All Alina wants is an apology from the church, but after 10 years she still hasn’t had one
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Alina has lived for many years with the effects of being sexually abused as a child by a Catholic priest.
She is also concerned about the way she was treated by the church when she reported the abuse.
Alina grew up in the 1960s in a Catholic family with her parents and siblings. She says her father was a ‘lovely man’.
She describes how the parish priest, Father John, spent a lot of time in her home, to the point that he was ‘almost part of the family’. He would take Alina and her siblings on outings to the fairground, the beach and for meals.
The children enjoyed these trips, Alina says, because they were treats they wouldn’t usually have. Sometimes Father John stayed overnight with them.
Although she didn’t realise what it was at the time, she now knows that Father John sexually abused her several times when she was aged between about four and 10 years old.
She remembers him telling her she was a ‘heathen’, and saying ‘you’re not a good Catholic’. Her family were devoutly religious, and they revered the priest, so she now sees that this was emotional abuse.
After Father John died, Alina’s mother admitted that he was the biological father of Alina and her sibling. Alina also discovered from one of her siblings that they too had been sexually abused by the priest.
This shocking news had a devastating effect on her that she still feels today. Her marriage broke down, she became depressed and had a nervous breakdown, she says, from ‘overthinking’ about the abuse.
She began to feel that it was important to report the abuse she had suffered, and she contacted the archdiocese safeguarding team that covered the parish she had lived in as a child.
Alina says she was shocked by the response she received. Her report was met with cynicism and disbelief, with the safeguarding officer using phrases such as ‘if this has happened to you’. The officer later told her that checks on the priest had been made and ‘there was nothing to suggest that he would sexually abuse anyone’.
She recounts how she was dismayed by the total lack of warmth and empathy shown to her by the officer, and their lack of understanding about how sexual abusers groom and manipulate victims. She feels the church officials were more concerned about protecting the priest than protecting children.
Alina thinks it is vitally important that people who report abuse should receive a response from staff who have had suitable training and with kindness, warmth and empathy, not cold disbelief, as she was. She says ‘If you are in that role and you’re not naturally a warm and caring person that isn’t a role you should do’.
She also believes that victims and survivors should be able to report abuse by clergy to organisations that are funded by the church but with no religious affiliation.