CANADA
The Chronicle-Herald
November 18, 2013
BY FRANCIS CAMPBELL TRURO BUREAU
The Diocese of Antigonish wants to extend a healing hand to its parishioners.
Seven gatherings have been scheduled to talk about the past wrongs committed by the church and to search for productive ways to move forward.
“What these sessions are about is trying to hear what it’s been like to have been hurt by the church,” said Father Donald MacGillivray, a diocesan spokesman who now works out of St. Ninian’s Cathedral in Antigonish. “More specifically, how it’s been to have been hurt by a priest because of sexual abuse. That’s our starting point.
“It’s also about some kind of reconciliation, or at the very least, we’ll contemplate how we can move on from this. With anything in life, it’s not that we don’t make mistakes. People make mistakes, institutions make mistakes and I’m not saying this to try to downplay the difficult stuff that’s come from this mistake. The reality is that there’s been a wrong here. There’s been a mistake. It’s about for us to try to move on. For the people who have been hurt to move on and, as an institution to move on from this.”
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