In March, the Archdiocese of Seattle initiated a Healing Ministry. Sue Moreland began this ministry part time and is now working full time for the Archdiocese. Here is a brief summary of the purpose of this new ministry:
Grounded in compassion, the Healing Ministry is a proactive effort to provide meaningful liturgical, pastoral and educational pathways to healing for individuals, families, and communities who have been harmed, especially by those working for and serving the Catholic Church.
As a resource to parishes, Catholic schools, seminarians and clergy, the ministry provides additional education and training on recognizing the signs of abuse, abuse prevention and trauma-sensitive pastoral competencies.
For more information, please contact Sue Moreland. at Sue.Moreland@seattlearch.org.
Archdiocese of Seattle Website
One of the first parishes Sue began working with was Immaculate Conception in Seattle. The parish eventually established a group to work with Sue on a plan to help the parish deal with their history with a pastor who decades ago abused minors and the trauma which still lingers in the parish today. In addition to holding listening sessions providing people an opportunity to share their personal stories and find support among others, they scheduled a Mass of healing, which would provide me an opportunity to apologize to the victim survivors and their families, as well as to the parish as a whole. You can find the homily below as well as a few select photos from the evening. (Special thanks to Stephen Brashear)
The Mass concluded with a procession to the Marian Shrine in the church with a prayer to Our Blessed Mother. The evening concluded with a lovely reception in the parish hall.
Mary, Mother of the Church,
we stand before you
shaken by the scandal and division
in the Church that we love.
We pray for victims of abuse,
whose trust was betrayed
and whose innocence was shattered
by members of the clergy.
We pray for those whose suffering was ignored
and for those who were silenced or disbelieved.
We pray for Church leaders,
that by putting the needs of the vulnerable first,
by acting with transparency,
and by always holding themselves
accountable to God and to the People of God
they may regain the trust that has been broken.
We pray for ourselves,
that the darkness and confusion we feel
may give way to light.
May we find the way to justice,
unity, healing, and hope,
through your Son, Jesus, our Lord. Amen.Mary, refuge of sinners, pray for us.
Mary, comfort of the troubled, pray for us.
Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
Before the beginning of Mass, a leader of the parish group spoke about the findings of their committee of lessons learned over the past decades as well as things they would still like to see and hear from the Archbishop and the Archdiocese of Seattle, some of which was accomplished during our prayer that evening.
Moments such as this are important for the whole Church because this scandal left a wound that needs to be addressed. Asking forgiveness for the past failures of some clergy is important. Addressing the lingering trauma is necessary. This Mass of healing with the people of Immaculate Conception parish is a good next step for our local church in the process of healing. May the God of all compassion continue to walk with us and show us the way healing, forgiveness, holiness and wholeness. May Mary our Mother intercede for all her children.
Immaculate Conception Healing Mass,November 21, 2024
Dear Immaculate Conception parishioners – current and former, friends and family.
It is good to be with you this evening to pray and celebrate this Eucharist together. Thank you for the invitation to be with you this evening.
Tonight, I offer my sincere apology to the victim survivors and their families for the abuse they experienced at the hands of John Cornelius. Most of us can only try to understand how profoundly your lives were altered as a result of his sinful and criminal behavior. In addition, I wish to apologize to this faith community of Immaculate Conception for the trauma these events created for all of you. There is no doubt that this entire parish community suffered from this tragedy.
You have shared with my team recently how the trauma of these events were left to linger due to insufficient pastoral care from Archdiocesan representatives. No doubt the Church was ill-prepared to understand the traumatic impact of all that took place during Cornelius’ time serving the parish. What you have helped my team to understand in recent months is that what outreach was provided fell far short of helping the parishioners at the time properly process the experience and its impact. The Archdiocese did not know how to foster healing and I understand this community which has a deep faith and a long history felt abandoned. For the hurt caused by our inadequate and ill-informed response in your time of crisis, I apologize.
I would like to share with you some of the reflections of Pope Francis at the Penitential Service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the eve of the opening of the second session of the Synod this October, which are applicable for our gathering tonight. I quote:
The Church is always the Church of the poor in spirit and sinners seeking forgiveness. It is not only a Church of the righteous and saints, but rather of the righteous and saints who recognize that they are poor sinners.
Sin is always a wound in relationships: the relationship with God and the relationship with our brothers and sisters. Sisters and brothers, no one is saved alone, but it is equally true that the sin of one affects many others. Just as everything is connected in the good, it is also connected in evil.
The Church in its essence is a Church that is always relational in its faith and proclamation, and only by healing sick relationships can we become a synodal Church. How could we be credible in our mission if we do not acknowledge our mistakes and stoop to heal the wounds we have caused by our sins?
Healing the wound begins by confessing the sin we have committed.
I do not think I can say anything that improves upon this profound wisdom of our Holy Father.
I had a brief conversation with Pope Francis during one of the breaks at the synod, and I had this faith community in my heart as I thanked the Holy Father for the penitential prayer service, and in particular for acknowledging the sinful behavior of some of our priests and the failures of the Church to appropriately address the needs of the victim survivors, and to ask forgiveness.
So, it is good for me to express my sorrow for the pain this community has suffered and to ask your forgiveness.
In the Gospel chosen for this evening, we see the following progression of events:
It is evening – darkness prevails. A storm is threatening to sink the boat.
Jesus is sleeping in the stern of the ship – in quite trust of the Father.
Disciples ask: “Do you not care that we are perishing?”
Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?
We see similar stages of this gospel drama in our own journey of faith in recent years. It may appear in the midst of difficulties that the Lord is asleep and seemingly unconcerned that ‘we might perish’. And yet, the fact is the LORD is IN the boat with us – demonstrating his own sound, peaceful trust in the Father, as an important instruction for us.
Jesus’ question: why are you afraid? Is also instructive in that none of us are walking our worldly journey alone. None of us is capable of meeting all the needs by our own steam. We need each other, but mostly, we need the Lord.
This is why we have come together in prayer tonight, to ask the Lord to shed light upon our darkness and to calm the storms of our past experience which still touch us today.
I wish to conclude my reflections with the words of St. Paul which we heard earlier.
“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.”
This is our confidence and our hope. That no matter how dark our life experience may be, no matter how strong the storms of human existence may test our resolve, we have the knowledge and faith and confidence that the Lord is in the boat with us and he is capable and desirous of calming any and every storm. He is capable and desirious of healing our every wound.
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