Immediately after our time together as a parish to reflect on the recent abuse scandal on Tuesday night, September 18th, I headed out for a mountain retreat in Washington. The time off of the grid was incredibly refreshing. It was reminiscent of Jesus’ call in Mark 6:31, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Deserted indeed described this retreat, both in location and in lack of cellphone service. I had a lot of time to reflect and pray about what
transpired in our time together September 18th. Here are a few reflections I’ve had:
The pain is real.
We were there that Tuesday to honor the pain that was there, a deep pain. Our parish is feeling the effects of this issue in real ways. We
witnessed as people shared their anger,
frustration, doubt, confusion, and sadness. All of these are appropriate reactions to this terrible evil that has happened. We also know that for everyone who shared, there was even more pain that was not expressed.
Giving people a space where they can be honest is essential.
Faith isn’t meant to be done on our own. Being in an authentic community is about creating space where people can be honest. One of the jobs of a pastor is to create space like this. That Tuesday night felt significant as we created a space where we could really talk about this. What we were talking about was hard, but I couldn’t help but be grateful for our parish
family here at St. Victoria. I don’t want to take for granted a community that is willing to be honest and willing to tackle the hard stuff together.
We are not done talking about this.
This pain touches all of us in some way. To me, it feels like a wound that needs to be cleaned out. The process of cleaning and dressing spiritual wounds is an incredibly important, but challenging task. We need to, and we will keep talking about this.
What’s next isn’t clear.
There were many suggestions as to what we could do next. All of them came from an honest place of wanting to solve the problem. The evil we are responding to is complicated. There isn’t an easy way to solve this. This issue is going to take our wisest laity and clergy. It’s going to take honesty on where we have fallen short. It’s going to mean change. It’s going to take seeking God’s will. The only thing that is clear is that we are going to need to pray and work hard. We must continue to pray for God’s discernment for our Church’s leadership as we figure out what’s next.
There are some losses we don’t get over, but we do know this, with God’s help we can get through them. On Thursday, October 4th, on the Feast of St. Francis we will have a twelve-hour prayer vigil for justice for those harmed by the church, specifically the sexual abuse victim/survivors. As we do this, may we be healed and bring a more significant commitment to uproot all the ways in which we fall short of who we are called to be as the Church.
The weekend of October 6th and 7th, for those who feel called to this, there will be a second collection of goodwill for abuse survivor victims. Many other parishes in our archdiocese will be doing the same. Checks can be made to St. Victoria with “survivors” in the memo and the money will be given directly to a designated fund that will go directly to victim survivors free from administrative costs or attorney fees.
This is tough stuff. But, important stuff that we need to keep talking about. My invitation to you is this: Will you join me in praying a prayer of discernment for me and our church as we try to figure out what’s next?
Fr. Bob
