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1. So the abuse victim has waited 45 years before making a complaint?
   Forty years ago, as a 12 year-old-boy, I was physically attacked in the street by a street thug. I nursed a sore jaw and a few bruises for a week, but managed to get over it like most people would.
   But what the heck, I think I might go make a complaint to the police about it. My attacker might be rich now.

   Posted By: Colin

2. Let's hope the Pope can get the German Bishops to do more than mouth words of apology. Surely the Pope must realise this is no longer an issue just for the Irish Church and as he is German himself he could start the necessary reform in Germany before the end of Lent.
   Let us have no more words, but some real action.

   Posted By: Laurie Sheehan

3. Colin: Your response ignores the dramatic difference between the impact of a relatively simple physical assault and that of an attack on a youth's most intimate personal being, by sexually invading his/her body and violating the profound trust of the pastoral relationship of the attacker and victim.
   If the victim has been brought up to respect their aggressor as 'father', then the assault is particularly damaging - it really is a case of an incestuous relationship.
   A traumatic event such as clerical sexual abuse can shatter the belief systems that give meaning to to human experience and by violating the victim's faith in the natural and divine order can cast the victim into a state of crisis. (Judith Lewis Herman: Trauma and Recovery).
   Those who actually work with victims know well that disclosure is not delayed maliciously, but because the victim's suppression of memory has only a limited, though prologed, duration. Decades of suppressed responses are quite usual.
   Monetary compensation is rarely a priority for victims but is probably the one and only topic that gets attention from the hierachy! Welfare of victims seems to always be a low priority despite plausible sounding affirmations of good intent.

   Posted By: JB

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