IRELAND
Journal
Mark Vincent Healy is a campaigning abuse survivor. Read his full report and response to the NSBCCCI audit into the Holy Ghost Fathers here.
THE FIRST MALE survivor of Irish clerical child sexual abuse to meet with Pope Francis was myself, Mark Vincent Healy. I followed Marie Kane, also from Ireland, as the fourth survivor to meet with Pope Francis. There were six of us presented to Pope Francis from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany.
It was such an important and historic moment for Irish survivors where the Pope was left in no doubt about the human and spiritual cost that clerical child sexual abuse causes. Those costs over decades were in the form of self-harming to suicide to spiritual isolation and what is called ‘soul murder’.
In my letter I personally presented to Pope Francis I wrote:
The world will indeed be curious about our meeting and wondering what will come of it. There are opposing opinions about such a meeting ranging from high hope on the one hand, to scepticism, if not derision, that nothing positive can possible come of such a meeting. For my part I can only hold out hope.I contacted other survivors and their families to let them know I had been accorded this opportunity. Many do not trust the Catholic Church and for good reason considering the enormous betrayal of trust which was later followed by the enormous distress in seeking remedy and redress.However, I feel any opportunity to dialogue and lay out the realities of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse is not to be squandered. I am not sure I have what it takes to give the sort of presentation this subject requires but I will be happy to have made the effort than to have lost the opportunity in not even trying.
A copy of my prepared letter had been sent to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin two days before meeting Pope Francis.
There had been and still is huge speculation about the survivors who met with Pope Francis. Indeed some of the comments have been very hurtful, portraying none of the difficulties and braveries exhibited in taking such a momentous step in agreeing to meet with the Patriarch of a Church of one billion followers, a church which has contributed to so much pain and suffering on children, its own children, the children of the living God, the very survivors who met with Pope Francis for the first time.
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