onsdag den 19. maj 2010

Vi bekender...

I en prædiken til 3000 mennesker - deriblandt mange, der selv havde været udsat for overgreb - i Sankt Stephans katedralen i Wien den 31/3, 2010, sagde Kardinal Christoph Schönborn ifølge The Tablet ( 10/4, 2010) i engelsk oversættelse følgende:

”We confess that some of us exploited the trust of children and destroyed it…
“We confess that some of us are guilty of causing the inner death of others…
“We confess that some of us are guilty of sexual violence …
“We confess that some of us stole the childhood of boys and girls and robbed them of the ability to successfully experience relationships…
“We confess that we covered (things) up and gave false witness…
“We confess that some of us the semblance of the Church’s impeccability mattered more than anything else…

“Words spoken in a sermon could not only embarrassing but could hurt. Silence is what is called for. But not the silence that occurred only too often, namely the silence of hushing up, of silencing others, the silence of not being able to speak. It should be the silence of Job’s friends who fell silent when they saw how greatly he was suffering and just sat silently beside him.”

And turning to the victims, Schönborn said: “Thank you for breaking your silence.”

The cardinal then admitted that recently he had often felt that the Church was being treated unjustly. “Why above all is the Church being put in the pillory? Isn’t there abuse elsewhere as well? Is that not being investigated or come to terms with? And then I have sorely been tempted to say, ‘Yes. Media don’t like the Church. Perhaps there is even a conspiracy against it?’ But I feel in my heart – no, that isn’t it. And even if it is true, the mirror that is being held up to us shows us something that makes abuse in the Church particularly serious. It defiles God’s Holy Name.” …

As long as the Church continued to look the other way and failed to listen it would stand in the way of a liberating and redeeming God, he continued. It must “get of its high horse” – which was without doubt a painful process – “but what is that pain compared to the victim’s pain which we overlooked and did not hear? When the victims speak out now, God is speaking to us, to his Church, in order to shake and purify it.”

mandag den 10. maj 2010

Lys forenden af tunnelen

Fra en artikel, som jeg fandt i The Tablet (10 april), af Michael Sean Winters:

"Will it ever end? There is no doubt that the legal battles will continue to unearth documents that are depressing and scandalous. But, in Boston, which was the centre of the scandal in 2002, the situation for the Church has begun to turn around.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who took over the troubled archdiocese in 2003, sold his own house to help pay the court settlements. He met with hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse.

In his public statements, he always begins with a renewed apology to the victims. O'Malley also meets regularly with the vast majority of priests who were not accused of misconduct, but whose corporate sense of shame led them to be embarrassed to walk down the street wearing their clerical collars.

“The priests have revived their excitement about their own vocations under his leadership,” says Mgr. Lorenzo Albacete, who often leads retreats for priests in Boston and elsewhere. Vocations are up. Donations to the annual archdiocesan appeal, a sure indicator of support from the people in the pews, have returned to their pre-crises levels.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, if other bishops follow O’Malley’s lead. But it is a long tunnel.”