Title: Theologian: New Zealand Catholic bishops bungle response to clergy abuse
Earlier this year, New Zealand’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care found that “Catholic Church leaders have not been accountable or transparent to their congregations and the broader community about the nature and extent of abuse and neglect by their members.” The commission also reported how such a lack of accountability has impacted the church leaders’ ability to provide an adequate response.
But now that inadequacy has reached another level as church leaders revictimize the abused and offend the entire faithful through a recently mandated “Litany of Lament.” All Massgoers were told to beg for mercy for the “crimes and sins of sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse perpetrated by clergy,” and for “the failure of pastors and shepherds who did not respond to the cries of the abused.”
For innocent churchgoers (along with clerical and religious abuse survivors and family members of victims) to recite “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned” in relation to the sins and crimes of priests and bishops means they take the guilt and responsibility of those sins and crimes onto themselves. This amounts to another form of abuse, and for the survivors and their family members, it is revictimization.
The bishops have now created a pretext in which if you recite this litany, you receive God’s mercy on yourself for the crimes and sins of clergy against children, young people and vulnerable adults.
However, the people are not responsible for those crimes. Attempts by church leaders to shift responsibility only increases the problem of clerical and religious sexual abuse.