Icon for abuse survivors installed in Leeds Cathedral

A gilded icon of St Raphael for survivors and victims of abuse has been installed in Leeds Cathedral.

An icon made of English oak by the prize-winning artist Martin Earle was blessed on Tuesday, 20 May, by the Bishop of Leeds Marcus Stock at a liturgy for the Comboni Survivors’ Group.

Members of the group endured abuse from Comboni Missionary Fathers, in the 1960s and 1970s in the junior seminary of St Peter Claver, Mirfield, West Yorkshire.

They met Pope Francis twice. At a first meeting in 2022, he “begged” the group for forgiveness, “for what the Church had done to us, flipping the usual relationship between the abuser and the survivor”, Bede Mullen, a group member, wrote in The Tablet on 26 April.

At a subsequent meeting with the group and the Comboni order, the Pope said the missionaries “needed to own their shame”, adding that “the devil must have got into the order”.

In a letter inviting group members to the 2pm liturgy on 20 May, the National Day of Prayer for Survivors of Abuse throughout the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Bishop Stock said: “As far as I know, this will be the first memorial of its kind installed within a Catholic cathedral.”

Other memorials for abuse survivors have been installed in the grounds of Catholic Churches across the world.

Measuring 3ft x 11.2ft, the image of St Raphael is now in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of St Anne’s Cathedral. Carved by hand in relief, it is lightly coloured in polychrome oil paints. Set in a carved frame, it is gilded in 23.5ct gold leaf. It depicts St Raphael stirring the waters at his feet with a long staff.

Bishop Stock requested an icon of St Raphael “because of his biblical association with the divine gift of healing and restoration.”

He explained in the letter : “Derived from the Hebraic translation of ‘Rapha’ (râpâ), meaning ‘to heal’ and ‘to restore’ (make whole), and ‘El’, signifying ‘God’, the name Raphael embodies the notion of divine healing, restoration and safeguarding for those in distress. His name in various translations is therefore ‘Healing of God’, ‘Restoration of God’ or ‘Medicine of God’”.

He continued: “In later manuscripts of St John’s Gospel (chapter 5, verse 4), St Raphael is believed to be the angel of the Lord who, descended at certain times and stirred the waters of the pool of Bethsaida, so that those who washed in them were healed.”

Bishop Stock also referred to the Old Testament Book of Tobit, where “St Raphael is the angel sent by God to bring healing and who binds Asmodeus (or Ashmedai in Hebrew), a demon associated with lust and evil desires, and whose name is most probably derived from the Hebrew root meaning “to destroy”.’

Stock continued: “In the very early mystical tradition of Judaism and Christianity, as found in the pseudepigraphal First Book of Enoch, Raphael is also described as “the angel of the spirits of mankind”, and it is his mission to “heal the earth which the fallen angels have defiled.”’

Stock said he hoped the icon, located “in the very heart” of St Anne’s, would “be a place where victims and survivors of abuse themselves will find healing and peace”.

Last week’s service, which was livestreamed, comprised of None – part of the liturgy of the Hours – prayers for victims and survivors of abuse, and the blessing of the icon.

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