So… last week Fr Hans Zollner resigned from the Vatican Independent Safeguarding Commission and in his resignation statement he appeared to be indicating that his decision was due to his concerns about the level of transparency, concerning various aspects of staff recruitment/roles, finances, decision making and the nature of the relationship with the Dicastery of Faith.
Personally, to see such transparent integrity in the Church is really inspiring - Pope Francis must be secretly proud of his courageous Cleric, although I'm sure disappointed to see him go under such circumstances.
The big question of course now is: Why on earth would anyone in the Vatican want compromise the integrity, independence and quality of the work of this Independent Safeguarding Commission? This can't have happened overnight? Did it begin after the Indep Safeguarding Commission was moved to the Dicastery of Faith? Is this an indictment of the poor quality management / intervention skill of the staff of the Dicastery of Faith or is it implying there is an deliberate attempt to compromise / control / manipulate the Independent Safeguarding Commission?
Why would anyone want to do that?
Is it true that after focusing on sex abuse cases the Commission were due to start looking at Spiritual Abuse cases? Who would benefit from a compromised Indep Safeguarding investigating Commission?
Could the serial evidence based, serial spiritual abuser Nun, that I am calling for to be retired away from the monastic congregation where I and a great number of other women were spiritually abused, be behind all this, in her endless attempts to avoid accountability?
Possibly?
Does that evidence based, serial abuser Nun know that Fr Zollner could not be 'bought' or intimidated and that there was a real chance she would be retired out of that monastic congregation, after Fr Zollner had read all the spiritial abuse testimonies, all relating to her?
Has this abuser Nun and her allies over the last year deliberately compromised the transparency and independence of Fr Zollners Indep Safeguarding Commission, knowing that Fr Zollner would not tolerate it and then resign? Would it benefit this decades long abuser Nun if the Indep Safeguarding Commission were staffed with more ‘malleable clergy’ can be persuaded to ‘look the other way’ / give an insufficient watered down response and let this abuser Nun remain in the congregation?
I think it’s a case of ‘all of the above’.
Why are these Catholic Religious clergy, in positions of power and influence in the Catholic Church, behaving this way, instead of imitating Jesus and the Truth of how He lived and giving justice for the abused and proportionate disciplinary measures to all abusers and cover up abusers?
Is it because, like the pagans of the Bible, they simply do not know their right from their left hand anymore – which could be due to a whole host of different reasons? Have they always been that way, or did something happen to that Religious, during their ecclesiastical life, that damaged them in some way/that corrupted them in some way. How on earth does a Catholic religious become corrupted abusers / cover up abusers?
And finally, the million dollar question is this - Is there any possibility that they could - like the pagans of Ninevah - have potential to repent?
After all, nothing is impossible for God.
Ok. Well first of all, I think it would be helpful to establish what is ‘normal’. What should an organisation centred on the Truth of Jesus look like/behave like?
Romans 12:16
Live in harmony with each other. Do not be proud, but willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Humility
The Bible tells us that normal Catholic organisations/ communities/ societies based on humility are abuse and clericalism free.
Did Jesus Himself really say that? Well, yes, he did.
Matt 11:29
"Take my yoke upon you for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest"
Ok, so if we apply this to the universal abuse crisis – if every Religious lived a truly humble life, all forms of abuse would be impossible – it would be eradicated overnight. Fr Hans Zollner’s research showed a direct correlation between sexual abuse and the Clergy abuse of power, e.g. of the power given with the role of Parish Priest.
If true humility existed in the Curia and Magisterium, then all Independent Safeguarding Commission investigations would be welcome, as too would their recommendations.
Even if the outcome of an independent safeguarding investigation highlighted serious Church safeguarding failings and recommended immediate concrete actions and steps to be taken, a truly humble Church would do what Jesus asked and take up the ‘yoke of humility’, then accept and implement the Indep Safeguarding Commission recommendations.
From an outsiders perspective it look from where I’m sitting that safeguarding whistle blowers and Diocese/Indep Safeguarding Commission/Agency investigation outcomes/recommendations is bruising the Clerical ego’s of those who may have been swanning around for decades thinking they were some great intellect/player/yoda.
How serious a Pride problem does the Catholic Church have to have, when safeguarding recommendations from Indep Commissions/Agencies or whistle-blowers are deliberately dismissed ignored, dismantled, solely in order to protect the personal reputation/self-esteem/ego of certain Church clergy, who had position themselves as the local ‘expert’ but had clearly ‘got it wrong’.
Because no Church ego is worth more than the safety and well being of any Catholic member, under the Church’s duty of care.
Morally, how can Church religious not have the humility to follow the recommendations of an Indep Safeguarding investigation?
How do Catholic Religious become infected with the mortal sin of pride? The Holy father spoke so powerfully about this, in his Christmas address to the Curia:
This is a huge to topic, but I’d like to focus on just one point - something I’d never considered before my own experience of spiritual abuse and those Religious involved.
We hear so much about how many children are abused by clergy – the figures are shocking. But what we rarely hear about is how many Religious working in positions of power and influence in the Church today, were themselves sexually/spiritually abused by another Religious, during their own religious life and were then persuaded by that same abuser, or another Church Senior, not to raise a safeguarding report – and all this done under the pretext that ‘letting the abuser off’, was a sign of how ‘good’ a Catholic they were /how strong was their vocation.
Being silent about an abuser is not the truth of Jesus.
Today is Palm Sunday and we often hear today’s Gospel quote used to justify not reporting an abuser: Matt 26, “But Jesus was silent”. But if you actually look at that Bible text, Jesus does verbally respond to his Pharisee abusers. Jesus tells them, in no uncertain terms the Truth and dignity of who He really is. So when we speak up about sexual and spiritual abuse in the Church, we are being like Jesus, we are doing what He did. We are declaring the Truth and Dignity of Jesus, in who’s image we have been made.
Psalm 106:37
“They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods.”
The sad reality is that most abusers in the Catholic Church, who’s victims were persuaded/coerced/career incentivised to ‘let them off’, went on to abuse other people.
Can you imagine how that first Religious abuse victim would feel? If they had spoken up about their own abuse they could have prevented someone else’s. What a terrible burden for an abuse victim’s conscience. What sort of repressed anger would these Religious be carrying around? How may that repressed anger show itself?
I have wondered about this - how does repressed ‘red mist’ anger, rightly felt by abused Religious, who through persuasion of a Religious Senior, have 'let off' their own sexual/spiritual abusers, express itself in the life of that abused Religious, long term?
It's also interesting to consider how many abused Religious, who ‘let off’ their abusers under pressure from a Religious senior, get 'rewarded' for this in terms of Ecclesiastical promotion/privalege/power - and wouldn't that set up on on-going toxic cycle?
Despite trying to project an exterior attitude of 'mercifull forgiveness' to their unreported abusers, is there a risk that all this suppressed anger, in many abused Religious, may rear up or be expressed in maladaptive ways?
Human psychology is very complex, Transference is common.
Is there a chance that Religious who have been abused in their ecclesiastical life and then persuaded by a Religious Senior to ‘let off’ their abuser, as a sign of their 'good' Catholic Faith/vocation, are themselves the very ones now involved in sabotaging Diocese & Indep Safeguarding commission/agencies investigations/Whistle-blower cases, by offering their 'make-it-go-away' cover-up services – as some sort of deeply maladaptive way of venting all their own repressed anger?
I really think all that may be playing a significant part in the possible internal resistance to Catholic Church anti-abuse reform.
Can you imagine being an abused Religious and suddenly realise you had been fed a massive lie and covering up for your own/some one elses abuser was infact nothing to do with the Truth of Jesus and our Catholic Faith? Can you imagine what a Faith/vocation shaker that would be. No wonder they are blocking it out.
The second factor that I think has contributed to the Catholic Church abuse Crisis is the lack of – for want of a better way to say this – a lack of a Vatican Human Resources Dept.
In all large, professional organisations there is a Human Resources dept. Amongst many of its functions, this is where all the Job Descriptions, Professional Codes of Conduct and objective, fair, linear Disciplinary pathway procedures are held.
I can’t see this in the Vatican.
The monastic order where I was spiritually abused had refused to sign up to the Churches Safeguarding policy for years. I was told that congregation was ‘Pontifical Rite’. I asked why the Holy See/Magisterium couldn’t discipline the congregation e.g. verbal warning, written warning, impose sanctions, etc, if it continued to defy the Holy See and not sign up to safeguarding. I was told there was nothing written in Canon Law that would allow that.
How can there be no written disciplinary pathway for Pontifical Rite Religious congregations?
The Diocese Safeguarding Officer, I was working with who by then had received a huge number of recent/historic spiritual abuse testimonies about the same abuser Nun from the same congregation, was told she could not refer this case to SICSAL for a safeguarding investigation into this specific evidence based, serial spiritual abuser Nun because there was no ‘pathway’ for a Diocese Safeguarding Officer to make a direct safeguarding investigation referral to SICAL, for a Nun in a Pontifical Rite congregation.
How can that be? That is madness.
The Catholic Church needs a transparent Human Resources dept, that covers the entire Universal Church, with clear Professional Codes of conduct, written in Canon Law, applicable to all members, Lay and Religious, Diocesan and Pontifical Rite – one set of rules for all, including those in ‘high places’, and those with friends in ‘high places’. Equal playing field.
Next, these Professional codes of conduct need to be consistently, unnegotiable and fairly enforced, with the normal, objective, clear disciplinary pathway we see recommended in the Bible:
Matthew 18:15-17
“If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
It's not rocket science.
Without this, fostering humility in every member of the Catholic Church from the lowliest to the highest ranking member, will be impossible – and pride/power/influence/sociopathy/psychopathy behaviours will continue to choke any possibility of real anti-abuse Church reform.
The third and final point I want to make is about the definitions of abuse. From my experience I think that the driving force behind the spiritual abuse I experienced and witnessed may not have just been related to an abuse of power but a misdirected sex drive. We know from criminal court case history that violent crimes committed against women can be related to sexual deviancy.
I personally think that more research needs to be done into cases of Church Spiritual abuse and its connection to / influence by an unmanaged celibacy / sex drive. Deliberately trying to push women to mental and physical breaking point could infact produce the same sort of sexual thrill in the abuser perpetrator, as we sometimes see in serial killers. There is loads of science behind this - sex and violence are closely linked in the brains circuitry. What if it turned out that Spiritual Abuse cases were infact just another form of sexual abuse cases?
There is a disturbing song by Billy Holiday called ‘Strange Fruit’. It’s about racism in the deep south of America, with the ‘strange fruit’ being the swinging bodies of lynched African-American’s.
In the tree of the Catholic Church today, we also have these ‘strange fruits’. The global, institutionalised abuse crisis has left so many ‘dead bodies’ hanging from it’s branches, in full view of the Laity and the world. It is just what the devil wants.
In my local parish there was a Christmas Nativity play, by the Catholic Primary School and it was held it in the Church, not the school hall. The parish was jam packed with Catholic school children and their families, that none of the regular parishioners had ever seen before. It seemed like only a handful of Catholic Primary school children and their families actually go to Mass on Sunday's. How did things get to this? Isn't that shocking - and it's happening in every parish.
The Church can blamed secular society all they want to, and do but the cold, hard truth is that its own pride fuelled, decades long past and present abuse crisis and cover up abuse culture, has led directly to all those empty Church pews seats.
If the Catholic Church can put Jesus back at the centre, put Humility back at the centre and have the humility itself, to listen and action recommendations from serious, well researched Indep Safeguarding Commissions, agencies and the voice of abuse survivors themselves, then there will be no more ‘strange fruits’ hanging from Holy Church's bows and our Church pews will be filled once again with young people and families – not to mention the Seminaries and Novitiates.
Nothing is impossible for God.
All those Church Religious, who have made an ecclesiastical career out of making inconvenient Church abuse cases/abuse whistle-blowers 'go away' / be ‘neutralised’, remind me of Michael Douglas in that Oliver Stone movie ‘Wall Street’.
These Religious only know how to ‘kill’, they have no idea how to nurture and grow.
If we could just 're-condition' these 'clockwork anti-Vatican reform Darliks' and put them back into parishes where they can re-direct all their considerable energies into loving the flock, developing the flock through humble role modelling not by force. Re-discover their the passion they had for their original vocation again and coming Home to Jesus.
If Nineveh can do it, so can the Catholic Church.
Support Pope Francis in his global anti-abuse reform mandate.
Viva Papa!
Exodus 22:22-24
22 “Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. 24 My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.
Matt 25:40
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
God bless you Fr Hans Zollner.
Viva Papa!
I
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