All Survivors’ Day

Has a certain ring to it, does it not? After All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, observe All Survivor’s Day. Begun by the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), these nationwide and international witnesses will take place on Saturday, November 3. Most will be from 3 to 5 pm at cathedrals, but check the link to see where to go in your diocese. They’re asking everyone to wear purple.

I will write more about the crisis but first I want to reinforce how necessary the voices of dissent are in the church. If you saw Spotlight, you know that a lawyer and someone active in SNAP sparked the Boston Globe series. Then Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) came together in and around that city to channel the outrage and support victims and good priests. Without SNAP, without VOTF, would the sexual abuse of children and the church’s cover-ups have remained in the public eye? Would attorneys general and district attorneys have realized that there was some political advantage in pursuing these crimes, as well as a duty to do the right thing? That’s taken so long to happen, and in so many waves with calm seas in between, unfortunately.

And do you figure out that I am writing the above to thank you for being at least a reader about, and maybe much more involved in, the struggle for women’s equality in the church. Let me remind you of other Catholic renewal organizations that have supported many changes that will help survivors and women and LGBT people and lots more. You can check out http://catholictoo.org/ for COR’s most recent joint project in addition to supporting All Survivors’ Day.

Paul Moses in Commonweal strikes a similar note about SNAP and the Center for Constitutional Rights, though I rush to say that I thought of the above independently. After all, I am membership chair for Catholic Organizations for Renewal, which gathers staff of these small groups for mutual support and joint projects. Moses focuses more on the legal arguments surrounding the Justice Department’s investigation of the Pennsylvania allegations, but concludes with this:

Fifteen years after SNAP’s initial request was ignored, the landscape has changed considerably. Some of those calling most insistently for accountability had in the past defended the hierarchy against charges of a cover up … We are in a new sort of Catholic moment, and federal prosecutors are responding to it.”

This “new sort of Catholic moment” was kicked off by the Pennsylvania Grand Jury under Attorney General Josh Shapiro, which makes Philadelphia ground zero of this international moment. In my city, we have two witnesses, secular and sacred, so to speak. The secular one links here; the sacred one outside the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul at Logan Square will be held from 3 to 5 pm, I am assured by a SNAP representative that this will take place even though it’s not on any site yet. Maybe it’s on the page with information about the social media campaign, with hashtag and no apostrophe: There are many graphics on that page, in case you’re looking for ideas for a sign as well as what to post on social media.

SNAP has the best archive on the current crisis from a Catholic perspective. CHILD.USA has a more eclectic selection. I have been collecting articles about the Pennsylvania Senate’s highly political failure to vote on legislation that would have allowed a two year window for victims to sue the institutions that may have covered up that abuse, among other changes. I am not going to link to all those articles here. Rather, I will conclude with the demands that All Survivor’s Day has coalesced around:

We demand that Pope Francis immediately take the following actions:

• Publicly acknowledge that sexual abuse of children and adults by the clergy has been a chronic, persistent, and pernicious problem within the Catholic Church, and that the Church, rather than addressing the problem responsibly, has used its authority to cover up its criminal conduct.
• Voluntarily release to all relevant government authorities all records pertaining to sexual abuse by clergy.
• Immediately cease all lobbying activity seeking governmental and diplomatic protections from civil and criminal litigation.

Having worked on the COR list of demands, I appreciate the focus of this. But if you’re interested in how many other issues intersect with priest abuse of children, check out TimesUP: Catholics Demand Truth.

Most of all, come out on November 3. The survivors deserve our attention and the change that large numbers of supporters can bring about in both secular and sacred arenas.