Some years ago when the priest abuse scandal in the Catholic Church first broke I was working for a Catholic Church as a youth minister. The USA Catholic Bishops were quick to respond but something seemed to be missing for me in their response. Now that the scandal has come again I could see what I felt was missing and wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper about it last week. Since the last time I published a ‘letter to the editor’ on this site it was published the next day in the newspaper, I decided this time to wait a week. I am afraid this time it will not get published, but I think that it is an important message about ‘breaking the silence’, which applies to many other issues. So here it is on the Diary of the Worm.
Dear Editor,
It is sad to see the leaders of the Catholic Church revert to the political tactic of misrepresenting criticism of their actions and then, as our former Archbishop did last Sunday, attacking their own misrepresentation. What we really need in the Catholic Church today is for the Bishops and Vatican to confess to their own sins of silence and ignoring the sex abuse scandal until it became public.
When the scandal broke some years ago the American bishops were quick to rid the church of priest accused, rightly or wrongly, in child abuse and to work on preventive measures for future child abuse. That was good but without full public disclosure of their own silence or neglect in the abuse there can never be real truth and reconciliation.
It is time for the American Bishops and the Vatican to break the silence of the past, to open up all records on this abuse to the public and to admit any sins of silence or neglect. Victims of clergy abuse are not looking for vengeance or to spread ‘petty gossip’ or false accusations. They are simply seeking the truth and to break the silence that still plagues our beloved Church and prevents true Truth and Reconciliation.
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