One can scarcely imagine the pain borne into St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in
Dublin last month at a Mass — “A Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” —
offered for the victims of sexually abusive priests.
It was a reminder that the scandal, a global catastrophe for the Roman
Catholic Church and a national tragedy in Ireland, is also a universe of
individual tragedies.
But there was also hope that some church leaders,
at least, are facing up to that pain and that catastrophe.
The
archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, and Cardinal Séan O’Malley, the
archbishop of Boston, presided over the Mass, which went to unusual
lengths to involve victims and to gaze unflinchingly at their suffering.
With 400 people in attendance, lectors read long passages from official
reports on decades of abuse in Irish parishes and schools — horrific
reading for a sacred space.
A few victims interrupted the proceedings
with their own stories of shame and terror.
Just as unusual, even startling, was the way the archbishop and cardinal
made personal the church’s act of contrition.
They lay prostrate in
silence before a bare altar.
They washed and dried the feet of eight
abuse victims — just as the Catholic clergy do at Mass on Holy Thursday
to recall how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, a gesture of humility
and service.
Archbishop Martin offered what may be the most specific apology
yet, showing an understanding — rare among his peers — of the
difference between lip service and true repentance.
“When I say ‘sorry,’
” the archbishop said, “I am in charge. When I ask forgiveness,
however, I am no longer in charge. I am in the hands of the others. Only
you can forgive me; only God can forgive me.”
Not all survivors of abuse will likely accept the apology.
They are
right that the church has a long way to go to cleaning house and
repairing trust with its flock.
Reforms are lagging, many victims are
still waiting for compensation and a full accounting of crimes.
Some
predator priests are still in ministry.
Bishops have largely avoided
punishment or credible repentance.
Still, gestures and ritual can be meaningful, and forgiveness has to
begin somewhere, which is why the Dublin Mass seemed to be a true step
forward.
“We want to be part of a church that puts survivors, the
victims of abuse, first,” Cardinal O’Malley said, getting it right.
And for that Sunday, anyway, the victims took precedence.
“What the hell
did I do wrong as a child?” asked a man, Robert Dempsey, who told of
being abused in a mental institution.
“What the hell did any of us do?”