“It’s such a big shame for me to leave the priesthood after living it for last 30 years; but I feel the same shame to continue as a part of this Catholic Church, where clergy molest children and where Bishops fail to take actions against those priests.” These powerful words out of a desperate mind; brought my attention for the fi rst time to a certain group of people whom the safeguarding literature name as ‘secondary victims’. They represent two sets of people; those who relate in any manner with the ‘primary victims’ – the children who were subjected to the sexual abuse and those who relate in any degree with the perpetrator – who committed the abuse. Slowly I recognized the long list of those secondary victims within the Church; such as present and future family members of the abused child and that of the abuser, parishes where the priest had his ministries, faithful who received services of the particular priest in special occasions of their life like marriage, baptism or fi rst Holy communion, fellow priests of the same diocese or congregation, friends and colleagues of the offender, the clergy and catholic Bishops in general and so on. It is not an exaggerated list. Actually it will not be easy to find someone in the Catholic Church who is totally exempted from any kind of harm from these abuse scandals. Just as the ripples in the water, the wounds of those who are in close circle with both the victim child and with the offender priest will be profound and deep than those in the outer circles.
Studies among secondary victims showed some similarities in their initial reactions; without the difference that whether they are related with victim or with offender. Shock, doubt and confusions were the common response for the family members of the victim child. Usually the accused priest was a trusted, admired and loved fi gure within the family of the victim and therefore family members were confused about the reliability of the information, they unnecessarily doubted the involvement of the child in the incident and they remained shocked out of the tragedy. A qualitative study among the non-offending priests in England and Wales by Fr. Barry O’Sullivan, an English psychologist has noted their preliminary responses as a sense of shock, denial of the fact and the counter accusation as if it is an anti-clericalist thing to discredit the Church. Clerics felt anger towards the offender priest, towards Bishops for their poor response and even to the media people for the way they presented the scandals.
After the initial panic, family members began to blame themselves. They felt guilt since they could not protect their child. Unresolved grief and sorrow lasted for a long time. Some others were wounded again while going through the process of reporting it to the authorities. Whereas the non-offending priests spoke about their existential crisis, loss of identity, loss of confi dence in the institutional church and authority, fear of the future of the church, fear about false allegation for them, fear of working with children, shame, isolation, experience of being branded collectively, ridicule, humiliation, stigma, loss of pastoral initiatives etc. They recognized the damages these scandals brought in their relationship with Bishop, fellow priests and faithful.
In its core, secondary victims share with the real child victims some similar painful feelings like shame, fear, anger, grief and anxiety; but of course it is different in its gravity. Similar to the ‘primary victims’; they are also carrying the scars of an offence for which they are not subjectively responsible. Different from the primary victims, these people would fi nd it diffi cult to recognize themselves as victims. They don’t have any specifi c traumatic event to point out unlike to the primary victims. But they are under the impact of a series of traumatic events, the news regarding them and that of unending-ongoing discussions especially in the social media. Most of them remain themselves as clueless around their experience of shame, distress and anger. Therefore it is hard to address those wounds and to trace their resources in traumas related to these scandals. Since they don’t have primary information regarding these events; defense mechanisms like reaction formation or even denial would become primary options for many. It prevents the possibility of addressing them adequately. O’Sullivan’s study say that all the non-offending priest participants without any exception said that it was their primary opportunity to speak about their inner confl icts related to the child abuse scandals in its details. Though most of them lived with these wounds for over twenty years, they remained unaddressed. They had this chance only because they were invited to participate in that research; which means it was not out of their initiative and they never recognized the impact of these scandals in their personal life in its depth until the interview.
Recognizing and naming oneself as a ‘secondary victim’ would serve as the starting point towards their resilience. The highlight within the conclusions drawn by O’Sullivan’s research is about the need for listening to these wounded people. Researcher demands for creating opportunities, where these secondary victims would have chances for personal sharing; to talk openly and in depth. Stephen R. Covey says “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply”. Present situation demands for the people who would listen to these secondary victims to understand them; not to judge them or to argue with them. When someone hears them to reply or to argue with them, in the process of defending those arguments these victims would undergo some mode of re-victimization. An empathic listening would calm down the fl urry emotions out of a wounded heart. Being believed is a necessary passage for a victim to come out of the webs of hard feelings. Only then those victims would be ready for a healthy dialogue. It’s important to fi nd each others as better listeners than smart debaters at this context.
– Fr.Jo Paul Kiriyanthan