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‘We want to be part of regaining the trust of people’

CHARLOTTE — Parishes in Asheville and Charlotte are taking steps to promote healing and awareness in the wake of past abuse in the Church.

St. Eugene Parish in Asheville and a group of Charlotte-area parishes led by St. Gabriel Church have formed action groups to foster discussion, restore trust, and support accountability and transparency – all in an effort to help rebuild trust as a Church family.

A group of parishioners at St. Eugene Church formed a Child and Youth Protection Committee in the fall of 2018, after the release of a grand jury report recounting decades of abuse by clergy and other Church workers in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania grand jury report shocked Catholics everywhere, and a forum at the Asheville parish drew over 150 people.

“For two hours, parishioners were provided an opportunity to express their frustration, anger, surprise and ideas on how this continues to affect our Church,” said Rick Lober, committee member and himself a survivor of clergy sexual abuse.

The parish committee was formed as a way to channel people’s emotions into concrete action.

One of its early actions was to urge Bishop Peter Jugis to compile a list of clergy in the Diocese of Charlotte who had been credibly accused of child sexual abuse, as well as suggesting a hotline for reporting sexual abuse and misconduct, and expanding training in the diocese’s abuse prevention program “Protecting God’s Children” to Catholic school parents. Their input, along with ideas contributed from many others around the diocese, helped inform the diocese’s efforts that resulted in the launch last December of an accountability webpage and an independent hotline for reporting abuse.

After the accountability webpage – featuring a list of 14 clergy credibly accused of child sexual abuse since the diocese was formed in 1972 – was launched, the Asheville parish hosted a prayer vigil Jan. 30.

“We had dozens of parishioners show up and had a prayerful service asking for healing for victims and their families, for innocent clergy affected by this, for Bishop Jugis and the diocese to move forward,” Lober said. Prayers were also offered for perpetrators.

“People who attended have said they remain so grateful that we have taken affirmative steps. They said they felt better now than they did 18 months ago, since our parish has been actively engaged in this issue,” he noted.

Father Pat Cahill, pastor, and committee members met with Bishop Jugis March 4.

“We truly appreciated Bishop Jugis and Father Patrick Winslow (vicar general and chancellor) spending over an hour to discuss our recommendations on further addressing the issue of sexual abuse,” Lober said, calling the dialogue between the chancery and the parish “one of the critical elements” of a larger effort among the faithful to help the Church family heal.

“We want people at our parishes to feel good about the Church and what the Church does,” Lober said. “We want to bring back people who have left. We want to be part of regaining the trust of people.”

Added Father Cahill, “I continue to be inspired that we continue to be committed to being a part of the solution at St. Eugene Parish. It is not easy to be Catholic sometimes because of human error. The call to persevere in faith, truth and mercy is our invitation to building Jesus’ kingdom.”

Thanks to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection Office, the Asheville parish also got connected with “WATCh” (“We Are The Church”), a group of parishes that have initiated “grassroots” approaches to raising awareness and encouraging the faithful to get involved in productive efforts.

St. Gabriel Parish is one of the parishes with a WATCh committee. It includes parishioners from other parishes in the Charlotte area, including Our Lady of Consolation Church in Charlotte, Queen of the Apostles Church in Belmont, St. Luke Church in Mint Hill, and St. Matthew Church in south Charlotte.

“We would like to be a part of rebuilding,” said Sean DesNoyer, WATCh leader at the parish. “We have to start at our grassroots effort and do something.”

WATCh was formed to address the crisis of trust in the Church from four angles: prayer, healing, education and dialogue. The committee’s mission is “to provide a path for the laity of St. Gabriel to proactively address the brokenness and the challenges in the Catholic Church today by advocating for accountability, transparency and reform.”

The parish’s initial efforts to engage people began with prayer and listening sessions with former pastor Father Frank O’Rourke.

“We realized a need to help people through the healing process,” DesNoyer said. “Father Frank sent a summary to Bishop Jugis with comments from the people. It was quite telling. A lot of people needed to share.”

Although most of the abuse in the Church occurred long ago, before the U.S. bishops enacted reforms in the landmark 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” DesNoyer noted, “You get a sense the Church is losing people over this issue. It is truly bothering people. The sin of it all is bothering people. The way it’s been handled is upsetting people.

“That’s why we came together and formed a group with a mission to try to move this forward. We don’t want to just sit and talk about this.”

DesNoyer, members of the WATCh committee and their new pastor, Father Richard Sutter, also recently met with Father Winslow to provide feedback and discuss how the local Church is moving forward.

“It was good dialogue,” DesNoyer said, showing “how the Church can be helped by another view of the laity.”

“The Church is a family of faith,” Father Winslow noted. “All have been hurt by these sins and mistakes of the past. All of us want to make sure they remain in the past, never to occur again. To this end local and diocesan efforts will continue to work together. As a family, we will heal and continue the work of Christ.”

— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter

For more information

At www.charlottediocese.org: Read more about the Diocese of Charlotte’s “Safe Environment” awareness initiatives, find resources for parents and training information for volunteers