Sacred Music Consultation: More than music

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Music inspires and uplifts us.

It connects us to loved ones and special memories.

When I hear a hymn my mother or father loved, my heart is warm. It’s as if we are reunited, despite their having passed away long ago.

Music is integral to memory in that way.

So, what happens when a beloved hymn, already woven into the fabric of our lives, is shown to have been composed by an abuser?

As a survivor of child sexual abuse by clergy, I do not know how each person should grapple with that dilemma, but I would like to invite you to consider a few concerns victims have and a few challenges involved.

To begin, please keep in mind that victims of abuse within the Church are not necessarily outsiders. Many have remained Catholic.

Others of us, like me, left but found a way home. Many others still long to return to the faith of our childhood but struggle to feel safe within the Church.

It is not easy to sit through Sunday Mass, or a wedding or funeral, or a special Holy Day service in the same setting associated with harm that ended our childhood and changed the course of our lives.

We need to feel safe, and that is not easy. It takes courage.

To feel safe, listeners are needed.

Listeners offer a stepping stone back in the door. They serve as refuge against our fear that it could all happen again.

Bishops, clergy, ministers and all Catholics can serve as listeners and foster healing for those who were harmed in silence and who suffered in silence. 

Anyone who listens to victims quickly discovers that experiences of abuse vary greatly, so that wounds and recoveries also differ.

Victims are very different from each other. Yet we are unified in one goal: Every effort must be made to protect children and teens from suffering abuse.

You likely agree with our goal, too. What can make listening to victims difficult is that we are very sensitive to signals for concern. We tend to raise the red flag before others see any risk at all.

What risk could possibly exist in families singing during Mass? Law enforcement and child protection experts agree that children are safest where adults clearly and consistently express zero tolerance for abuse. Approving hymns composed by abusers in worship can be interpreted as a fissure in the bulwark of safety around minors.

Worshippers have no reason to make such interpretations, but the would-be abuser who is calculating opportunity most certainly is.

Of course, anyone can sing any song by any composer anywhere, but hymns that enjoy the honor of approval for worship have a special status, which they share with their composers.

While most people have no need to distrust the nefarious potential of that status, victims experienced how abusers were protected by their status and authority.

Rehabilitating the reputation of an abuser can also replay the worst of scandals in the past, when Church leaders and experts restored abusers to active ministry, adding more victims.

As Catholics discuss how composers might somehow deserve a more flexible approach, they risk making the same arguments as were made in the past, where good people extended mercy where a firm line should have been drawn.

Instead, they enabled more abuse. This is why the discussion of what hymns may be sung in worship is about not just child protection practicalities but also personal reactions to victims of abuse.

Today’s Church leaders, along with all Catholics, have inherited the painful fallout from very bad choices made in the past. Here is a family with members who have suffered abuse. Some families unify in care, many splinter in argument.

Bishop W. Shawn Mc­Knight is among Church leaders who stand in unison with victims, promoting child safety as a fundamental response to what has happened.

This also provides safety for all minors in the care of the Church now and comfort to victims and our families.

This commitment requires remaining vigilant with zero tolerance for abuse. It also includes listening as the best way to foster healing among victims, their families, parishes, and the whole Church so the whole Church family can heal, along with victims.

This is how the sanctuary will be restored, not just for victims of abuse within the Church but also for all victims of all other abuse and trauma who desperately need to know that, despite the scandal of the past, there really is a safe place in an increasingly violent and violently sexualized society.

No solution will succeed if your idea of a victim is limited to a statistic or media caricature. Victims are your brothers and sisters who often live as spiritual exiles.

Victims of any other perpetrator — father or teacher or coach — can seek sanctuary from the scene of the crime in the house of God.

For those wounded within the Church, Mass and sacraments are often full of painful associations. Attendance can be a private act of supreme courage every Sunday for a lifetime.

Why do we return?

I ask you: Where else do we have to go?

I ask you: How can you find a place in your heart for victims so that you can find a way to love treasured hymns while preserving a sense of safety and welcome for the wounded?

I do not know what you should do in resolving this dilemma, but I do know that, if you open your heart to the victim who asks you to listen, you will be surprised by grace to find unexpected ways to make the sanctuary safe and comforting for all — for victims and for you.

That is the path to peace beyond all human understanding.

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