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September 23, 2018By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press
Prayer, fasting, listening and teaching are among pastoral responses in the Worcester Diocese and elsewhere to the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
Across the country bishops have celebrated healing Masses, people have met to ask Church leaders what went wrong and how the Church should move forward, and bishops have issued statements and called for prayer and fasting.
Bishop McManus, in an Aug. 16 letter to people of the diocese, talked about stories of horrible abuse being in recent news reports, and the difficulty of hearing such stories himself from victims.
“We have been and continue to be committed to responding to victims of past abuse and to the protection of children in our midst today as well as to the reporting of any cases brought to our attention to law enforcement, no matter how many years ago they occurred,” he wrote.
This week he told The Catholic Free Press that sexual abuse is a terrible, embarrassing, dark part of the Church’s history and “people want to know that we’re doing something about it.”
He said the press has deliberately misinformed people, creating the impression that this abuse is still happening in parishes, but the allegations are old. He said he thinks that children are very safe now and that the Church has successfully implemented the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The Charter is a set of procedures the U.S. bishops’ conference originally established in 2002 for addressing allegations of clergy sexual abuse, explains the website www.usccb.org. Repeatedly revised, it also includes guidelines for reconciliation and prevention of future abuse.
The Church must turn over all allegations - even those that aren’t credible - to the district attorney’s office, and also does its own investigation, Bishop McManus said. If a priest has a credible allegation of offending, even once, he cannot serve in a parish.
Bishop McManus has held three listening sessions for priests. Since the priests found them helpful, he suggested they hold similar sessions in their parishes, he said.
St. Cecelia Parish in Leominster is to offer a listening session, so people can talk about the impact of the crisis on them, their families and their parish community, said Father Robert D. Bruso, pastor. He said he wants to hire a professional social worker to facilitate it and hold it by the end of next month.
“I’m going to have a forum for students to speak about the current situation in the Church,” said Assumption College President Francesco Cesareo. He said he will answer students’ questions, speak about what the Church has been doing and explain that recent news has been about old cases. He is also president of the National Review Board, established in 2002 as part of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
At the beginning of this academic year the college instituted safe environment training for students and employees who work with minors, he said.
Bishop McManus said in his Aug. 16 letter that the diocese will continue background screening of all ordained and lay staff and volunteers, which it has been doing for more than 15 years, and will continue training them in identifying symptoms of abuse and reporting suspected abuse.
Father James B. Callahan, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Barre, told about such reporting, in a homily two weeks ago. When he finished preaching, the congregation applauded.
In his homily, posted on the parish’s Facebook page, he told how, as a seminarian in the early 1990s, he heard what sounded like a sexual encounter in the next room. That led to the embarrassing process of bringing this to seminary authorities and learning that an older seminarian was preying on new ones, he said. Such an active homosexual subculture was even more dominant in the 1970s and 1980s, on the heals of the sexual revolution, he said.
The sexual abuse crisis is not just about an adult’s disordered attraction to a child but much more often an attraction to teenaged boys and young men, Father Callahan said.
“Am I bashing people who struggle with homosexuality?” he asked. “Not at all.” He noted that some people with a homosexual orientation strive to live out Church teaching and said God must be pleased with how they carry this cross.
He said he doesn’t hate fathers just because some are abusers, nor does he hate the Church which Christ instituted, although some of its leaders have become corrupt.
“So what do I do?” he asked. “I pray for a purification. … We all have our weaknesses.”
Besides praying for purification of the Church, pastors are praying for victims’ reunification with the Church.
Monday Father Michael J. Roy, pastor of St. Roch Parish in Oxford, held the first of seven planned Days of Atonement, with prayer and fasting.
“The greatest act of atonement was the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, which was meant to make amends for sin,” Father Roy wrote in his Sept. 16 parish bulletin. “It is our hope that these days … will help us feel a certain solidarity, an ‘at-one-ment,’ with those who have been abused.”
The Days of Atonement are principally for the healing of clergy sexual abuse survivors, “in hope that they can be at one with us in worship once again,” and also for all who have suffered this type of abuse, he wrote. “Lastly, in the spirit of Christ’s teaching, we are concerned for the conversion and welfare of those responsible.”
This will be “our humble response to this diabolical masterpiece” that has thwarted the Church’s mission to bring people to Jesus, so he might bring them to heaven, he wrote; the eternal salvation of many hangs in the balance..
The Days of Atonement are to be held the first and third Mondays of the month through the end of this year. Father Roy encouraged parishioners to stay for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament after the 8:30 a.m. Mass until Benediction at noon, or fast like on Good Friday, eating only one full meal.
He said those attending the first session on Monday prayed together at the end of Mass, about 10 stayed awhile for adoration, five stayed the whole time and a few others came and went. He didn’t know how many fasted.
Father Michael N. Lavallee, pastor of St. Ann Parish in North Oxford, said he will encourage his parishioners to participate with St. Roch’s. There’s also an announcement in his parish bulletin this weekend, along with the Scripture, “He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds” (Ps 147:3).
“This news is disturbing a lot of people,” Father Lavallee said of the sexual abuse crisis. “We wonder what we can do. And the answer is to pray. I think of Jesus’ words: ‘Where two or three are gathered, I am with them.’ When people gather to pray, there is healing in that community.”
CNS PHOTO: Having removed symbols of his office, his ring, miter, crosier and zucchetto, Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Va., lies prostrate during the Mass of Atonement for victims of abuse Sept. 14., at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond. (CNS photo/Michael Mickle, The Catholic Virginian)
