On Monday 27 October, the Hon Justice Peter McClellan AM, Chair, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, gave a talk at the Blue Knot Day for adults surviving child abuse. In his speech he used a well-worn phrase most adults will have heard, 'children should be see but not heard.'
The Commissioner went on to point out that this attitude has prevailed for decades and has been a critical contributor to the conditions under which abusers could manipulate and silence children in order to abuse them.
The Commissioner also highlighted current efforts by most institutions, to modify their practices in order that future abuse can be recognised early and brought to the attention of those charged with the protection of children.
In fact, ask most office holders charged with the responsibility of child protection and they will readily outline efforts and safeguards to prevent future incidences of abuse.
It is interesting that the language of protection is now front and centre when it comes to the care and protection of children. This is admirable and in the culture of what has transpired, it is an achievement creating some quiet satisfaction. But could this sense of pride be masking something deeper and more troubling?
Might total focus on stringent practice and policy design be creating a hole where all that is heard is the drone to ‘moved on’? I listen and still hear whispering whimpers. There is something missing from the current lexicon. Where are the stories of people gathering to help mend and heal themselves and the victims of this horrific episode in our history?
I was brought to these questions after reading an account of how a family engaged with one of their own, who is the victim of severe sexual abuse. In this case, four siblings and their families gathered with their younger brother in what is called a restorative conference – conducted by Real Justice Australia – in order to come to a deeper understanding of how each of them had been affected by an incident that had occurred over thirty years ago.
What struck me about this account were the following paragraphs:
As he spoke, I did not hear the voice of a forty five year old man, I heard the cadences and soprano of the prepubescent boy who had experienced an unimaginable assault that had left him totally bewildered, isolated, confused and condemned to an unheralded life of spiralling pain.
His was the story told by an eleven year old who had not be able to speak to us, his family, to tell us what had happened to him when he was raped by a Catholic priest in the sacristy of our local parish church, moments before he was to serve at Mass.
My experience of that family conference was profound. Years later I struggle to understand its power.
My brother was not speaking to an empathetic counsellor or psychologist, those practitioner hands of care, peace and direction. He was not retelling events to an investigator or interested professional, they respectfully document but cannot touch the level of knowing that is in the DNA of belonging.
But what made this challenging encounter so powerful as it allowed us to face into some of our deepest fears and darkest pain?
Perhaps it was all about who we were. As he spoke, my brother was speaking to a totally authentic audience, us, his blood, his earliest memory web. We were the people with whom he had mirrored smiling and lost his balance to walk. We were the formative ones who had given, and still give, currency to the sinews and bones that hold his silhouette against the sun.
The circle itself was a supremely challenging and a pure encounter with the truth where together we faced the deep reality of his pain. Our words clanged against the armour of institutional denial. We were charged with compassion and anger and shame in equal measure as the haunting decades of suffering and denial slowly emerged from the mist. Yet through this single experience, there grew an awareness of grace that asked not only for recognition but quiet and humble reception.
Pope Francis has described the Church as a field hospital, but are church members capable of receiving and tending the wounded? I think it needs to be recognised that if it were not for the civil courts, no canon lawyer would be putting into place the laws and regulations that are being enacted today. There is a very large elephant squashing people out of churches around the world. I submit this creature will only walk out into the sun when we wrap families around their wounded ones?
Yes, this is a field hospital, can you hear the siren, or like a dog whistle, is it audible only to a few?
Vic O’Callaghan is a trainer in Restorative Practices. With his wife Liz, he works in schools and communities throughout Australia.