Survivors speak - From the article I linked above - here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/pope-summit-survivor-1.5025400“Earlier in the day, Korkmaz [abuse survivor from an Indian residential school] spoke at a news conference held by her group, Ending Clergy Abuse, and again called for Pope Francis to say he's sorry for the harm residential schools inflicted on Indigenous people.
"I would like Pope Francis to come to Canada and apologize to the Indigenous people of Canada," Korkmaz said. "He must apologize for us losing our culture and sexually abusing our people."
“But the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has said the Pope doesn't have plans to apologize.
“Korkmaz also called on Pope Francis to pay the $25 million the Catholic Church agreed to contribute when it signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2006.
"We need this for the healing and damages that were committed by him and his church," she said.
“Under the agreement, the Catholic Church was required to raise $25 million for healing and reconciliation programs. It only raised $3.7 million. Ottawa released the Catholic Church of its legal liability following a 2015 court ruling.
“Quebec-born Cardinal Marc Ouellet says he hopes Pope Francis will "one day come" to Canada and meet with Indigenous people who are calling for an apology.
“In an interview with CBC News, Ouellet said only Pope Francis can say whether he will ever apologize to those who suffered in residential schools.
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If you are actually sorry, it often involves more than mere words. What does agreeing to raise funds for healing and reconciliation programs but failing to follow through indicate? That you're not really all that sorry, it seems to me.
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Nuns Abused by Clergy:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nuns-at-vatican-summit-1.5030531“There is evidence the Vatican has known for decades about the problem of priests and bishops preying on nuns but has done next to nothing to stop it. Several nuns have come to the Pope's summit, now underway, to bring attention to the issue.”
“Looking back on her early years as a nun, Doris Wagner says what strikes her most about the time after a priest came into her room and raped her is that nobody in her small religious community noticed anything different about her.
"I was in such a bad state that I could not think a single clear thought," recalls Wagner, 34, of the assault she says took place in Rome in 2008. "My whole personality was gone, and still nobody saw it. I got up in the morning, I went to chapel, said the prayers, worked [in the] kitchen and in [the] evening I went to sleep. I felt like a zombie, really."
“Still, "it worked," she says, referring to her training as a nun to be selfless, obedient and, above all, available.
"This is such a large part of a nun's reality — that you have to be available to priests," she says.
“As top bishops from around the world gather at the Vatican for a summit on preventing sexual abuse of minors by clergy, victims of abuse have poured into Rome, too. Among them are many women like Wagner, here to draw attention to the abuse of nuns.
“The long-hidden issue came to light here in Italy earlier this month after the women's supplement of the Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano published a frank article about what editor in chief Lucetta Scaraffia calls the widespread problem of rape of nuns by priests and the Catholic Church's refusal to face it.
"With the sexual abuse of children there is no doubt it's a crime, but with sexual assault of nuns you have to prove that they didn't consent," says Scaraffia. "The church tries to frame it as a transgression of vows, both of the man's and woman's. And nuns are given the message to remain silent because it will damage the reputation of the order."
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Pope Francis at least acknowledged the issue (as follows, from the article mentioned above). With the groundswell of victims coming forward now, he perhaps has less choice in the matter than all his predecessors, who put the good of the church and its priest class ahead of the well-being of its adherents, including nuns and children.
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“After the article was published, Pope Francis became the first pope — indeed, the first Vatican official — to ever publicly acknowledge the issue.
“Speaking to reporters during a flight back to Rome earlier this month, Francis said his predecessor, Pope Benedict, dissolved a small French order of nuns called the Contemplative Sisters of Saint-Jean "because a certain slavery of women had crept in, slavery to the point of sexual slavery on the part of clergy or the founder."
“But critics say the Pope's comments fail to reflect the breadth and depth of the problem.
“As far back as 1994, Irish missionary Maura O'Donohue, then a co-ordinator with the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development, documented international abuses of nuns by priests, including sexual assault, pregnancies, forced abortions and even deaths due to botched abortions.
“Wagner [former nun who was raped] says she thinks it will take at least a decade for the Catholic Church to properly deal with the issue of the exploitation and sexual assault of nuns. And that women must enter all levels of the church hierarchy for that to happen.
"The power structure has to change. Unless the power structure changes, there will never be an appropriate dealing with children sexual assault either," she says.
Catholic Church must match words with concrete action, says survivor:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february-21-2019-1.5026580/to-tackle-sexual-abuse-catholic-church-must-match-words-with-concrete-action-survivor-1.5027602“A Vatican summit to tackle sexual abuse won't succeed unless the Catholic Church matches its words with concrete action, one survivor says.
"You can't, by committee, change the mind of an abuser. You can't, by committee, change the thinking of a predator, and that's what these priests are," Bob McCabe [said].
“McCabe was 11 years old when he was sexually abused by his parish priest in Toronto in 1963. More than 54 years later, he brought a case against the diocese.
“The archdiocese "admitted that it had taken place ... and it should not have happened," he said, but noted the church has appealed how much damages should be awarded.
"Apologies are not enough ... I feel the church has given up the right to apologize anymore," McCabe said of the summit.
"What they need to do is make amends … to gain forgiveness is one thing but that also means that your actions have to match your words."
“Among the proposals considered by the assembled clergy will be a document released last year by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“McCabe described it as a "fabulous document that hopefully down the road will reduce the risk ... of a child, a minor being sexually abused."
“The document, however, is overly clinical and does not include the voice of survivors, he said.
"At one point in the document, it indicates that it's difficult for a bishop to hear the circumstances of a victim's peril, or a victim's experience in sex abuse."
“But for victims, he said "it goes a lot farther than just being difficult, it totally annihilates everything that is in existence for a child. It annihilated my life."
“He brought [his] case against the diocese in May 2017 because the priest who abused him had died. Despite taking responsibility, the church appealed the decision to award damages, meaning he is still waiting on a ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal.
“Father Michael Bechard, director of the office of the campus ministry at King's University, in London, Ontario [said] the church needs to discuss human sexuality more honestly, as well as stopping the demonisation of gay and lesbian people, and making clear "distinctions between homosexuality and the scourge of pedophilia in our churches.
“The complexity of the institution could make for slow progress, he warned.”
“Much work remains to be done, even by Pope Francis.
“In December 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into Canada's residential schools recommended that the Pope formally apologize for the Catholic Church's role in running 72 per cent of the institutions.
“More than three years later, survivors are still waiting.”
Shocking Global Scope:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/national-today-newsletter-pope-abuse-summit-snc-lavalin-1.5024315“The [press] pack was waiting for sexual abuse victims to exit a meeting they had hoped to have with the pontiff. But Francis never showed up.
“And that could be a sign of disappointment to come.”
“Anyone hoping Catholic bishops will "change the world" during this summit will be disappointed, said Father Federico Lombardi, a former papal spokesman who is acting as the event's moderator.
“He told me the expectation should rather be for "many new ideas and concrete models" for protecting minors to emerge.
“So much for the hopes of victims of clerical abuse. Our recent trip to Verona, 500 kilometres north of the Vatican, highlighted the deep and painful scars that remain for survivors of abuse, even decades later. And it showed how for some, expectations for the summit go far beyond what will likely happen.
“Clergymen at Verona's Antonio Provolo Institute — a Catholic-run school for deaf boys — sexually and physical abused at least dozens of students between the 1950s and 1980s. One man told me [the reporter] that when he was 6, a priest started sodomizing him every night.
“A group of Provolo victims and supporters is headed to Rome to demand compensation for the horrific abuse they endured. Their spokesman, Marco Lodi Rizzini, said giving them money "is the only thing" the Church can do for the survivors.
“The next few days will show what the Pope and his cohorts are willing to do to stop the abuse.”
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My posts are about just some of the abuse that has occurred within the Catholic Church over decades (centuries?) and the effects on survivors and their quest for acknowledgement, contrition, apology - in their own words. Receiving an apology is an important part of their lifelong healing process. They are speaking up and sharing their pain. It is an honour, and a burden, for all of us. Will we too seek to brush it under the carpet or will we call it out, at long last, and acknowledge the pain and heartache and the evil that caused it?
It's not about protecting the Catholic Church or excoriating it. But rather listening, hearing, caring, doing. Hearing the expressions of utter pain and countless life paths forever changed. Maybe all most of us can do is hear and care. But that we can do. The voices clamour. The pain sears. The evil poisons if not rooted out.
For the Pope to recently label as "of the Devil" those who keep on about it (both survivors and their advocates) is beyond appalling. Even if you are uninvolved, neutral, under-informed, or otherwise disinclined to criticize the RCC and/or Pope Francis, that kind of utterance is redolent of blaming the victims and their advocates, of standing behind the abuser and not the victim. Not a good way to start out on an apology tour.
A tour that is very badly needed and most definitely unforgivably delayed.