This Sunday (17th November) is Safeguarding Sunday. A survivor has provided their perspective on this, which has been shared on the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency’s website today:
This ‘Safeguarding Sunday’ please take a moment to really listen to the voice of survivors of abuse within the Church.
Have you been moved by the accounts of Church victim survivors you have heard this week? Have you felt that pain? If not, what has put you outside the mystical body of Christ?
Time, time, and time again survivors are telling you what is still wrong with our culture, our formation and our structures. But are you listening? Are you really listening?
The impact of what is ‘wrong’ lands on survivors – and it lands heavily. So many left with broken lives, trying, decades after the original abuse, to deal with savagely intense pain compounded by what, for far too many, seems like a cold or desperately inadequate response from their Church.
If you speak about ‘safeguarding’, please think carefully before you emphasise ‘how far we’ve come’, and make it crystal clear that there is a very very long way to go. Whatever your place in the Church is, please, recognise the power and dignity that your baptism gives you.
Lose your excessive deference – it harms people. Hear the call to listen to those who have been harmed and advocate strongly for justice for them.
We talk about a Church being a safe space or sanctuary – this Sunday, please have a long hard look at yours, and try to imagine how it’s perceived through the eyes of someone whose ability to trust has been shattered by Church abuse.
A Roman Catholic Church survivor clinging on and trying to work with those who wish to build a safer church.
You can view a copy of the original article by clicking HERE