reliable number for comparing the number of Catholic priests, especially if you talk about the whole population of one particular profession. We have also to acknowledge that by far most sexual abuse and of course physical abuse of minors happens in the family context. I … heard somebody who was involved in the Royal Commission’s proceedings [say] that they believe that 95 per cent of all abuse in Australia happens within the family context. Which means five per cent of all abuse happens in all institutions altogether, of which the Catholic Church is a part. Now this does not excuse the Catholic Church. Every single abuse that takes place is one too many. Every single abuse that is committed by Catholic clergy and other personnel in the Church is a horrendous crime and needs to be prosecuted and punished full stop.

So the amount of abuse perpetrated by clergy, religious or other Church personnel would be less than 5 per cent of the total amount of child sexual abuse in society?

No, 95 per cent [occurs] in [the] family context, in society at large. Five per cent in all institutions of which the Catholic Church is one part of. So all the public schools, all the psychologists would be in the 5 per cent.

Yes, so it would be less the 5 per cent?

Much less than 5 per cent.

Father, in your opinion, is the Catholic Church doing enough to address the problem of child sexual abuse?

We can’t ever do enough. But the Catholic Church in Australia has done a lot and is certainly among the top five in the world. If you come to the local churches, or bishop’s conferences in this country, you have all kinds of resources allocated money, personnel trained. You have officers established, you have information sessions running, you have conferences like this [one in the Diocese of Wollongong]. You have a response to the Royal Commission’s recommendations that accepts 98 per cent of all recommendations without any discussion and you have an atmosphere of willingness to really act upon what the Church asks … and what society asks it to do.

Speaking from your background as a psychologist, what do victims of child sexual abuse most need for their healing?

Most victims with whom I have met, to whom I have listened, say that the one thing that sticks out and that all they long for is being listened to, which is something that is easily said and not so easily done because it means that the listener, whoever that is, needs to be open, not only in his or her mind, but also in his or her heart and really empathise and understand the depth of the suffering of the person who shares that. Many survivors say they would like somebody in a Church hierarchical position to listen to them. Normally if the abuse has happened in a diocese they would ask the bishop, or for a religious congregation, the Provincial. Some don’t want to meet with any clergy anymore so it would need to be somebody else. But all concur in this, that the most important single element in a possible healing process, is being really listened to … all say this is the possible starting point.

Is it possible for someone who has suffered childhood sexual abuse to find healing?

I have seen victims who have come a long journey and who would say that they have been healed and have been reconciled which is another step. But this is not possible without the help of other human beings, mostly those who accompany, family and friends, in counseling and psychotherapy. Sometimes a good number of clergy sexual abuse [victims] say they have been helped in the spiritual journey of healing by priests or religious. What may surprise then but again they have found people who declare to being helped by clergy. This is not a journey that is possible for all but I have come across people who have said that they have been healed. And I can believe that.

What does sexual abuse do to a person?

Most of all it destroys the very basis of trust and that is the most important consequence of abuse. It destroys trust in oneself, in others, and in God. If the abuser is a priest or a religious or a person within the Church, that is the identification of anybody in that position. Then there are many questions that come around psychological disturbance, feelings of guilt. There is very often some conflicting emotions and attitudes towards sexuality and the question is, quite often, how can one put together one’s own identity, in terms of what am I worth and can I venture into a life that has been very often, very much harmed by such kind of abuse early on?

Why do you think these cases of sexual abuse in the Church are coming to light now, at this point in time? Do you think there have always been these crimes taking place in the Church but it’s only now that we are discovering them and the gravity of them?

We have not only now discovered it, it has been here in Australia in various waves, a topic within the Church. I’ve met a priest who had to deal with the first case in his career as somebody employed by the diocesan offices in 1977. But since then, that is 40 years now, in society and in the Church, much has changed and in my country we have started to speak about sexual abuse of minors in a public way, to a large extent only eight and a half years ago. There comes a point when people really start to talk about this because there is an openness to it [and because] certain taboos are gone …

What would you say are the main causes of child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and religious?

This is a question that you would have to answer with regard to all individual perpetrators. [There are] common factors … that people express by abusing minors especially a power differential. [For example,] me as a priest, I take what I wish, I take what I want and I am not accountable for what I do. I seek to express my superiority, which shows that psychologically speaking many of those who have abused feel themselves really weak interiorly. They may not appear to be weak but they feel … they cannot cope with an adult peer to peer relationship, they may not be able to face the opposite sex. So there may be all kinds of dynamics going on including unresolved issues about sexual identity and so forth.

Is there an element of perpetrators having been victims themselves in the past of childhood sexual abuse?

Now there is debate in science and conflicting figures about that. I personally think that there is a risk factor when one has been abused and literature speaks to that but it is not as high as people think. Not every body who has been abused becomes automatically an abuser. This has been proven to be wrong.

Do you see any evidence in the Church that people who abuse have themselves been abused?

There is no difference between people in the Church or outside the Church, no. As I say, there is a certain risk factor but the risk factor does not mean that necessarily somebody acts on that.

Do you see a diabolical element to all of this sexual abuse in the Church?

Certainly there are horrendous stories and you can’t believe that a priest would do something [like] what you hear and what has happened to really, that a priest would be capable of doing something like that. So there is an element of evil that goes way beyond human understanding and certainly there is something that has also a component of some evil presence in human beings that is not comprehensible.

Independent research from the US has shown that 81 per cent of victims of clergy sexual abuse are boys who are at the age of puberty or beyond. So would you say there is a homosexual element to the sex abuse crisis in the Church?

There is within the Church, the numbers are as they are, and they seem pretty much confirming what is actually going on, and what has been going on. I would say that the homosexuality first of all does not lead automatically to abusive behavior, that is clear. And I would add, from my experience and from what I’ve read, that not all people who have abused, not all priests, men, who have abused boys would identify themselves as homosexual. So they act out sexually but they would also have heterosexual tendencies, or they would not identify as clearly and uniquely homosexually oriented.

So there is much talk about this nowadays. Some would say that we have a certain proportion of homosexuals among clergy, that is clear now and we don’t need to deny that. And since they were not allowed to process that because [they] thought or they were told that they couldn’t speak out on that, this homosexuality was lingering on and then became manifest, not in same-sex relationships with peers, but rather with adolescent boys.

Is it therefore the Church’s policy to screen seminarians for homosexual tendencies?

Within the admission process of a seminary there is a psychological screening, at least I think that is in place all over this country and elsewhere. The point is not heterosexuality or homosexuality for such a screening, basically because the psychologist would rather not look into that but it is a question of how integrated the sexuality is, how healthy it is lived out or how immature the whole area of emotion, of relationships, of power, is lived out. Because sexuality is not a thing that is disconnected to the rest of the personality. To the contrary, it is very much present.

So even though such a high percentage of clergy sexual abuse has been against boys, that’s not reason enough to prevent someone with homosexual tendencies from entering the priesthood?

No, the Church has guidelines for that and it says that people who have deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be admitted to the seminary or to ordination. The question is what does “deep-rooted tendency” mean? That is not defined, certainly not by science. So there is a moment of discretion and you have to acknowledge that people who are homosexuals, or who define themselves as homosexual, are in priesthood. There is no need to deny that because it’s clear out there. The more important question is how do they live that? I think that a homosexual priest faces more challenges than a heterosexual, if only for the fact that he has to stand in for a doctrine that says homosexuality is not normal.

Would part of the problem be that boys are more accessible?

Yes of course, we see that, as I said, the period that was investigated in all these reports was around 1945, 1950 to 2010, or Royal Commission 2018, and until 20, 25 years ago, priests would also teach in boy’s schools, would have only altar boys and so forth.

One issue that came up here during the Royal Commission was mandatory celibacy. What’s your response to those who think mandatory celibacy is a contributing factor in the sex abuse crisis and should be abolished?

There is no causal effect between celibacy and child sexual abuse and the Royal Commission itself has stated so, that celibacy does not lead to abusive behavior in a mono-causal sense. It may become a risk factor when celibacy is not lived out well enough over years, then it may lead people to becoming abusers of alcohol, abusers of internet pornography, abusers of adults or abusers of minors. The point is that mandatory celibacy is not a dogma, it can be changed.

The point is that 99.9 per cent of all abusers do not live a celibate life. So the question is first of all, how do you deal with that fact? And secondly, 95 per cent of all priests are not abusers so celibacy obviously does not lead to abusive behavior as such, only over time and the time is quite long, meaning priests abuse for the first time, this is a scientifically established fact, at the age of 39. Which is much older than a trainer, a teacher, or a psychologist when they abuse for the first time which would be at the age of 25. So celibacy becomes a problem if it is not lived out, not integrated into a healthy lifestyle.

The Church here in Australia has come under fire from the media for rejecting the Royal Commission’s recommendation that it break the Seal of Confession for cases of child sexual abuse. It has been said that if the Church really wants to be transparent it needs to stop all the secrecy including the Seal of Confession. What’s your response to that?

They don’t listen to what has been said over and over again. How do I know who is confessing to me? I don’t know their name, that’s part of confession. So either you do away with all confession, and you have no confession anymore, or you have what confession presupposes, somebody comes there who I don’t know. So how would I know the name and be able to report that person? And if you take away that element of Confession, that I don’t know who is the person confessing to me, then the person will certainly not come to confess. And it is greatly exaggerated the number of people who would come to Confession. People think that every person, every Catholic goes to Confession every week. Far from that, who goes to Confession nowadays? I’ve heard many people, priests, say, and I can confirm that, in decades of being a priest, I’ve never ever heard one single confession of any perpetrator.

What about the role of clericalism in child sexual abuse and its cover up in the Church?

There is certainly a problem with clericalism, if you define clericalism as the way people define themselves and live more from the role and position they have rather than from their personality and their personal competence. I was very much surprised and very much enlightened by comments from lay people with whom I met over the last few days here, that they said clericalism is not only for clergy. Lay people also show clericalist attitudes and that is also a problem. When they cling to prestige and they measure their importance in the number of secretaries they have, the type of car they drive etc.

Another criticism of the Church in relation to the sex abuse crisis is that there are not many women in leadership roles. Do you think that would make a significant difference in regards to child sexual abuse?

I would say that women certainly can be, and have been, more included in leadership positions. The Pope himself has done do over the last years for very important positions in the Holy See. That will continue. I was also very much surprised to hear here during the conference, a woman speak up who said she had worked very much for gender equality but she would warn that by simply substituting men [with] women or by women, you solve the problem of power issues. That is not the case.

Father, you’ve said in other interviews that this sex abuse crisis is not a matter of Liberal vs Conservative Catholics. What did you mean by that?

In the US we have now a very strong debate, a great and ferocious discussion between Liberals and Conservatives that has been going on for a long time. But after the Vigano letter that has come up again over and over, it is an issue that concerns the whole Church. Apart from Church political parties, because we have abuses on either sides, and we have people who on either side for betterment, so it could be a bridge in the favour of creating a safer Church for children.

If the allegations against former Cardinal McCarrick are true, then would you say there must have been many in the hierarchy who knew and covered it up by not doing anything?

We need to know how many people knew really about the allegations. I guess it will be very few because clear allegations have been forwarded only to very few people. If you hear gossip, if you hear some hear-say, you are not necessarily in the full picture and that diminishes your responsibility for that. So I don’t think there will be many clearly indicted. There will be very few people who would have known precisely what were the allegations.

Do you give any credence to Archbishop Vigano’s testimony? Do you think it is worth investigating?

Yes it is worth investigating. I have seen many over the last days, many, many questions surfacing, putting his [Vigano’s] credibility to the test. In many respects the timing of the publication of the letter leaves open the question of what political interests brought it to be published precisely at that moment when the Pope was in Ireland wrapping up his visit there. So there are many open questions.

Did you think the Pope’s response to journalists that he wouldn’t say a word about it but that they should investigate was adequate given how much the faithful are hurting and confused because of the sex abuse crisis?

I think he tried to say, he said literally ‘for the moment I don’t want to speak to that. You journalists do your work, then I will come back to that.’ He invited [them] precisely to do what many ask journalists to do, and not trying to convince them [by saying] ‘I haven’t done any wrong and so forth’. I think in that sense, he has invited all of us to be alert and not simply believe what we read … Go and verify things. I have seen now there are a lots of articles that have taken the allegations of Archbishop Vigano to the test and there are many factual errors, many omissions in the letter, there are many other open questions with regard to that and I hope, as all of us, that the Pope or the Holy See will reply.

What is the key to preventing this sex abuse crisis from happening again?

The key is that people become aware of abuse is happening, that they speak out and that they are informed to whom they can report. And then that the due process is being followed through. I would like to warn against the [impression] that it will be over once and for all. This would be from my point of view a dangerous illusion because evil will be with us and we will not be able to exclude abuse from happening simply because we introduce new guidelines. This is a necessary and very important step but not a sufficient one in the sense that we will never be able to exclude somebody abusing another person.

That’s why we will need to continue education and dissemination of information about reporting etc. and that is the work of the Centre for Child Protection of the Gregorian University of which I am the President. We have online training programs, we have residential programs for future safeguarding officers and this is the way we believe the change can come about.

ENDS

A RESPONSE TO AN EDITORIAL BY REV MATTHEW F MALONE SJ, PRESIDENT & EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE JESUIT PUBLICATION ’AMERICA MEDIA’.

Dear Editor

US Catholics should not think that CSA abuses on the scale unearthed in America are unusual. In many respects you are blessed with the scale of abuse being out in the open. It means that you can now start to deal with it. In many countries it remains hidden – which means that children remain at great risk. In the UK in just one junior seminary run by the Italian Comboni Missionary Order allegations of 1000 sexual abuses against UK child seminarians by clerics of that Order were documented and handed in by Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, (after much badgering) to CDF by hand almost three years ago. There has not yet been a response from CDF. The recent Australian Inquiry and the Irish Tusla Inquiry also reveealed large scale abuses – and the effects of these are still ricocheting throughout those countries.

Again in UK, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has revealed large scale child abuse in schools run by the Benedictines – and a Scottish Inquiry is about to investigate the abuse at the Benedictine School of Fort Augustus. Thousands of Catholic orphanages throughout the world have not yet been routinely investigated and in countries like Italy and the Philippines little attempt has been made to understand the scale of child sexual abuse – but inevitably, in due course, it will be fully revealed.

Much has been reported in recent months about abuse by National and International Aid Agency workers in the developing world. There is serious cause for concern that Catholic Missionaries have also been committing CSA abuses in their Missions. Little has yet been revealed about that, but it is known that the Comboni Missionary Order in the past (if not now) routinely sent clerics accused of CSA crimes in the UK to African Missions. One was sent to a Mission where he established a school and another was placed in charge of the Ugandan Boy Scout Movement. (A third was sent to Italy to a parish).

Now that the USA ‘s scale of abuse is, at least, partially revealed you can start the process of reform. The key will be a compulsion by Hierarchs to take positive action to investigate, report and dismiss abusive clerics in short order.

The Vatican must gear itself up to establish clear procedures and it must review the actions of local church hierarchs to ensure compliance with the Canons and rules. The responsible Curia Congregations must also ensure the standardisation of administrative & judicial procedures and worldwide responses for both diocesan and Religious clergy. Inspections of failing Diocesan and Religious Orders and Institutes by a central Curia body would also assist in establishing conformity.

Of course, it is not only children who have been abused. A report was undertaken in Africa some years ago of the clerical abuse of nuns. Despite opposition by African Bishops the report was handed in to the Vatican – who took no action. The issue has again been raised in recent months.

Additionally, the plight of the offspring of male clerics who engaged in both consensual and non-consensual sexual relations with women has also been raised and that, at least, has received some attention and attempts at a solution – but it must be monitored and followed up to ensure compliance and uniformity of action.

All these events have been common, but hidden, throughout history and they must be fully confronted now. It is curious that it is within the English speaking countries of the world that most of the abuse has been or is now being investigated: the USA, Australia, England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland – and shortly New Zealand. Our common language and cultural heritage can be a factor in both dissemination of information and the creation of the norms of clerical behaviour and administrative processes that are urgently needed now and into the future.

The experience garnered by Hans Zollner SJ, Vice Rector of the Institute of Psychology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome since 2010 and a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since its creation in 2014 would be crucial to the success of such a process. The opportunity to learn from each other and to standardise processes and methodologies must not be lost. It cannot be stated emphatically enough that the future of the Catholic Church depends on concerted international, dynamic and thorough action now.
Most importantly, the children of the world depend on us now for their safety and an un-blighted future.

Sincerely yours,
Brian Mark Hennessy

A Survivor of abuse by clerics of the Italian Comboni Missionary Order – who have yet to apologise and commit to dialogue with Victim Survivors of abuse by their clerics.

Email: salween4633@yahoo.com
Twitter: @ArakapasHash @comboni_abuse
Location: Dorchester, Dorset, England.