The victims of clergy sexual abuse have had enough

LaCroix International
April 8, 2019

https://bit.ly/2FWZdei

The appalling current situation has driven us to speak out.

How can we keep quiet when the papal nuncio of France is the subject of three complaints of sexual assault and yet he calmly continues living his life at the nunciature?

How can we keep quiet when nuns are abused or raped by priests, including within the Vatican itself, with the passive complicity of some of their superiors?

How can we keep quiet when an old priest explains on television that it is children who "spontaneously… seek affection" and says, "You have all seen a how a child comes and kisses you on the mouth…" ?

How can we keep quiet when, in Rome, a decision of the French judicial system is swept aside, even if an appeal has begun?

How can we find peace when not even the moral fault is acknowledged by the pope who – on his own accord – does not accept the bishop's resignation, forgetting the motu proprio, "Like a loving mother" (2016)?

How can we keep quiet when a priest of the Lyon diocese, who abused or raped 70 young scouts in the 1980s and who defiles the ministerial priesthood, has still not been canonically sanctioned by the Church or the diocese, and the victims have still not been compensated?

We can no longer believe what the Church hierarchy says! The discrepancy between words and actions speaks for itself … "Do not be guided by what they do, since they do not practice what they preach" (Mt 23:3). It is for this that we reproach the Church and its hierarchy.

We want to express our outrage and disappointment. We have had enough of all the fine words that are not followed by actions, by promises that are not kept.

What we are experiencing contradicts the Gospels! It contradicts the love for which Christ died on the cross.

This is not how the Church is going to become safer for children, young people and those who are vulnerable.

So, what are the people of God saying? What are the people of God doing? We are asking, in a common voice, that action become a reality and not remain an illusion, as it is today.

We are at a crucial point because many live the way of the cross: the victims and their loved ones; the priests and nuns who have done no wrong and who are the collateral victims of this crisis; the Christians and communities who have been shaken in their faith and in their confidence in the Church.

And because we are all facing a critical alternative.

Are we going to choose the "Copernican revolution", which was discussed at the summit in Rome at the end of February, with a hierarchy that takes on its responsibilities? Or are we just going to go on with fine words and press releases?

The victims must be placed at the heart of the Church; this would, moreover, be placing Christ once again at the heart of the Church.

A Church that does not condemn the acts of evil that are eating away at it, no longer has anything to proclaim to the world!

It's a question of choosing life or choosing death. The victims of this abuse could be your brothers, your sisters, your friends, your children or grandchildren.

Therefore, can we unite in order to reject and denounce all forms of sexual abuse committed on children, on young or vulnerable people? In order to break the individual and collective silence, which is pernicious and destructive? And in order to condemn the impunity of the perpetrators of all forms of such abuse and the system that allows it?

These are the questions that we are asking all those in the Church and all those of good will.