Print friendly
The mandated Sunday litany of shame was a communications, liturgical, and theological blunder that left people re-victimised.
“I stood there in the Church and didn’t know what to do. I was listening to this lament in a very public place. I wanted to leave, but then I thought I would be seen to be a perpetrator or outed as a victim. So, I sat down and spent the rest of the Mass angry…,” said one man, who wrote to me.
The man says he felt used, adding, “I am so sick of apologies; they are just another form of victimisation.”
This is the first of a series of stories I received following my initial piece in CathNews.
A nurse also wrote, recalling that at the end of the Mass, she and the other reader sat with the reader asked to lead the lament—without any preparation—and processed what it all meant.
“A truly professional organisation would have offered support to anyone in the congregation impacted by abuse because you never know who is sitting there and what they are experiencing, but there was nothing.”
Another person wrote: “The Sunday Mass is no longer a safe place when I am made guilty of the sins of paedophiles, and church leaders who have not led.”
A younger person recounted the experience of being “personally blamed for the crimes that others did in my country” during her grandparent’s generation.
“To me, the lament does the same, and I know that others also were upset; I just wonder how those who were abused felt?”
Communications blunder
“They did old-form communications, focusing mainly on content rather than modern messaging that also considers the impact,” wrote a communications professional.
Nowadays, there is also more than one channel to deliver a suitable message.
Given that most Catholics no longer regularly attend Sunday Mass, using the Mass as a key communications channel is designed for the village; it is pre-digital and shows that if the bishops receive communication advice, the advisors must up their game.
The response I received to my original piece from clergy has been supportive.
Several wrote expressing their distaste for what they had to do and how they had to do it. Some expressed surprise that no network of support was offered.
Having received the material before Sunday Mass, one priest offered pastoral feedback to his bishop on the content and strategy, but the priest says his advice was not taken.
Other priests also wrote saying they modified the lament or ignored it all together.
Sunday Mass
Sunday Mass is a space where the divine and the human meet, a place beyond the pragmatic.
Understanding the nature of liturgical rites and how they function theologically is the work of liturgical theologians, not a dive into the esoteric.
Using a biblical lament during a Sunday Mass is never appropriate.
Biblical laments are placed within penitential services as part of the healing process.
Accordingly, penitential laments change in their structure, language and purpose according to who is lamenting and what is being lamented:
- I lament that I have done this,
- I lament that others have done this to me,
- We lament that we as a people and nation have done this.
Laments should not be used as a cheap ‘apologetic hocus-pocus’.
It also appears that the bishops’ liturgical advisors and theologians must up their game.
Representative or actual guilt and accountability
In making these comments, distinguishing between representative guilt, actual guilt and accountability must be more carefully considered.
How do the current group of bishops, congregational leaders and school leaders/Boards carry the representative guilt and accountability for their predecessors’ lapses in moral judgment when they do not carry the actual guilt or personal accountability?
Is it reasonable to project representative guilt or accountability onto the general population with little knowledge of what went on, who have had no part in decision-making and those without agency?
The reality of abuse will be the defining historical term of this period of the Church.
Institutional abuse must be addressed on many levels because it is primarily a human reality; and it is through addressing human needs, decision-making and the human experience of being abused that the institution can find a new way of operating.
An approach to moving forward
In order for everyone to move forward with their lives I’d like to suggest three conversations may be appropriate:
- ask survivors what an authentic act of penance or repentance would look like;
- ask survivors and parishioners what a genuine act of restitution for survivors might look like;
- ask survivors, parishioners, and perpetrators what a healing form of public reconciliation might look like.
In these conversations, a synodal approach to the reality of abuse might uncover and communicate more than an apology ever can.
Importantly, these conversations must not be forced on survivors, Sunday Mass-goers, or perpetrators; they should not be seen as conversations that solve the problem so everyone can move on.
Healing
The function of the Royal Commission was to listen, judge, and act by making recommendations. The Royal Commission helps by exposing issues but cannot heal because it is a legal instrument, not a theological one.
Similarly, political reform will only change the functions around abuse prevention, not abuse’s ontology.
In contrast, the Christian Church possesses the tools to address abuse beyond legality and functional prevention, and the Church must offer more than a change in the management of abuse prevention.
The Church must forge new pathways to healing and reconciliation by applying the theological truths of faith, hope, and love through our sacramental system and the mercy of the Gospel.
The way forward for Christians is ultimately theological and liturgical because that is how we frame and understand salvation, life, death, meaning and purpose.
Similarly, a radical (from the roots) reform of the exercise of authority in the church needs to be addressed theologically if the experience and complexity of institutional abuse are to be transformative of institutional leadership.
- Dr Joe Grayland is an assistant lecturer in the Department of Liturgy at the University of Wuerzburg (Germany). He has also been a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Palmerston North (New Zealand) for more than 30 years.
Related Posts:
News category: Analysis and Comment.
