Voices of survivors

Voices of survivors

The safeguarding protocols and structures have been there since 2002; but 18 years later, in the week the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) released its report on the Catholic Church, we publish a Letter with 23 signatories. “Every effort has gone into protecting the reputation and resources of the Church, and providing care and support for our abusers,” they write, “while neglecting us, the victims and survivors”. It is a damning verdict. Catherine Pepinster, former editor of The Tablet, has been listening to survivors’ stories. “Over and over again, they say their original trauma was exacerbated by their insensitive treatment at the hands of safeguarding officials.” The survivors are angry, and they are entitled to be. They blame “a dysfunctional Church  and poor leadership”, and when the IICSA report was released on Tuesday it had harsh words for Cardinal Vincent Nichols. As our leader this week concludes: the Church stands shamed. Compassion is at the centre of the Gospel. That the structures were there but leadership and compassion were lacking is a lamentable conclusion. 

On the same day IICSA released its findings, the Vatican published its astonishingly candid 449-page report into the career of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, which, as Christopher Lamb writes, exposes fundamental flaws in the culture and decision-making at the highest levels in the Church. Among those who turned a blind eye to the allegations that McCarrick was an habitual abuser was Pope John Paul II, who trusted his intuition, with disastrous consequences. In his online story posted yesterday, Chris writes that at the end of his weekly general audience in Rome on Wednesday, Pope Francis referred to the McCarrick report, adding: “I renew my closeness to the victims of every abuse and the Church’s commitment to eradicate this evil.” The corrosive effects of these scandals on the faith of ordinary Catholics should not be underestimated. In the magazine this week, children’s author Sarah Crossan talks to Peter Stanford about the poetics of her first novel for adults. Although she remains steeped in the faith of her Irish upbringing, she is one of the many lay Catholics who feels alienated from the Church by the way clerical abuse has been “swept under the carpet”. 

In View from Rome, Christopher Lamb writes that Joe Biden’s election victory over President Donald Trump has been quietly welcomed in the Vatican, and wonders if Biden and Pope Francis – in spite of their differences – could seize the opportunity to build a transformative global partnership in the mould of Ronald Reagan and John Paul II in the 1980s. Michael Sean Winters reports that the US Catholic bishops have congratulated Biden on his victory, and in his latest blog Clifford Longley suggests that Trump’s explosive play for power has the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy. In the print edition this week, Denis MacShane argues that with Biden’s election, the tide has decisively turned against populism.  

The much-loved and respected former chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, has died, and Ruth Gledhill rounds up the many warm tributes from the UK and around the world. In Word from the Cloisters, Mark Dowd recalls the visit to a football match that confirmed for Sacks that God existed – it’s an old story but bears re-telling once more. And in our latest podcast, Ruth Gledhill discusses Nostra Aetate, the historic Vatican II document that transformed Christian-Jewish relations, with Archbishop Kevin McDonald. Incidences of self-harm and suicide in prisons in the UK have surged in the eight months since the first lockdown was imposed. Ellen Teague investigates why. And in the second report in our prisons special, Patrick Ugwe writes from Nigeria about the Catholic welfare agency that advocates for prison reform. 

In Arts, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who memorably performed in an empty Duomo in Milan on Easter Sunday, tells Joanna Moorhead that it “seemed the perfect moment to remind ourselves that life always triumphs”. Mark Lawson sees the only National Theatre show ever to have closed immediately after press night, as the second lockdown began; he consoles himself with the thought of what a closure of the theatre would have meant in an age without video and livestreaming; Lucy Lethbridge is hoping the charm and energy of Tom Kerridge will be enough to save three struggling publicans in a new BBC2 series; and D.J. Taylor heard a highly entertaining Radio 4 enquiry into the differences between Danes and Swedes. 

In Books, Andrew Rosenheim has been enjoying Ferdinand Mount’s “quite  wonderful” portrait of his dashing Aunt Betty, who he gradually discovers was a complete and marvellous fraud; Nicholas Vincent winces at Adriano Prosperi’s grimly fascinating study of public executions in medieval Europe; Nick Spencer weighs up three books on Conservatism; Michael Glover is gripped by Natasha Trethewey’s stunning, painful memoir of her mother’s murder by Natasha’s brutish stepfather; and Carina Murphy is caught up in a wartime love story by Rachel Billington, our novel of the week. 

“It’s much better this time round,” writes Melanie McDonagh, who has been channelling her inner Quaker during lockdown redivivus, praying quietly in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Rose Prince celebrates British artisan cheeses; and Jonathan Tulloch enjoys a final picnic on the afternoon before the second lockdown began. As he unwraps a sandwich he is joined by robins, starlings, and jackdaws. Isolated? “We need never be alone,” he writes, “when we have our winter companions.” 

Brendan Walsh
Editor of The Tablet