UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abused and Healing
Virginia Jones
All priests and members of religious orders should sign each reply (to this survey) submitted, and included their own estimate of how much money they personally intend to pay for the damages to victims and when. Responses will then be initialed by their immediate supervisors, collated and tabulated by their superiors, audited by victim owned accounting firms, results published in all the places named in Question 8b, which would be mandatorily subscribed to by every church, and placed daily on the dining table in every residence inhabited by priests and members of religious orders. The independent auditor would also be hired by priests and members of religious orders to conduct an evaluation of effectiveness for the aforementioned process with continual review and change, in perpetuity.
–Anonymous survivor of clergy abuse
I really appreciate this survivor’s support. I quite agree with him, but I can’t even remotely attempt to do this without much more support from many more people. Please help for the sake of this survivor and many other survivors. Both survivors and their family members or loved ones can fill out this survey — please, only one response per survivor.
You can take the survey of survivor wants and needs here: Survey of Survivor Wants and Needs for Healing
Origin of the Survey
I started working on this survey on what clergy abuse survivors want and need for healing in the Fall of 2006, after contacting Olan Horne. Olan is a Massachusetts resident who was abused by the very prolific abuser, Fr. Joseph Birmingham. He worked with other survivors abused by Fr. Birmingham to organize meetings between survivors and both Cardinal Law and Cardinal O’Malley. He later met with Pope Benedict XVI. Olan also participated in an advisory group for the US Conference of Bishops on a survey of survivors and their experiences with the Catholic Church. Olan advised me to conduct a survey of what survivors wanted and needed for healing. It seemed obvious to me that he was correct. I wrote down a list of things survivors had suggested to me from Olan, Ray Higgins (father of a survivor and founder of the Therapy Trust for Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse) of Santa Barbara, California, and Elizabeth Goeke, then the SNAP support group facilitator here in Portland, Oregon, as well as ideas I had seen in numerous newspaper articles. Some ideas included in the survey were inspired by the work of Aaron Lazare MD, former Dean of the University of Massachusetts School of Medicine. Dr. Lazare studied apology for more than 20 years and is an expert on the healing power of effective apology. I presented my ideas to three different Victims’ Assistance Coordinators who worked for the Catholic Church, but they were not interested in my in put. So I sought advice on the construction of the survey from an instructor and researcher in the School of Social Work at Portland State University. She advised me on the construction of the survey.
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