The Meeting With Abuse Victims

By Father James Martin
I had a prayer answered today.
Since 2002, in my prayers, meditations and discussions about the sex abuse crisis, I’ve often returned to thoughts about the healing power of ritual. Besides the necessary concrete remedies (making financial restitution to the victims, removing and disciplining abusive priests and the bishops who moved around those priests, and setting up guidelines for safer environments for children, for example), I’ve often wondered if symbolic gestures could help encourage the process of healing victims and their families.
Perhaps I am naïve, but I’ve always imagined three actions, undertaken by ministers of the church, which might help to bind up the wounds of those who have been harmed by ministers of the church.
The first would be this: bishops responsible for moving around abusive priests would wash the feet of a group of victims during the Mass at Holy Thursday, the traditional time when priests wash the feet of parishioners, in direct imitation of Jesus at the Last Supper. The second symbolic gesture would be for a bishop to prostrate himself, at the foot of the altar of his cathedral, and publicly ask his diocese for forgiveness.
Of course, without concrete steps (as described above), these rituals would be largely meaningless. But if accompanied by those steps, such gestures might possibly serve as powerful symbols of penitence, by physically embodying the intent of the church.
There is another symbolic gesture that I’ve always dreamed about: the pope himself might come to this country and meet with victims — from Boston, if possible.
That happened this afternoon, meeting with victims of clergy sexual abuse when Pope Benedict XVI met privately with “five or six victims.” “They prayed together,” said Federico Lombardi, S.J., the official Vatican spokesman. “Also, each of them had their own individual time with the Holy Father,” Lombardi said. “Some were in tears.” The encounter took place in the chapel of the office of the Vatican ambassador to the United States, in Washington, shortly after the Papal Mass at Nationals Stadium.
At the meeting, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, ground zero of the clergy abuse crisis, presented the pope with a notebook containing the names of abuse victims. There were over 1,000 names.
I don’t want to overstate anything, or paint this encounter as a panacea. The sex abuse crisis is not over. Many people are still suffering, many parishes are still damaged, and much trust in the church is still lost. It takes more than a single meeting to heal a lifetime of pain. And it was a brief meeting.
But I do want to state something clearly: Pope Benedict XVI has done what many people, including me, have long prayed for. It is not the end of the crisis. It is not the cure for the crisis. But it is a profound symbol, and in the Catholic tradition a symbol is not “just a symbol.” It is something that points to a reality greater than itself, and in pointing to that reality helps to make it real.
I pray that today’s extraordinary meeting might indeed point to something greater for the victims and their families, as well as for the entire church: true and lasting healing, reconciliation and peace.