What do You Want?
"What do you want?" is what you get asked in my favourite imaginary conversation! Imaginary because it hasn't happened, and isn't likely to. It happens when, finally, someone who is in a position to take action listens to what I have said, and is sad and sorry and wishes to make amends.
Perhaps it's just me, but thoughts like "what about £1million for a start" do cross my mind. How much money would it take for a person to feel that whatever has happened to them over the last 20, 30 or even more years is now OK? I fear the answer is going to be, "actually nothing can do that". But there would, in my imaginary conversation, come a point when you would be rather cutting off your nose to spite your face if you said "no". I mean, a couple of million? That would change things for your family, too. Would you have a right to turn it down on their behalf?
Personally, I know I would feel like Pooh-bah. I am being insulted, bought off. I would wonder what they were trying to hide. And what about all the other future and past victims? Would it be morally right to take money in order to agree not to protect them? And I would also miss one thing that they are carefully not offering. The apology. I have had a bizarre conversation with a cleric who was desperately trying to avoid saying the word. Even in the context of not admitting blame or responsibility. "I'm sorry your Dad died" isn't a confession! But mostly of course, I do want people to admit that something has happened. Acknowledgement is an important part of beginning to put it right.
So, I want the church to admit what it has done, and apologise. But I also want the church to move to the next step. Broadly, to prove it. Restitution and recompense. For the record, I'm not really interested in revenge. There is a nasty part of me that would like to get my own back, but it's pretty well under control. Punishment per se has no value. It must have a purpose. Removing people from a job where they are empowered to carry on hurting people might be part of it. But if you're dealing with someone who has already retired, that doesn't come into it.
Restitution. Putting someone back, not to where they were, as an abused child, for instance. Plainly that is not possible. But repairing the damage that has been done, at least as far as you can. If someone deliberately smashes your window, you expect them to apologise and pay for its repair. And if you worry that they may come back and smash the new one, because they never apologised, it's not you that's at fault for failing to forgive! So, perhaps you didn't get a job because someone lied about you. Financial recompense might well be in order. If you weren't ordained because of something that was said or done, you can of course be ordained now, but you can't be given the 10 years seniority, or the pension.
Recompense. That would not be the ten years back pay, or the lump sum in lieu of a pension. That's restitution. That would be how much do you pay to make up for 20 years of abuse? Realistically, the answer is, you never can. The victim has to accept that. There's no way you're going to feel better about it, really. But imagine how things would change if the church understood that no amount of recompense would really solve the problem. They'd stop looking at it as an exercise in seeing how little they could get away with, and see that no matter how much, it would never be enough. What a transformation.
So, what do I want? I want my future to be different to my past. What the church has in mind for me is to exclude me until I agree to pretend that nothing happened and it's alright. That won't do. What I want is what an old Benedictine of my acquaintance called "conversio mores". Most of my readers will know what that means. Conversio means more or less, turning around or change. But big change. One eighty change. And you know what "mores" means. I want the church to acknowledge what it did, to be sad and sorry, and to want to try to put it right. Even if we both understand that is not really possible.
Perhaps it's just me, but thoughts like "what about £1million for a start" do cross my mind. How much money would it take for a person to feel that whatever has happened to them over the last 20, 30 or even more years is now OK? I fear the answer is going to be, "actually nothing can do that". But there would, in my imaginary conversation, come a point when you would be rather cutting off your nose to spite your face if you said "no". I mean, a couple of million? That would change things for your family, too. Would you have a right to turn it down on their behalf?
Personally, I know I would feel like Pooh-bah. I am being insulted, bought off. I would wonder what they were trying to hide. And what about all the other future and past victims? Would it be morally right to take money in order to agree not to protect them? And I would also miss one thing that they are carefully not offering. The apology. I have had a bizarre conversation with a cleric who was desperately trying to avoid saying the word. Even in the context of not admitting blame or responsibility. "I'm sorry your Dad died" isn't a confession! But mostly of course, I do want people to admit that something has happened. Acknowledgement is an important part of beginning to put it right.
So, I want the church to admit what it has done, and apologise. But I also want the church to move to the next step. Broadly, to prove it. Restitution and recompense. For the record, I'm not really interested in revenge. There is a nasty part of me that would like to get my own back, but it's pretty well under control. Punishment per se has no value. It must have a purpose. Removing people from a job where they are empowered to carry on hurting people might be part of it. But if you're dealing with someone who has already retired, that doesn't come into it.
Restitution. Putting someone back, not to where they were, as an abused child, for instance. Plainly that is not possible. But repairing the damage that has been done, at least as far as you can. If someone deliberately smashes your window, you expect them to apologise and pay for its repair. And if you worry that they may come back and smash the new one, because they never apologised, it's not you that's at fault for failing to forgive! So, perhaps you didn't get a job because someone lied about you. Financial recompense might well be in order. If you weren't ordained because of something that was said or done, you can of course be ordained now, but you can't be given the 10 years seniority, or the pension.
Recompense. That would not be the ten years back pay, or the lump sum in lieu of a pension. That's restitution. That would be how much do you pay to make up for 20 years of abuse? Realistically, the answer is, you never can. The victim has to accept that. There's no way you're going to feel better about it, really. But imagine how things would change if the church understood that no amount of recompense would really solve the problem. They'd stop looking at it as an exercise in seeing how little they could get away with, and see that no matter how much, it would never be enough. What a transformation.
So, what do I want? I want my future to be different to my past. What the church has in mind for me is to exclude me until I agree to pretend that nothing happened and it's alright. That won't do. What I want is what an old Benedictine of my acquaintance called "conversio mores". Most of my readers will know what that means. Conversio means more or less, turning around or change. But big change. One eighty change. And you know what "mores" means. I want the church to acknowledge what it did, to be sad and sorry, and to want to try to put it right. Even if we both understand that is not really possible.
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