April 8, 2019

Prayer services held for healing in wake of clergy sex abuse

REGIONAL
Story and photos by Carolee McGrath

SPRINGFIELD – Dozens gathered at St. Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield, Sunday, April 7 for a prayer service for healing and reconciliation in response to the clergy sex abuse crisis.

The prayer service was a follow-up to four “Listening and Dialogue” sessions held in February and March.

“As we contemplate the need for our church to be healed and to bring healing, I felt it was important that we come together today in prayer because Jesus always asked us to come to him in prayer whenever we have a need,” Springfield Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski told iObserve before the service began.

“Today we come to him in prayer with supplication asking for healing for the victims of clergy sexual abuse, healing for our church, and healing for ourselves, that indeed we never let this happen again,” he said.

A simultaneous prayer service was held in Pittsfield at St. Joseph Parish at 2 p.m. After the news broke last August of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury investigation into clergy sexual abuse and the sexual abuse allegations against the now defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Bishop Rozanski pledged prayer and dialogue. In addition to the listening sessions, parishes were asked to open their doors for a “Day of Prayer for Healing” on the first Monday of Lent, March 11.

“Anybody involved in the ministry of the church feels that when one member of the body hurts, we all hurt. So, certainly in this clergy sexual abuse crisis, we all hurt for the victims, for a church that did not live up to what it was supposed to and for the need for so much healing,” Bishop Rozanski said.

The prayer service began with the lighting of candles. The Prayer of the Faithful included petitions for all survivors of abuse and their families and friends.

“As a survivor, as an advocate for 17 years, I go out and speak to whomever I can to help them, giving them the faith to be a leader and to go back to church,” said Kathy Picard (pictured at right).

“It’s not just priests that abuse. It’s other people. I was sexually abused from seven to 17 by my step-father,” she explained. Picard said she was happy to assist the diocese in organizing the prayer service and offering hope to victims.

Picard grew up Catholic and said she certainly understands why people have fallen away from the church. But she said she is hoping to encourage people to go back to church, when they’re ready. Picard said while she also has been away from the church, she would like to come back.

“I do believe in God. I think there is a God and he did protect me,” she said, adding that she believes God strengthened her to be able to be a voice for others. Picard shares her story in her book, Life with my Idiot Family.

“I’ve lived it, being sexually abused for 10 years. Having that survivorship, being at the level I am now, having been a survivor, survivorship was an important word for me,” Picard said.

The Springfield Diocese has an Office of Child and Youth Protection. The diocese’s Safe Environment Program includes comprehensive criminal background checks for employees and volunteers in addition to online VIRTUS training, called “Protecting God’s Children.”

Bishop Rozanski has encouraged anyone who has been a victim of abuse by an employee of the Roman Catholic Church to contact the director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection for the Diocese of Springfield at (413) 452-0624 or toll-free at 1-800-842-9055.

A video version of this story will be featured on an upcoming edition of “Real to Reel,” which airs Saturday evenings at 7 p.m. on WWLP-22NEWS and in the Berkshires Sunday mornings at 5:30 on Albany’s Fox 23, WXXA.