Day of Blogs

Last week, Australian World Youth Day Coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher made comments about a family whose daughter committed suicide after facing long-term depression because of rape she suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest.  Responding to their claims that the church has purposely held up compensation claims, Fisher’s remarks speak for themselves:

Bishop Anthony Fisher was responding to questions about the report on ABC’s Lateline which featured Anthony Foster, and his daughters.

But today Bishop Fisher was dismissive.

“All I’ve seen is the reports in the newspapers today,” he told reporters this morning.

“Happily, I think most of Australia was enjoying [and] delighting in the beauty and goodness of these young people and the hope for us doing these sorts of things better in the future, as we saw last night, rather than dwelling crankily - as a few people are doing - on old wounds.”

He went on to say Cardinal Pell and the Catholic Church were doing all they could to deal appropriately with sexual abuse claims.

Oh yeah, cleary they’re handling those sexual abuse claims very appropriately, by calling victims in their families a bunch of cranky whiners who dwell on old wounds over a little thing like rape.  Particularly, calling the family of a victim who killed herself because of one of those rapes a bunch of cranky wound-dwellers.

By Fisher’s standards, I imagine that a bunch of us would be cranks dwelling on old wounds.  It’s been around 9 years since I was last sexually abused — the fact that I still care, and no am not “over it,” I suppose would make me cranky.  I know many people whose abuse was even longer ago, and who aren’t “over it.”  And if by “cranky,” Fisher means unwillingness to forget and to move on as though it didn’t happen, and an unwillingness to allow things to continue and watch other people suffer while keeping my mouth shut, I suppose that I am cranky.  And that’s a label I’ll wear with pride.

Bishop Fisher’s comments get even better, though:

“The cardinal has led in the church in this country in trying to put in better and better processes to deal for these things so that we get it right,” he said.

“In the meantime, [we will] do all we can to prevent this happening again and to bring healing and justice to the victims.”

Yes, look at that admirable Bishop Fisher — helping victims to heal and find justice by telling them to shut the fuck up and stop embarrassing the church over that trivial sexual abuse that happened years ago.

How long, I wonder, is an appropriate time to “dwell” in Fisher’s eyes?  Is there a time limit?  There must be — and it’s less than a year after your daughter/sister tragically commits suicide because she was unable to cope with the rape a priest inflicted on her.

Thanks to Nina for the link. And remember that if you are having trouble coping after a sexual assault, no matter how many years later, RAINN and other oganizations are there to help.  See the hotline information in the top right sidebar.