Pope "ashamed, outraged" by Irish sexual abuse - Child abuse crisis to spark Irish Church shake-up

  • Thread starter Thread starter lemonbeam
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Forgiveness is a choice and not a feeling…I have heard it said that revenge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die

My cousin was killed by a driver as he got off the school bus. It happened that his mother saw it…The man that hit him was guilty…He also happened to be a teacher that was not very nice to my cousin, and my cousin didn’t like him for it…My aunt and Uncle were in deep pain but they forgave him all the same
 
Lets pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help those wronged and suffering and angry to find a better way to deal with it…so they might find peace and move forward and be healed
 
redrosetea said:
Lets pray and ask the Holy Spirit to help those wronged and suffering and angry to find a better way to deal with it…so they might find peace and move forward and be healed
Click to expand...
I believe that we have to give people a chance to grieve. But it is true that in the process, those who are grieving must ask for the grace of peace.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
JReducation said:
I believe that we have to give people a chance to grieve. But it is true that in the process, those who are grieving must ask for the grace of peace.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
Click to expand...
I am not saying they shouldn’t grieve…but people can hold on so tightly to their right to feel like they do that it becomes a vicious cycle…How well does that work?..time and God are the only solutions but if they turn their back on God, I can’t see any way out for them

But we can help by praying for them and asked God to help them seek a true peace…I think I am not doing a good job explaining what I am trying to say…
 
redrosetea said:
I am not saying they shouldn’t grieve…but people can hold on so tightly to their right to feel like they do that it becomes a vicious cycle…How well does that work?..time and God are the only solutions but if they turn their back on God, I can’t see any way out for them

But we can help by praying for them and asked God to help them seek a true peace…I think I am not doing a good job explaining what I am trying to say…
Click to expand...
I agree and understand. I believe the model of grief is Mary. Mary stands at the foot of the cross. Observe, she is totally silent. She does not hold on to the anger, the grief, the pain. This is what you’re speaking about.

As I posted before, I lost my family. It was an easy temptation to believe that I had the right to be angry and hurt. But part of holiness is to keep our eyes on Jesus and to fight the temptation to judge or the tempation to reject peace. It can be very tempting to burden our hearts with grief and anger. This is why Judas committed suicide. He was grieved and angry. He never took that next step that Mary and the other Apostles did, to thank God for the grace of suffering. Judas could have been forgiven, had he accepted the sorrow for his situation as part of the human condition and asked for the grace of peace. When we deny ourselves the prayer for peace, we lose hope. God cannot save us, if we lose hope.

You’re right. We have to recognize the pain and the grief and hope for the peace that only Christ can give. When in pain, we have to be gentle with ourselves and pray for peace. Even if you don’t feel it immediately, you will have it.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
It would be good if all those who have been abused could embark on a path towards forgiveness of their abuser, but more often than not, the situation is more complex than that.

I have a very close friend from school who was sexually abused for over three years by a friend of her family. She was 8 when the abuse began and almost 12 when it stopped. I never knew any of this until we were both in our thirties and she confided in me very unexpectedly at another friend’s wedding. Since then we have talked long into the night on many occasions. She is a charming, gentle, insightful, reflective, caring person whom people almost instinctively like and admire. Amazingly, she is in a stressful profession and is very highly thought of by her colleagues. Yet, she has been in counselling with a Catholic psychotherapist on several occasions, and has been hospitalised following two suicide attempts. She seems not to have any anger at her abuser or at anyone else other than herself. In fact, she doesn’t seem to feel anything about him at all. Instead, forty years on she still blames herself for the abuse, and blames herself that her abuser was killed in a car accident (she hated him, therefore she caused his death). She has taken on the burden of her abuser’s guilt in ways that are so destructive of her spiritual life that it is beyond painful to see. Nothing seems to be able to move her on from this. I don’t think she feels she has a ‘right’ to feel like this; I think she feels she has no right to feel any other way.
 
Interesting article from the Irish Independent:

independent.ie/opinion/analysis/liberal-church-wouldnt-handle-abuse-differently-1971194.html

The author makes the very important point that the liberal “reform” bishops of the 1960s and onward did little or nothing to stop abuse…and that they were less likely to use canon law to punish offenders than previous bishops. There are obviously exceptions; Bernard Law was conservative and he obviously failed in his duties. Former Archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland, one of the most liberal bishops in the U.S., always struck me as one of the worst bishops I’ve ever read about, at least in the Midwest.
 
thealtonroute said:
Interesting article from the Irish Independent:

independent.ie/opinion/analysis/liberal-church-wouldnt-handle-abuse-differently-1971194.html

The author makes the very important point that the liberal “reform” bishops of the 1960s and onward did little or nothing to stop abuse…and that they were less likely to use canon law to punish offenders than previous bishops. There are obviously exceptions; Bernard Law was conservative and he obviously failed in his duties. Former Archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland, one of the most liberal bishops in the U.S., always struck me as one of the worst bishops I’ve ever read about, at least in the Midwest.
Click to expand...
Frankly, I wouldn’t trust David Quinn’s opinion on anything. He has a habit of ‘forgetting’ inconvenient facts.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top