To all intents and purposes it looked like an email requesting supervision for a research proposal. Nothing unusual in that. I get a steady trickle of these. There was an attached letter which I opened, and immediately knew much more was at stake.
The communication was from a student I had had discussions with over ten years ago about a possible research topic. Without warning or further communication he vanished. Now he was about to open the door of his heart to reveal the reasons for his disappearance.
It was the sort of story I had heard often before when my wife and I were involved with the issue of clergy sexual abuse. It was a story of seduction, manipulation, violation and psychological damage.
In training for the priesthood this young man had been abused by a senior and much older seminarian, in whose pastoral care he had been placed. The seduction and manipulation extended to the young man's family and church community.
While the older seminarian went on to ordination, a position of trust and responsibility in the Church, the younger man's life fell into a spiral of self-destructive behaviours, symptomatic of post-traumatic stress. While the abuser is an honoured member of the Church community, the victim has been shunned by his family and church community. What's wrong with this picture!
The response of Church authorities has been less than inspiring. On advice the victim sought to contact the diocesan professional standards team. Each time he rang (some 20 times) he received a recorded message.
Try to imagine the leap of trust required to contact the Church to report abuse; the degree of agitation involved in drumming up the courage to tell one's story to those who represent the authorities of the very institution that abused you. And then to receive a recorded message — leave your details and we'll ring you back. This is not malicious, but it is a benign ineptitude, a stunning lack in moral imagination.
The sad thing is how little has changed since our original involvement some 15 years ago. Yes, documents and policies have been put in place; apologies have been expressed publicly and promises of doing better have been expressed. Even some degree of moral outrage: 'This must not happen again!' But in the end, not much has changed. Indeed it is still more of the same.
The problem is systemic. Not in the sense that the system produces abuse