Testimony Against Abuse
A statement by Doris Reisinger, given in Bern on 29th June 2019. English translation by Sr Patricia Harriss CJ.
The cruellest thing about abuse is the powerlessness and loneliness. Perpetrators have an easy game when their victim is defenceless. Through the act they make them even more defenceless. Through the act the perpetrator conveys to the victim: You don’t count. Now nobody can help you. Nobody would believe you. I can do what I like with you. You are completely alone. God-forsaken. All on your own.
That is what victims feel. That is what many of us have not only believed but experienced, for such a long time, far too long. That we really were alone. In our families, our communities, in the Church and in public. And this aloneness of the victim has made it easy for the perpetrators and those who cover up, and those in the Church who look the other way.
They have made it so unbelievably easy to silence us.
Even though there are so many of us.
We, human beings, who suffer under abuse of power in the Church, whose psychological and physical integrity has been wounded, whose freedom and worth have been disregarded; persons who as children have experienced sexualised violence by priests, deacons, religious sisters and other Church employees. Young people who offered their lives enthusiastically in serving the Church, and then had to experience sexual interference, psychological force and spiritual abuse. Theologians, women and men, who were persuaded by procedures and sentences, because they dared to work theologically in the spirit of intellectual freedom. Whistle-blowers who were put under pressure and slandered. People whose work, whose position, or even whose Church membership was taken away, simply because they had fallen in love. We see ourselves faced with holders of responsibility in the Church, who exercise a kind of power over people in this Church that has resemblances to a totalitarian regime. For our chances of defending ourselves in formal ways come up against nothingness. There is no parliament in our Church. There are no open debates, and no genuinely free theological research, there are no transparent proceedings and law-making process, there is no independent judge or ecclesiastical lawyer, there is no committee of inquiry, there is no controlling authority and no procedure for removal from office.
Not yet. But we are not going to go on accepting that.
That is why we are here today. We want to give a testimony against abuse. We want to make it clear that we are not in agreement with the way in which the Church wants to deal with perpetrators, with those who cover up, and with those who are affected. That proceedings take place, as before, in the dark, under obligations to secrecy, without either people in general in the church or even those concerned having a right to examine the records. That laws and measures for dealing with abuse should be negotiated in small, anonymous, ecclesiastical back rooms and announced from on high, without debates within the Church or discoveries by independent experts being considered. That the majority of the accused do not take responsibility for their guilt. That bishops, religious superiors and their assistants, who have systematically covered up for decades, do not have to answer to any Church court, and continue in office as if they had done nothing wrong.
It is anger that drives us. But it is also much more. It is above all – and I dare to say this – loving concern. It is love that brings us here. Because we love our faith. We love our Church. Otherwise we should not be here today. We are here because we have loved this Church for so long, and because we are at home in this Church – and because we want to go on being at home in it.
And precisely because of that we cannot bear it any more, that for years now we have had to live in sorrow because our Church, contrary to what we thought for a long time, is not a good home. That the Church is a house in which the law of the stronger rules, in which a few walk over many others, in which children, young men and women are sexually abused, and in which those who open their mouths are beaten or pushed out of the door. We are not going along with that any longer. Precisely because we love our Church! And because we hold fast to the core of the Christian message. That is why we are here today!
We want the Church to be a good home for everyone. A place where even the most vulnerable among us can be safe and secure, where every person, of either sex, with their own experiences and needs, will be seen, and able to express themselves. A place in which persons in leadership positions not only have power but also assume responsibility, in that they listen to the people for whom they are there, give them space, care about them, look after them and encourage them. A place in which each one has a voice. A place in which each is welcome. A place in which justice rules, and in which perpetrators of violence have no room to manoeuvre, but are made to explain themselves without beating about the bush.
Even if we have little formal power. Today we know: For a long time we have not been powerless any more. We are no longer defenceless. Because there are many of us. And: we have the better arguments.
But above all we are concerned about something worth struggling for: about humanity, about justice, about honesty. It’s about a Church that takes the message of Jesus seriously. And I certainly don’t claim to know so exactly what Jesus’ message is, but with all due caution a theological answer can be given: to dominate others, to marginalise them and reduce them to silence, can never be reconciled with Jesus’ message. Never. In its core, Jesus’ message is always liberation of the oppressed, healing of the wounded, and belonging for the outcast. And so today we look each other in the eyes and know: We, all of us, who have struggled in this Church, and are still suffering: we are not alone. And this means also: we are not powerless any longer, because we are many. We are part of a worldwide movement. With us stand Catholic women and men in all countries on this earth, in all local churches of North, Middle and South America, over Africa, Europe, as far as East Asia, and raise their voices. Those affected bind themselves together. Professionals of all disciplines, doctors and psychologists, lawyers, theologians and politicians, stand beside us, courageous priests and bishops also put themselves on our side. And we know: we are fighting together for something worth fighting for, for a just, human and lovable Church.
Briefly: we are here today, not only because something must change, but because something has changed. People are no longer looking the other way. Victims are no longer alone. But many people are setting out, determinedly, to win a human Church.
I believe that the force of this movement will not let itself be stopped, because: what impels us is love for the Church, not for the Church as an abstract category, but love for the people in this Church, for people with names and faces. And therefore there is nothing that can stop us. For humanity is not a matter of opinion. And whoever loves has no need to be anxious.
Dr Doris Reisinger is a former Roman Catholic nun, philosopher, theologian, author and activist. Her website is https://www.doris-reisinger.de/