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| Chicagoans offer testimony on abuse, healing By Michelle Martin Staff writer As the roughly 300 bishops who attended the Dallas meeting returned to their dioceses to implement the new sexual abuse policy, Ralph Bonaccorsi and Michael Bland returned to Chicago to keep doing their jobs: offering pastoral care and support to people who have been sexually abused by clergy and their families. “Our ministry is to respond to hurt and pain,” Bonaccorsi said, not to adjudicate or decide disciplinary measures. Bonaccorsi has led the archdiocese’s Victim Assistance Ministry since Cardinal Bernardin created it in 1992. He attended the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops June 13-16 meeting in Dallas as a consultant to the ad hoc committee working on the sexual abuse policy. Bland, a consulting psychologist in the office, spoke to the bishops about his own experience being of sexually abused by a priest. Since the abuse scandals started early this year, the office has heard from more people asking for help. “Many more people have come forward, out of pain, or because they want to be heard,” Bland said. “At times, that’s been difficult, to listen to the pain day in and day out. One of the things we do is give people time. Now we all have to give time to each other.” The new charter and norms adopted at the meeting call for all dioceses to have a ministry to provide care to victims, similar to the office Bonaccorsi put together in Chicago 10 years ago. At that time, he called on the wisdom and experience of Bland, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse, and also Mayra Flores, the administrative assistant and often the first contact for people who call. “She’s one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known,” Bonaccorsi said. In Dallas, Bland got headlines as one of four victims of clerical sexual abuse to address the bishops in open session. A former religious order priest who left because of the way his allegations were handled, he now coordinates therapy for other victims. Bland said he was invited to speak only days before the meeting and said yes, “simply because it felt right to me.” Having the bishops’ undivided attention as he spoke was a powerful experience, he said. “When I spoke, they were not fidgeting. They were silent. There was deep eye contact, gasps, wiping away of tears,” Bland said on June 15, as the bishops debated the new norms. “Sitting in that room, the bishops are not doing business as usual. Each time something comes to a vote, it’s a loud, overwhelming vote. It’s as if the bishops are shouting ‘amen.’” Having the bishops listen to survivors of sexual abuse could only help them understand the gravity of the problem. Until now, he said, accused priests have often been the bishops’ friends, while their accusers were unknown. “Each bishop knows the stories of priests who have been accused, their treatment, their pain,” he said. “But however painful it was, it was less painful than what the victims have suffered. … From today forward, it will be a little easier. Now they know the names of the people this will affect, both the priests and some of the victims.” In Bland’s case, the abuse happened when he was a teenager at the hands of a priest of the same order he later joined. Bland did not name the order in his talk, but Catholic News Service reported that the 1989 Official Catholic Directory listed him having been ordained a Servite in 1987. Bland did not disclose the abuse until after he was ordained. When he refused to meet with his abuser and the order’s attorneys, he said, he felt attitudes towards him change, as though his story wasn’t found credible. The priest was removed from his parish for treatment, but now serves at a pontifical university in Rome. Bland left the priesthood. Because Bland’s perpetrator is an order priest serving outside the country, Bland said, he doesn’t know how the new norms will affect him. Speaking openly about the abuse was hard, Bland said, but when he listened to a tape of himself, he could hear the healing. “As I listened to myself, I heard the strength and courage, and I felt it,” he said. Now Bland listens and tries to help people who have been hurt in similar ways. As a consulting psychologist, he coordinates counseling for them to make sure they are getting the services they need, at the expense of the archdiocese. Such coordination is one of the services the ministry provides to people who have suffered abuse, Bonaccorsi said. “When someone brings an allegation or identifies him or herself as a victim of clerical sexual abuse, our mission is to assist the person, frankly, in whatever way we can, in his or her journey toward healing and wholeness,” said Bonaccorsi. “Our focus is the pastoral care of the victim/survivor and their family, to allow them to have as much control as possible over what happens.” In some cases, the Victim Assistance Ministry helps the person through the process of making a formal allegation to the archdiocese’s fitness review board, or making contact with officials in another diocese where the abuse occurred. Despite a 10-year track record with hundreds of contacts from people who have been harmed or seen loved ones harmed by clerical sexual abuse, not many people seem to know about the ministry. Cardinal George recently suggested at a press conference that the silence means the ministry is doing a good job. Bonaccorsi and Bland both are quick to say that doesn’t mean the office is perfect. “We’ve made mistakes,” Bonaccorsi said. “I know we’ve tried real hard, but there are people out there who are dissatisfied with us for whatever reasons. We learn every day how to do it better, and we don’t always succeed.” Despite the dark days of crisis, Bonaccorsi said, he sees hope that things will be better. “I see this as a marvelous opportunity for the church to make right what was not made right in the past,” he said. “We have never worked harder in this ministry, and at the same time, we feel energized. It’s taxing—and terribly fulfilling.” Bland spoke more cautiously. “The church needs to be transformed for trust to be restored, transformed from the top down and the bottom up,” he said. “Bishops need to be our moral leaders, and some have failed. The people in the pews have called out for moral integrity.” Will the bishops listen? “I don’t know if they have an option,” Bland said. “Or rather, they’ve had an option for the last 10 or 15 years, and some have used it well, others have not. That’s the sadness for all.” Front Page | Digest | Cardinal | Interview |
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