Addressing the Impact of Clergy Sexual Abuse: A Path Toward Healing and Accountability

Bernadette Howell, Spiritual Health Practitioner - April 2, 2025 Breaking the silence. Confronting clergy abuse. The month of March has come and gone, with its mix of sun, wind, rain, and clocks that needed changing! Some of us may have been surprised waking up this morning to realize that it is already April. How fast time flies when you’re having fun…or perhaps, are exceedingly busy! For my part, I’ve been exceedingly busy, but here I am once more, with yet another blog. It is one I will attempt to keep short but know, dear readers, that this week’s blog is one I would prefer not to be writing at all. Why? Because the end of March was the promised date for the wildly late, overly long-awaited Vancouver Archdiocese Clergy Abuse Update Report. But, as you have guessed, it's not coming. We're not getting anything! It's been nearly three full years of absolute silence. No communications or updates of any kind, despite the Archbishop's commitment to publish a Clergy Abuse Update Report every six months. I quote first from Archbishop Miller’s speech at the Vancouver Archdiocese Annual Dinner on 30 October 2018: “This evening, I would like to begin my conversation with you by calling attention to the grave situation of clerical sexual abuse and cover-up by bishops, which has recently come to light. My first responsibility is toward the victims of these horrific crimes, those who have been so severely harmed by members of the clergy. It has been an extraordinarily trying time for victims and their families, who have been forced yet again to revisit the injustices they have suffered.” As reported by the B.C. Catholic, Archbishop Miller then went on to say: “We must find more effective ways to support and care for victims of abuse, to protect everyone from it ever happening again, and to bring justice and closure to historical cases of abuse.” Then from his Pastoral Letter, four months later on 19 February 2019: “The Archdiocese is committed to supporting victims of clergy sexual abuse meaningfully through the provision of counselling and effective advocacy support as they journey on the path to healing. Too often in the past, victims have been allowed to fade away from our Church family without receiving the justice and support that they deserve... It is imperative to find ways to reach out to victims and their families with our most sincere apologies and an invitation to receive whatever comfort and healing we can facilitate”. He goes on to say: “We will also be taking bold steps to ensure that abusive clergy members are held accountable for the terrible crimes they have committed. Greater transparency will invite more input for change and will foster greater trust in the faithful members of our clergy and religious communities.” And then there is Archbishop Miller’s Pastoral Letter from 25 November 2019, his letter which accompanied the Vancouver Archdiocese Clergy Abuse Report and its thirty-one recommendations: “Now is the time for us to address more fully what we, as the local Church, can do to respond better to the needs of victims of abuse, as well as improve our policies and procedures that have been in place for many years. All these efforts going forward entail a profound and continuous conversion of our hearts. Such a conversion must be accompanied by a firm commitment to take concrete and effective action marked by greater transparency and accountability in all that we do.” I can quote so much more, but I’ll stop right here. “All these efforts going forward entail a profound and continuous conversion of our hearts. Such a conversion must be accompanied by a firm commitment to take concrete and effective action marked by greater transparency and accountability in all that we do.” It gives me no joy to say that: I have seen no such “conversion of heart”. Not in all the years I have tried hard to help the Archdiocese of Vancouver address this topic and care for its victims. I have seen no “firm commitments” honoured nor have I witnessed or experienced “concrete and effective action”. And I have seen no “transparency” or “accountability” take place. Have you? Please do let me know so that I might share it with others. So allow me instead to share what we do get in place of concrete action, conversion of heart and firm commitments… We, as in myself and a couple of others (who were also members of the Clergy Abuse Review Committee) get an email from the Archbishop’s Delegate for Operations, James Borkowski, telling us that: “After receiving feedback from insurers and other stakeholders, the new website is being paused.” As an invested stakeholder myself, along with many other Catholics and non-Catholics alike, whether victim-survivors or not, what can one possibly say to this? There is quite simply no suitable or adequate response to be made! Here's a thing. None of us is looking for a fancy website! We never asked for a website. Just a report - twice a year. We just want to be updated on the progress of all the recommendations and the commitments made by the Archbishop and the Vancouver Archdiocese. We just want to be updated with news of other predator priests still not named but known to the Archdiocese. We want to hear and know that the plight of victims matters. And that when names are released of predator priests known to the Archdiocese but kept hidden till now, many victims who have suffered alone will know they are not alone. We don't want lofty language and empty promises on fancy new websites, all of which amount to nothing when action does not follow. And as for silence? Perhaps no one at the Vancouver Archdiocese has yet realized the impact that silence has on victim-survivors? Silence was, and still is, the very weapon which predator priests use over their victims. Thus, silence today, from leaders who should know better, is incredibly harmful and damaging. Another recipient of that email from last week, notifying us that the Catholic Church’s insurance companies and “other stakeholders” are not happy with the website wrote: “We are not the only people who are concerned about this matter. The community at large needs to be informed as to what will and will not happen, and why.” They then added, “the Archdiocese should publish a statement about what it does intend to do, and how it expects to move forward on commitments made,” suggesting that this should be done "as soon as possible". Yet another wrote, “I am losing hope that anything will change in this diocese” adding that whatever improvements and undertakings have taken place, leave one with the feeling that these are just “temporary band aids to create an illusion to convince the public that things will change.” Needless to say, since receiving the email, and all recipients responding, there has only been more silence. No further communication. No reaction. No offer to publish a statement about what the Archdiocese intends to do. Whatever happened to Archbishop Miller’s and the Vancouver Archdiocese’s first responsibility being “toward the victims of these horrific crimes, those who have been so severely harmed by members of the clergy” and “respond(ing) better to the needs of victims of abuse”? Has nobody in the Vancouver Archdiocese, leaders or administration, made the connection yet that the victims “so severely harmed” are the very ones waiting and wondering why there are no updates being shared, whether about predator priests, cases in progress, or class action suits underway? And what about Archbishop Miller’s imperative “to find ways to reach out to victims and their families” and the “invitation to receive whatever comfort and healing” the Archdiocese can facilitate? Allow me to bring this blog to a close by sharing words received from a blog reader this past week. They wrote: “Your blog is unprecedented in scope, detail and history, and stands alone as a reference work”. Albeit this is weighty stuff for me to hear, I am glad that my truth-telling stands alone as a reference work, for too much is hidden by Catholic Church leadership and kept in the dark. Too much that is still covered-up. I find myself carrying a torch that I would rather not carry... Whoever the original quote may be attributed to, I echo their words that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” I, for one, cannot stand by. Please do not become one of the many who do nothing, but join me instead, in speaking out and speaking the truth... Until the next time, Bernadette