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| A Modest Proposal |
woensdag, juli 30, 2014
ananas en de krullen van de trap van de farao
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woensdag, juli 23, 2014
maandag, juli 21, 2014
Biecht geheim
-------- Origineel bericht --------
Geachte Mevrouw S**
Inderdaad miste ik vandaag rond die tijd, ondanks mijn snoekduik, helaas een telefoontje.
Dank U wel.
Ik hoop U deze week terug te kunnen bellen
Wat mij betreft liefst morgen, daar ik woensdag een afspraak heb ivm de Samson Cie. procedure en ik bovendien van Mevr. M** -ondanks haar toezegging mijn hulpvraag aan haar in de betreffende Cie. van het Meldpunt te zullen bespreken - nog niets heb teruggehoord, waardoor het, naast alle druk op en sluitingstermijnen allemaal wel knap ingewikkeld en langdurig wordt om simpelweg informatie te krijgen.
Bijzonder vervelend dus dat ik ondanks mijn al geruime tijd wachten zojuist uitgerekend uw telefoontje miste, er zijn tenslotte zeker gezien de actualiteit, nog meer zaken in het leven....en ook de aanvang van de Cie. Samson
veroorzaakt mij de nodige -weinig welkome - stress.
Hopelijk lukt het van de week...
Met groet
*
| Onderwerp: | Re: 2010-1494 terugbelverzoek |
|---|---|
| Datum: | Mon, 21 Jul 2014 15:15:48 +0200 |
| Van: | Crispina <....> |
| Aan: | L** |
Geachte Mevrouw S**
Inderdaad miste ik vandaag rond die tijd, ondanks mijn snoekduik, helaas een telefoontje.
Dank U wel.
Ik hoop U deze week terug te kunnen bellen
Wat mij betreft liefst morgen, daar ik woensdag een afspraak heb ivm de Samson Cie. procedure en ik bovendien van Mevr. M** -ondanks haar toezegging mijn hulpvraag aan haar in de betreffende Cie. van het Meldpunt te zullen bespreken - nog niets heb teruggehoord, waardoor het, naast alle druk op en sluitingstermijnen allemaal wel knap ingewikkeld en langdurig wordt om simpelweg informatie te krijgen.
Bijzonder vervelend dus dat ik ondanks mijn al geruime tijd wachten zojuist uitgerekend uw telefoontje miste, er zijn tenslotte zeker gezien de actualiteit, nog meer zaken in het leven....en ook de aanvang van de Cie. Samson
veroorzaakt mij de nodige -weinig welkome - stress.
Hopelijk lukt het van de week...
Met groet
*
op 21-07-14 12:27, L** schreef:
Geachte mevrouw *Op verzoek van mijn college, mevrouw M** , heb ik vandaag geprobeerd u te bellen naar aanleiding van uw vragen over de Klachtenprocedure.Helaas werd er niet opgenomen.Mag ik u verzoeken mij terug te bellen? Ik ben op maandag, dinsdag, donderdag en vrijdag doorgaans bereikbaar tot 15:00 uur.Met vriendelijke groet,L**..Klachtencommissie voor seksueel misbruik RKKPostbus 132773507 LG UTRECHT030-2306900Aanwezig op maandag, dinsdag, donderdag en vrijdag
De informatie verzonden met dit e-mail bericht is uitsluitend bestemd voor de geadresseerde(n). Gebruik van deze informatie door anderen dan de geadresseerde(n) is verboden. Openbaarmaking, vermenigvuldiging, verspreiding en/of verstrekking van deze informatie aan derden is niet toegestaan.
Silence like a cancer grows
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Marie Kane, who was one of six survivors who met Pope Francis two weeks ago in the Vatican, has threatened to write again to the Pope if Dr Brady does not offer his resignation.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Ms Kane said Mr Boland's book "confirms the conversation I had with Pope Francis and the issues I raised" regarding "cover-ups and secrecy in the Irish church".
"This is a book Pope Francis really needs to read," she said as she called on Dr Brady to make a statement.
However, the Catholic Communications Office in Maynooth declined to comment on the book's contents.
Shame
Ms Kane said Mr Boland had suffered "two-tiered" abuse at the hands of the church, first of all the actual abuse by Smyth and then the cover-up and swearing to secrecy.
She expressed frustration that Dr Brady would be allowed to retire in August when he turns 75 "as if he had done nothing wrong".
The mother of two, who was abused by a Dublin priest, said: "He should be leaving his post with his head down in shame."
The Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown, has given his backing to Dr Brady. Speaking in Knock, he said: "I have not seen the book. But not having seen it, Cardinal Brady has my total confidence, support and respect as a bishop and as a cardinal."
Ian Elliott, the former CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, said the book's revelations raise the question of "how a situation of this nature would be handled today if it occurred within the church?".
zaterdag, juli 19, 2014
vrijdag, juli 18, 2014
donderdag, juli 17, 2014
I became the first male survivor of Irish clerical sexual abuse to meet Pope Francis
It was such an important and historic moment for Irish survivors, where the Pope was left in no doubt about the human and spiritual cost that clerical child sexual abuse causes.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
The first male survivor of Irish clerical child sexual abuse to meet with Pope Francis was myself, Mark Vincent Healy. I followed Marie Kane, also from Ireland, as the fourth survivor to meet with Pope Francis. There were six of us presented to Pope Francis from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany.
It was such an important and historic moment for Irish survivors where the Pope was left in no doubt about the human and spiritual cost that clerical child sexual abuse causes. Those costs over decades were in the form of self-harming to suicide to spiritual isolation and what is called ‘soul murder’.
It was such an important and historic moment for Irish survivors where the Pope was left in no doubt about the human and spiritual cost that clerical child sexual abuse causes. Those costs over decades were in the form of self-harming to suicide to spiritual isolation and what is called ‘soul murder’.
In my letter I personally presented to Pope Francis I wrote:
A copy of my prepared letter had been sent to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin two days before meeting Pope Francis.
There had been and still is huge speculation about the survivors who met with Pope Francis. Indeed some of the comments have been very hurtful, portraying none of the difficulties and braveries exhibited in taking such a momentous step in agreeing to meet with the Patriarch of a Church of one billion followers, a church which has contributed to so much pain and suffering on children, its own children, the children of the living God, the very survivors who met with Pope Francis for the first time.
Background
I was invited to meet with the pontiff following the announcement by Pope Francis on his return flight from Israel in May that he would be meeting with survivors of clerical child sexual abuse in early June. I said I would without hesitation. The schedule was premature and adjusted to early July.
I kept the matter secret, save for letting family and survivors know. The media were not to know or it might affect proceedings or indeed bring far too much pressure to bear on those survivors invited by their respective Archbishops.
Prior to going to the Vatican I was asked if I had any problem with having my photograph taken with Pope Francis or in having it published. I didn’t and hoped it would be published.
As I subsequently wrote to Fr Robert Oliver, the Vatican promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) who replaced Msgr Charles Scicluna in January 2013 as ‘Chief Prosecutor’, asking him to let Fr Federico Lombardi, the director of the Holy See Press Office know:
“I think it is important to be seen with His Holiness and not anonymously spoken of as nameless and faceless. It is part of justice to be seen. It is part of healing to be seen. It is part of witness to be seen. Let not the darkness which was in the sin (crime) be the place resigned for survivors. It is important to be in the light in order to instil hope.”
Prior to going to Rome I was also asked if I wished to address the world media assembled presenting my own comment about my meeting with Pope Francis. It would only be a few minutes at most. I indicated I would also wish to do so as I felt it was so important for survivors to be heard.
Last minute announcement
On the evening before meeting with Pope Francis it was announced from a day-long meeting held by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that the photograph with the pontiff would not be published and that the opportunity of speaking directly to the press was also being withdrawn.
Pope Francis, dining in another part of the dining hall in the Domus Santa Martha, came to our table to shake hands with everyone present. Asked afterwards what I thought of Pope Francis and meeting him, I said ‘He was quite cordial and charming’. I said, ‘it was quite a charm offensive which would perhaps make it more difficult to discuss the very serious matters I had prepared and wanted to address the following day about clerical child sexual abuse.’
The withdrawal of publishing the photograph of meetingwith Pope Francis and direct access to the world media assembled was becoming more and more uncomfortable inside me. I called it being ‘bagged’ and ‘gagged’. There really should have been no condition placed on survivors if they wished to be seen and heard after meeting with Pope Francis with the world media assembled.
Protocols
In a written explanation I received from Msgr Robert Oliver, “As regards the photographs, at no point was there an intention to publish them, as was done in all past meetings of survivors with popes. Out of respect for each survivor present, they were taken solely for your use as you may wish.”
If any survivor wished to make a comment on their experience of meeting His Holiness Pope Francis, they could convey their comment to Fr Federico Lombardi who would incorporate it into the Vatican statement – which I thought an absolute nonsense. These announcements were presented as a fait accompli and I had to contain my emotion about these changing circumstances.
In a written explanation I received from Msgr Robert Oliver, “The meeting with Pope Francis was handled the same as all the past encounters of survivors with Pope Benedict, something quite clearly understood by the media.”
My response was, “It cannot be proper to state that Pope Francis is constrained by whatever protocols were in place with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in the handling of survivor access to the world media following an audience with His Holiness Pope Francis when publication of a photograph was immediate. The protocol is not set in stone but as has been mentioned it does not explain the reasoning behind such a decision, who was involved besides the members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and why access was withdrawn to survivors on the eve of meeting with Pope Francis which can only look like the Vatican didn’t wish for survivors to speak publicly. The point of this audience was to remove the shame of being hidden and silenced.”
The night before the private audience with Pope Francis I wanted to withdraw and called my best friend and my therapist. It was important to get the message I brought out there and I felt I could not squander the opportunity knowing it could only further silence the many survivors whom I felt needed to be heard concerning their awful lifelong suffering which they endure, if indeed they can.
My campaign is all about ‘rescue services’ and ‘safe space provisioning’ for survivors of clerical child sexual abuse. The last minute withdrawal of access to the world media assembled did not serve the interests of survivors nor help to remove the shame of clerical child sexual abuse.
My meeting
I was to have 45 minutes with Pope Francis in a meeting, for which I have Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to thank. It was a minute for each year since I was first abused at the age of 9. Then, I was ordered into a room where I was abused by a priest; now, I was invited into a room to tell another priest all about it, that priest being the Pope himself.
I don’t want to believe the meeting with survivors was any PR exercise. I believe there is a dichotomy at work where the Catholic Church acts as a ‘corporation’ or ‘church’ and responds accordingly. In ‘corporation’ terms any media event is part of a PR exercise. However where the Catholic Church acts as a ‘church’, a ‘family’, ‘the body of Christ’ then this event was and is not a PR exercise but one which recognises the deep suffering caused survivors, their families, their communities, including the human family on a profound human and spiritual level.
I left Pope Francis with a clear translation by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the following words: “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.”
Mark Vincent Healy is a campaigning abuse survivor. Read his full report and response to the NSBCCCI audit into the Holy Ghost Fathers here.
Read: Pope promises “solutions” to celibacy in the priesthood
Martin: ‘Crisis of the sexual abuse of children in the church not a chapter of the past’
laatste leugens
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¨wanneer iets loopt als een eend, zwemt als een eend, kwaakt als een eend en er uit ziet als een eend
is het heel redelijk er voorlopig maar ´s van uit te gaan dat er geen sprake is van potentiële ganzenleverpastei, Vrouw Lap¨
Bron: Knielkusje
Tonnie
dinsdag, juli 15, 2014
The Martians are coming Hi Mac swallow or parrot?
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| 'You've given up the cleaning job? Blimey. Now what're you hoping to do?' |
bron Daily Mail
BBC
Butler-Sloss abuse inquiry 'would have led to Kincora'
The Kincora Boys' Home in east Belfast was at the centre of a child abuse scandal
Conservative
MP Zac Goldsmith has welcomed the decision of Lady Butler-Sloss to step
down as the head of an inquiry into child sex abuse.
Mr Goldsmith claims her brother, former attorney general Sir
Michael Havers, wrote the terms of reference of an inquiry into Kincora Boys' Home.He said the inquiry focused only on social workers and staff, excluding visitors to the east Belfast home.
Three senior staff at Kincora were jailed in 1981 for abusing 11 boys.
Lady Butler-Sloss stood down on Monday as chair of the newly-established child abuse inquiry that was set up to examine how state institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from paedophiles.
Rewritten
She had been under pressure to quit from MPs and victims concerned about her family links.
There have been calls for the inquiry's remit to be extended to include activities at Kincora Boys' Home in east Belfast.
Mr Goldsmith told the BBC's World at One programme that the Kincora inquiry's terms of reference "were rewritten just before it began with a view to excluding investigations into visitors to the care home so it would only focus on social workers or the staff".
He added: "These kinds of things are really big and it's inevitable that a proper all-encompassing inquiry would find its way all the way to Kincora.
"It would look at who set the term of reference, it would look at who was excluded, who was protected by the terms of reference, and that would lead to Havers himself who was responsible for that."
Amnesty International last week called for the remit of the Westminster inquiry to be widened to include Kincora.
"Allegations have persisted that paedophilia at Kincora was linked to British intelligence services, with claims that visitors to the home included members of the military, politicians and civil servants, and that police investigations into abuse at Kincora were blocked by the Ministry of Defence and MI5," said its Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan.
maandag, juli 14, 2014
Lady Butler-Sloss stands down from child-abuse inquiry "This is a victim-orientated inquiry and those who wish to be heard must have confidence that the members of the panel will pay proper regard to their concerns and give appropriate advice to government.
[....]
“Where both partners are aged 10 or over, but under 14, a consenting sexual act should not be an offence. As the age of consent is arbitrary, we propose an overlap of two years on either side of 14.
“Where both partners are aged 10 or over, but under 14, a consenting sexual act should not be an offence. As the age of consent is arbitrary, we propose an overlap of two years on either side of 14.
“Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage.
“The
Criminal Law Commission should be prepared to accept the evidence from
follow-up research on child ‘victims’ which show there is little
subsequent effect after a child has been ‘molested’.
“The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage.
“The
present legal penalties are too high and reinforce the misinformation
and prejudice. The duty of the court should be to inquire into all the
relevant circumstances with the intention, not of meting out severe
punishment, but of determining the best solution in the interests of
both child and paedophile.”
[....]
NCCL report written for the Criminal Law Revision Committee in 1976
Retired high court judge, has resigned as chair of the panel that is due to examine the extent to which public institutions failed to investigate allegations of child abuse after admitting that she had failed to take into account a family conflict of interest.
Hours after the former solicitor general Vera Baird called on Butler-Sloss to stand down because her brother served as attorney general in the 1980s, when reports of child abuse were allegedly not examined properly, the former judge issued a statement announcing that she would withdraw from the post.
Butler-Sloss said she had been honoured to be invited to chair the inquiry. But she added: "It has become apparent over the last few days, however, that there is a widespread perception, particularly among victim and survivor groups, that I am not the right person to chair the inquiry. It has also become clear to me that I did not sufficiently consider whether my background and the fact my brother had been attorney general would cause difficulties."
The retired judge had faced intense criticism from victims' groups because her brother, the late Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general during the 1980s – the period due be examined by the panel.
zondag, juli 13, 2014
Misbruikt? Loket gesloten
Misbruikslachtoffers voelen zich voor de zoveelste keer geschoffeerd door de katholieke kerk. Nu omdat de klachtencommissie definitief stopt. 'Dit is zó arrogant.'
Deetman onderzocht 2100 meldingen, maar het werkelijke aantal slachtoffers ligt volgens hem vele malen hoger: tien- tot twintigduizend in totaal. 'Nieuwsuur' wijdt een uitzending aan het rapport, vanuit Amsterdams debatcentrum Felix Meritis. Uitgenodigd zijn ook aartsbisschop Wim Eijk en Cees van Dam, voorzitter van de Konferentie Nederlandse Religieuzen (KNR). Bij hoge uitzondering verschijnen ze op tv. Eijk maakt excuses. Er is "inadequaat gehandeld", zegt hij, een understatement. Maar ze gaan het vanaf nu helemaal anders doen. Van Dam: "Wij stellen ons open voor de slachtoffers."
Tweeënhalf jaar later heeft de kerk 13,7 miljoen euro uitgekeerd aan schadevergoedingen. De media-aandacht is geluwd, veel meldingen komen er niet meer binnen. De kerk maakt zich op om het misbruikhoofdstuk te sluiten. Vorige week ging het Meldpunt Seksueel Misbruik dicht.
Alleen voor niet-verjaarde zaken en voor levende daders kunnen in de toekomst nog klachten worden ingediend. Maar de meeste meldingen betreffen verjaarde zaken, misbruik dat in de jaren vijftig of zestig plaatsvond. Van de in totaal 1600 meldingen moet het meldpunt er nog 500 afwikkelen, dus er zal nog wel een paar miljoen uit de katholieke schatkist naar de slachtoffers stromen. Maar dan is de kous ook af. Zo langzamerhand kunnen de bisschoppen het hoofdpijndossier 'seksueel misbruik' sluiten. Of toch niet?
Over je verleden praten
"Dit besluit komt te vroeg", zegt Raymond Lelkens, woordvoerder van de lotgenotengroep Jezuïeten en in het verleden betrokken bij slachtofferorganisatie Klokk. Lelkens vindt het aanvaardbaar dat de kerk op enig moment een streep trekt. "Maar pas als ál het mogelijke is gedaan om bekend te maken waar slachtoffers terecht kunnen. Dat is niet gebeurd. Het vergt ontzettend veel tijd om de stap te kunnen zetten om over je verleden te praten. Dat wordt telkens weer onderschat."
Annemie Knibbe van de stichting Vrouwenplatform Kerkelijk Kindermisbruik kan dat alleen maar beamen. Vrouwelijke slachtoffers wisten het meldpunt slecht te vinden: 276 vrouwen klopten aan, tegen 1309 mannen. Het misbruik van meisjes en vrouwen in katholieke internaten en in parochies is later aan het licht gekomen dan dat van jongens. En vrouwen kampen met zoveel schaamte dat ze er nog niet mee naar buiten durven treden, aldus Knibbe. "Je kunt niet programmeren wanneer iemand in staat is om zichzelf opnieuw te confronteren met dat verleden."
In feite, vervolgt ze, wordt de klok weer teruggedraaid. "We zijn zelfs terug bij de situatie zoals die bestond voor 1995, toen Hulp & Recht werd opgericht." Dat was het katholieke klachtenbureau dat door de kerk was ingesteld om klachten over seksueel misbruik af te handelen. Slachtoffers worden weer afhankelijk van het 'goede geweten' van de kerk, zegt Knibbe.
In dat goede geweten heeft ze weinig fiducie. Het patroon dat Knibbe keer op keer ziet: de kerk wil zoveel mogelijk de schade voor het instituut beperken, erkenning van het veroorzaakte leed komt op de tweede plaats. "Het merendeel van de oversten van ordes en congregaties blijft een ontkennende houding aannemen, zeker de vrouwelijk oversten. De afgelopen vier jaar werd verwacht dat ze meewerkten als steunbewijs nodig was bij een klacht. Vaak gebeurde het tegendeel. 'Die persoon werkte hier niet', hoor je bijvoorbeeld vaak als er gezocht wordt naar een dader. Of: 'Daar weten we niets van'."
Schaamte en schuld
Knibbe noemt als voorbeeld de Zusters van de Goede Herder, een orde die op enkele tientallen plaatsen in Nederland kindertehuizen had. Duizenden vrouwen hebben er een paar jaar doorgebracht. Slechts vijf hebben er tot nu toe melding gedaan van machtsmisbruik. "Schaamte en schuld vormen een enorme belemmering voor vrouwen om zich te melden." Het is uiterst lastig om een beeld te krijgen van wat er op die internaten precies gebeurde, vertelt Knibbe. De orde houdt zich doof. "Nog steeds krijgen we geen toegang tot bijvoorbeeld de archieven."
Tegenwerking ervaart ook Raymond Lelkens, van de lotgenotengroep Jezuïeten. "Traineren, frustreren en afremmen is aan de orde van de dag." Neem het bisdom Roermond, dat transparantie had beloofd. Lelkens had goed contact met het bisdom, dacht hij. Tot een paar maanden geleden bleek dat de vorig jaar overleden bisschop Jo Gijsen twee jongens heeft misbruikt. "Ze hielden het gewoon onder de pet."
Volgens hem probeert de kerk vooral het gezichtsverlies en de financiële schade te beperken. Nog steeds. "De kerk behandelt de hele zaak als een juridisch traject, waarbij na een bewezen klacht geld wordt uitgekeerd. Maar dan begrijp je het slachtoffer niet."
Hoe het wel zou moeten ziet Lelkens bij de Jezuïeten. Deze orde wijkt van de lijn af, slachtoffers kunnen zich nog een paar jaar melden. Ook hebben de Jezuïeten een uitgebreid mediationtraject, waarbij daders (of als die niet meer in leven zijn andere vertegenwoordigers) en slachtoffers met elkaar in gesprek gaan. "Op deze manier kunnen mensen het een plek geven."
De behoefte om het hoofdstuk te sluiten is groot. Op alle fronten zie ik vermoeidheid in het afwikkelen van deze zaak
Mediation ziet Guido Klabbers van slachtofferorganisatie Klokk ook als de beste weg voorwaarts. Toen Eijk een half jaar geleden de bel luidde voor 'de laatste ronde', verzette Klabbers zich tegen sluiting van het meldpunt. Maar de bisschoppen bleken onwrikbaar, zegt hij. Nu dringt Klabbers er bij hen op aan dan tenminste de mogelijkheid van mediation te bieden. "Dat zou een win-win situatie zijn. Want het gaat de meesten helemaal niet om een schadevergoeding, het gaat ze primair om erkenning van het aangerichte leed. Bij mediation is alleen instemming van beide partijen nodig, er komt verder geen juridische rompslomp bij kijken."
Twee gesprekken
Toch hebben de bisschoppen Klabbers' voorstel afgewezen. Daphne van Roosendaal, woordvoerster van de Bisschoppenconferentie, valt stil als haar gevraagd wordt naar het waarom. "Daar kan ik niets over zeggen. Het is niet overgenomen als idee."
Bij het meldpunt was er overigens al een minimale vorm van mediation aanwezig, zegt ze. Een commissie zorgde voor bemiddeling tussen kerk en slachtoffers. Volgens Raymond Lelkens schoot die commissie tekort. "Mediation bij het meldpunt betekende twee keer een gesprek van een uur: het eerste ter inventarisatie en het tweede met de dader. Vervolgens werd daarvan een rapport gemaakt zodat de hoogte van de schadevergoeding kon worden bepaald." Lelkens zucht: "Ook dit is weer helemaal gejuridiseerd."
Volgens Van Roosendaal is het logisch dat het loket nu sluit. "Kijk, in 2010 kwam er een hausse aan berichten in de media over misbruik. We hebben toen een uitzonderlijke regeling getroffen om ook verjaarde zaken te behandelden. Dat is in andere sectoren van de samenleving niet gebruikelijk. Nu het aantal meldingen sterk afneemt, keert de kerk weer terug naar de normale gang van zaken en zoekt ze weer aansluiting bij de rest van de maatschappij. Een einddatum schept ook duidelijkheid.Je weet waar je aan toe bent. Nu kunnen
slachtoffers er een punt achter zetten."
Dat laatste klinkt heel sympathiek, vindt Klabbers, maar het lijkt er volgens hem vooral op dat de kerk er zélf een punt achter wil zetten."De behoefte om hethoofdstuk te sluiten is groot. Op alle fronten zie ik vermoeidheid in het afwikkelen van deze zaak. Men is nog steeds heel erg bezig met de eigen organisatie. Ik merk nog regelmatig dat het voor de katholieke kerk moeilijk is om te begrijpen wat er is aangericht bij deze mensen."
'Geen gesloten hoofdstuk'
Tekenend vindt Annemie Knibbe dat Eijk dacht zelf wel even te kunnen bepalen dat de tijd om was voor slachtoffers om zich te melden. "Het lijkt wel alsof hij niet beseft wat er écht is gebeurd. Het is zo arrogant, zo autoritair. Het ís helemaal niet aan de kerk om te bepalen wanneer het misbruikschandaal kan worden afgesloten."
Volgens Van Roosendaal betekent het einde van het meldpunt allerminst dat de kerk het hele misbruikhoofdstuk sluit. "De pijler Hulpverlening binnen het meldpunt wordt gecontinueerd. Dit contactpunt kan mensen die als minderjarige slachtoffer zijn geweest van misbruik doorverwijzen naar goede hulp." Daarbij kan ook, zegt ze, 'een stukje erkenning' van de kerk zitten. Hoe die erkenning vorm en inhoud moet krijgen, kan ze niet zeggen.
woensdag, juli 09, 2014
dinsdag, juli 08, 2014
ANGLOPHONE CONFERENCE 2014
Introductory address by Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin
Pontifical Irish College, Rome, 7th July 2014
"The Anglophone Conference is a unique gathering. It is unique in the first place in that it does not have a website, almost a mortal sin of omission by today’s Conference standards! The Anglophone Conference is an informal gathering, by its nature unstructured or at least under-structured. And indeed that may well be its advantage.
The origins of the Anglophone Conference lie in an interest which arose among bishops from a number of English-speaking countries to come together informally to share experiences about how to address the problem of the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious. It was an attempt to take a more coherent look at a phenomenon which, because it was an unspeakably dark part of the life of the Church, inevitably gave rise to the temptation that it be kept out of the limelight. The result was often that the challenge of abuse was not addressed or was addressed in different ways in different parts of the word. In the Anglophone Conference, Bishops came together to begin to trace a different path.
The Anglophone Conference may well have been from the start under-structured, but in time it became a real workshop of best practice, in which Episcopal Conferences could come together and explore what were the best ways of breaking taboos about the subject of child abuse by clergy and of developing solid norms of pastoral practice which could be addressed by Bishops’ Conferences in different cultural and juridical situations.
The Anglophone Conference was pioneering and trend-setting. In these days we have come together to hear success stories of progress that has been made worldwide. We are pleased to hear from those working in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about the standards of good practice that are now rightly being demanded throughout the entire Church.
But it is important to remember that the Anglophone Conference was a pioneer in looking for coherent international norms and in anticipating much that has now become commonplace, at times facing negative reactions even within the Holy See. Today we have moved beyond any climate of suspicion to one of cooperation and we thank God for the progress that has been made on all sides. We also thank God for our ability to recognise that the road that we all still have to travel is long. The greatest harm that we could do to the progress that has been made right across the Church is to slip back into a false assurance that the crisis is a thing of the past.
The Anglophone Conference is a unique event. It is not a conference of canonists or survivors, of psychologists or criminologists; it is not a simply gathering of bishops. It is a forum for creative pastoral reflection, it is a gathering in which a wide ranging group of men and women from different backgrounds and countries try to draw conclusions regarding our responsibilities in addressing what has been a major crisis and stumbling block for the Catholic Church.
The crisis of the sexual abuse of children in the Church is not a chapter of the past history of the Church. Abuse can and does still take place. Abuse will remain a wound in the side of the Church until the day on which every single survivor of abuse has achieved the personal healing he or she deserves.
My starting point in any personal reflection on the scandal of sexual abuse is always that what happened should never have happened in the Church of Jesus Christ. We can argue that the sexual abuse of children takes place right across society and that it is unfair to single out the Catholic Church. We can regurgitate statistics which will tell us that the incidence of such abuse is not significantly higher within the Catholic clergy than in society. But if we come back and repeat to ourselves that what happened should never have happened in the Church of Jesus Christ then we have to put all the comforting statistics to one side and begin to think in a different light.
The sexual abuse of children on the scale in which it happened should never have occurred in the Catholic Church because Jesus himself tells us that children are a sign of the kingdom of God. This means that our understanding of faith and of the kingdom is somehow measured in the manner in which we protect and respect and cherish children or in which we fail children. We know well the strong words of Jesus about those who would injure or harm children.
We need to develop a new awareness that what has happened has wounded the entire Church and that now the entire Church is called to put right what has happened. The entire Church is called to put itself right in its relations with the kingdom and with Jesus Christ. Healing is not just a question for the counsellors; it is a theological and ecclesiological necessity.
The only Church response must be one which attempts to bring healing to a wounded Church through robustly responding to all those who have been wounded by abuse. The healing of the Church comes through how the Church works to heal survivors.
The Church must not just be transformed into a place where children are safe. It must also be transformed into a privileged place of healing for survivors. It must be transformed into a place where survivors, with all their reticence and with all their repeated anger towards the Church, can genuinely come to feel that the Church is a place where they will encounter healing. We are not that kind of Church yet: and by far.
The Church which talks abut a preferential option for the poor must show unflinchingly a preferential option for those who have been victims of abuse within its fold. There are still within the Church some who play down the realities of abuse, or who take short cuts with regard to established norms and guidelines. In doing so, they damage the Church’s witness to the healing power of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more hurtful to survivors than to find the Church proclaiming norms and then to find that they are not being followed. I was struck to read in some of the National Reports for this Conference that there are still dioceses or Religious Congregations which opt out of National norms.
The Church can and should ensure adequate counselling for victims and their families. But it must do more. Healing cannot be delegated. The Church must become the bosom of Christ which lovingly embraces wounded men and women, with all the brutality and unattractiveness of wounds. Wounds cannot be sanitised from a distance. The Good Samaritan is the one who carries the wounded man in his own arms.
Bishops and superiors have to ensure that survivors are made feel truly welcome when they turn to Church authorities. One survivor told me that while she was received by her local priest correctly, in the sense that all the boxes of the norms were correctly ticked, she still had the enduring impression that the priest would have much preferred that she had not come to him and that she we would go away as quickly as possible and that the counsellors would take over.
The words of Jesus about leaving the ninety-nine to go out to find the one who is lost, refers also to our attitude to victims. To some it might seem less than prudent to think that the Church would go out of its way to seek out even more victims and survivors. There are those who say that that would only create more anguish and litigation and that it would be asking for trouble and would be more than a little ingenuous. The problem is that what Jesus says about leaving the ninety and going out after the one who is lost is in itself unreasonable and imprudent, but, like it or not, that it precisely what Jesus asks us to do.
Jesus teaches us through parables that are all marked by exaggeration. They are all about something that we can never figure out within our own human categories: the gratuitousness and superabundance of God’s love which always requires us to go the extra mile beyond what is humanly considered as prudent or appropriate or even the best. It is however when we reflect that superabundant love of God in the way we live in the Church that we also see fruits produced which go beyond human expectation. Remember those twelve baskets of food which remain after Jesus had undertaken the humanly unreasonable task of feeding a large crowd with meagre means. Jesus’ generosity goes way beyond human prudence.
We have to reach out to all those who are involved in abuse. We have a responsibility towards perpetrators to bring them to a realisation of what they have done and to make reparation through living a different life. Jesus is the one who shows mercy, but not cheap forgiveness. Careful monitoring and support of perpetrators is a contribution to creating a safe environment for children within the Church as well as helping perpetrators to lead more healthy lives.
Our care must also reach out to the many who may seem only to have been marginally touched by abuse. I think of parish communities. I spent an evening only last week with a small parish community whose priest had recently been imprisoned for serious abuse. It was a community whose trust in themselves and in the Church had been deeply wounded.
Our care must reach out in a special way to our young people who are hyper-sensitive to any contrast between what the Church preaches and what is done within its walls. Many young people have been wounded in their ability to come to know Jesus because of their disgust at what has happened to children in the Church.
The answers to all these multiple wounds will not come from slick public relations gestures or even from repeated words of apology. They will come from creating a new vision of a healing Church. A healing Church will not be from the outset a perfect Church. The Church must first of all recognise within her own life how compromise and insensitivity and wrong decisions have damaged the witness of Church. The art of healing is learned only in humility. Arrogance is never the road towards healing. Healing is not something we can package and hand over safe and sound to someone else and then we can go off safely and happily on our own way. Healing involves journeying together. The healer needs humility and personal healing if he or she is to journey really with those who are wounded. The duration of the process of healing is not measured by the time on our watch, but by the watch and the time of the other.
The crisis of the sexual abuse of children over these past decades has wounded the Church of Jesus Christ. The response must come from the entire Church which will only attain the healing it desires when it welcomes our brothers and sisters who have survived abuse as Jesus would have welcomed them. We are not there to tell the survivors what they have to do, but together to find new ways of interacting with respect and care. I can say that I have never gone away from a conversation with a survivor of child sexual abuse without having leaned something new, even if our encounter may have been marked by anger and aggression towards the Church. My ministry has greatly benefited from what I have learned – and at times learned in a hard way – from survivors. That is why I ask not just their forgiveness for what happened to them, but I am grateful to them for what they have done for me" .
Introductory address by Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin
Pontifical Irish College, Rome, 7th July 2014
The origins of the Anglophone Conference lie in an interest which arose among bishops from a number of English-speaking countries to come together informally to share experiences about how to address the problem of the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious. It was an attempt to take a more coherent look at a phenomenon which, because it was an unspeakably dark part of the life of the Church, inevitably gave rise to the temptation that it be kept out of the limelight. The result was often that the challenge of abuse was not addressed or was addressed in different ways in different parts of the word. In the Anglophone Conference, Bishops came together to begin to trace a different path.
The Anglophone Conference may well have been from the start under-structured, but in time it became a real workshop of best practice, in which Episcopal Conferences could come together and explore what were the best ways of breaking taboos about the subject of child abuse by clergy and of developing solid norms of pastoral practice which could be addressed by Bishops’ Conferences in different cultural and juridical situations.
The Anglophone Conference was pioneering and trend-setting. In these days we have come together to hear success stories of progress that has been made worldwide. We are pleased to hear from those working in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about the standards of good practice that are now rightly being demanded throughout the entire Church.
But it is important to remember that the Anglophone Conference was a pioneer in looking for coherent international norms and in anticipating much that has now become commonplace, at times facing negative reactions even within the Holy See. Today we have moved beyond any climate of suspicion to one of cooperation and we thank God for the progress that has been made on all sides. We also thank God for our ability to recognise that the road that we all still have to travel is long. The greatest harm that we could do to the progress that has been made right across the Church is to slip back into a false assurance that the crisis is a thing of the past.
The Anglophone Conference is a unique event. It is not a conference of canonists or survivors, of psychologists or criminologists; it is not a simply gathering of bishops. It is a forum for creative pastoral reflection, it is a gathering in which a wide ranging group of men and women from different backgrounds and countries try to draw conclusions regarding our responsibilities in addressing what has been a major crisis and stumbling block for the Catholic Church.
The crisis of the sexual abuse of children in the Church is not a chapter of the past history of the Church. Abuse can and does still take place. Abuse will remain a wound in the side of the Church until the day on which every single survivor of abuse has achieved the personal healing he or she deserves.
My starting point in any personal reflection on the scandal of sexual abuse is always that what happened should never have happened in the Church of Jesus Christ. We can argue that the sexual abuse of children takes place right across society and that it is unfair to single out the Catholic Church. We can regurgitate statistics which will tell us that the incidence of such abuse is not significantly higher within the Catholic clergy than in society. But if we come back and repeat to ourselves that what happened should never have happened in the Church of Jesus Christ then we have to put all the comforting statistics to one side and begin to think in a different light.
The sexual abuse of children on the scale in which it happened should never have occurred in the Catholic Church because Jesus himself tells us that children are a sign of the kingdom of God. This means that our understanding of faith and of the kingdom is somehow measured in the manner in which we protect and respect and cherish children or in which we fail children. We know well the strong words of Jesus about those who would injure or harm children.
We need to develop a new awareness that what has happened has wounded the entire Church and that now the entire Church is called to put right what has happened. The entire Church is called to put itself right in its relations with the kingdom and with Jesus Christ. Healing is not just a question for the counsellors; it is a theological and ecclesiological necessity.
The only Church response must be one which attempts to bring healing to a wounded Church through robustly responding to all those who have been wounded by abuse. The healing of the Church comes through how the Church works to heal survivors.
The Church must not just be transformed into a place where children are safe. It must also be transformed into a privileged place of healing for survivors. It must be transformed into a place where survivors, with all their reticence and with all their repeated anger towards the Church, can genuinely come to feel that the Church is a place where they will encounter healing. We are not that kind of Church yet: and by far.
The Church which talks abut a preferential option for the poor must show unflinchingly a preferential option for those who have been victims of abuse within its fold. There are still within the Church some who play down the realities of abuse, or who take short cuts with regard to established norms and guidelines. In doing so, they damage the Church’s witness to the healing power of Jesus Christ. There is nothing more hurtful to survivors than to find the Church proclaiming norms and then to find that they are not being followed. I was struck to read in some of the National Reports for this Conference that there are still dioceses or Religious Congregations which opt out of National norms.
The Church can and should ensure adequate counselling for victims and their families. But it must do more. Healing cannot be delegated. The Church must become the bosom of Christ which lovingly embraces wounded men and women, with all the brutality and unattractiveness of wounds. Wounds cannot be sanitised from a distance. The Good Samaritan is the one who carries the wounded man in his own arms.
Bishops and superiors have to ensure that survivors are made feel truly welcome when they turn to Church authorities. One survivor told me that while she was received by her local priest correctly, in the sense that all the boxes of the norms were correctly ticked, she still had the enduring impression that the priest would have much preferred that she had not come to him and that she we would go away as quickly as possible and that the counsellors would take over.
The words of Jesus about leaving the ninety-nine to go out to find the one who is lost, refers also to our attitude to victims. To some it might seem less than prudent to think that the Church would go out of its way to seek out even more victims and survivors. There are those who say that that would only create more anguish and litigation and that it would be asking for trouble and would be more than a little ingenuous. The problem is that what Jesus says about leaving the ninety and going out after the one who is lost is in itself unreasonable and imprudent, but, like it or not, that it precisely what Jesus asks us to do.
Jesus teaches us through parables that are all marked by exaggeration. They are all about something that we can never figure out within our own human categories: the gratuitousness and superabundance of God’s love which always requires us to go the extra mile beyond what is humanly considered as prudent or appropriate or even the best. It is however when we reflect that superabundant love of God in the way we live in the Church that we also see fruits produced which go beyond human expectation. Remember those twelve baskets of food which remain after Jesus had undertaken the humanly unreasonable task of feeding a large crowd with meagre means. Jesus’ generosity goes way beyond human prudence.
We have to reach out to all those who are involved in abuse. We have a responsibility towards perpetrators to bring them to a realisation of what they have done and to make reparation through living a different life. Jesus is the one who shows mercy, but not cheap forgiveness. Careful monitoring and support of perpetrators is a contribution to creating a safe environment for children within the Church as well as helping perpetrators to lead more healthy lives.
Our care must also reach out to the many who may seem only to have been marginally touched by abuse. I think of parish communities. I spent an evening only last week with a small parish community whose priest had recently been imprisoned for serious abuse. It was a community whose trust in themselves and in the Church had been deeply wounded.
Our care must reach out in a special way to our young people who are hyper-sensitive to any contrast between what the Church preaches and what is done within its walls. Many young people have been wounded in their ability to come to know Jesus because of their disgust at what has happened to children in the Church.
The answers to all these multiple wounds will not come from slick public relations gestures or even from repeated words of apology. They will come from creating a new vision of a healing Church. A healing Church will not be from the outset a perfect Church. The Church must first of all recognise within her own life how compromise and insensitivity and wrong decisions have damaged the witness of Church. The art of healing is learned only in humility. Arrogance is never the road towards healing. Healing is not something we can package and hand over safe and sound to someone else and then we can go off safely and happily on our own way. Healing involves journeying together. The healer needs humility and personal healing if he or she is to journey really with those who are wounded. The duration of the process of healing is not measured by the time on our watch, but by the watch and the time of the other.
The crisis of the sexual abuse of children over these past decades has wounded the Church of Jesus Christ. The response must come from the entire Church which will only attain the healing it desires when it welcomes our brothers and sisters who have survived abuse as Jesus would have welcomed them. We are not there to tell the survivors what they have to do, but together to find new ways of interacting with respect and care. I can say that I have never gone away from a conversation with a survivor of child sexual abuse without having leaned something new, even if our encounter may have been marked by anger and aggression towards the Church. My ministry has greatly benefited from what I have learned – and at times learned in a hard way – from survivors. That is why I ask not just their forgiveness for what happened to them, but I am grateful to them for what they have done for me" .
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