Sir, – It is not surprising that no Irish victim of institutional abuse was invited to the Vatican’s “Towards Healing and Renewal” symposium in Rome last week. Instead, it was an Irish victim of clerical abuse who was invited.
The head of the organising committee, Fr Hans Zollner said: “It is very difficult to find people who are able and willing to speak in public of their pain and experience”. How can he say that when no Irish victim or survivor of institutional abuse, to the best of our knowledge, was asked?
There are two reasons for this omission. First, the symposium was not prepared for the world to know of the physical, sexual and emotional abuse by religious nuns, brothers and priests in state-funded institutions perpetrated on the most vulnerable children who in most cases had no parents to turn to.
Second, many victims of institutional abuse, contrary to what Fr Zollner said, are capable and eloquent to speak for themselves and would not be conditioned to speak at the symposium under Rome Rule.
It is hardly surprising that those of us who wrote to Rome seeking a meeting with Pope Benedict following the Ryan Commission report, did not receive even the courtesy of a response. It is apparent that the church as a whole does not wish to acknowledge the systemic widescale abuse that was inflicted in institutions and wishes to instead to confine its atonement to the victims of individual clerical abusers. – Yours, etc,
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