When fear goes, good things happen

"Every once in a while," writes Vince Grenough, coordinator of the Louisville Area Voice of the Faithful, "something very special happens." The special thing that Grenough and others experienced Jan. 23 was what Grenough described in a phone conversation as a remarkable day for a number of sex abuse victims during a brief time at Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky.

The Trappist monks there invited a group of people, all of whom have been affected by the clergy sex abuse crisis, including two spouses and two adult children of survivors, to spend some time at the abbey. The monks wanted to hear their stories.

Because time was limited and there were many stories to tell, visitors were invited to write their stories and send them to the monks ahead of time.

In his e-mail to members and supporters of Voice of the Faithful after the visit, Grenough said Abbot Damien Thompson was uncertain how many monks would accept his invitation to participate. The visitors were hoping for up to a dozen; all 50 or so monks showed up.

When they met, they sat in a large circle and one by one the visitors explained who they were and how their lives had been affected by what had been done to them as children.

Those stories, and how victims were treated by bishops and others when they finally came forward, are always difficult to hear. But the monks listened, and they heard, too, from a survivor who "spoke highly of several priests and one deacon who responded as Jesus would have responded."

When the stories ended, the group went to the abbey church for vespers, after which Abbot Damien "stood before the assembly and invited all to pray for intentions of healing, forgiveness and conversion."

After Vespers, they ate dinner together, returned to the church for compline and then it was time to leave.

It is a shame that in some dioceses Voice of the Faithful is not allowed to meet on church property. It is, somehow, viewed as the enemy. Mostly it wants an honest and healthy church.

It is good, however, that the church is big and broad enough and can be so extravagantly welcoming that all can find a place to come in and get warm.

"During the drive back to Louisville," Grenough wrote in his e-mail, "some of the survivors who normally cannot stand to go near a Catholic church said that they want to go back to the abbey -- soon and often."

When fear is banished, something special indeed can happen.