Thursday, April 17, 2008

SNAP reaction to Pope meeting with victims

The Holy Father met with five sexual abuse victims. SNAP is the name of their advocacy organization and support group. SNAP members give some individual responses in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/nyregion/18victims.html

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I've blogged about how outraged I am at what happened to the victims. I am no stranger to being abused.

However, I have read many articles and interviews and SNAP members never mention God.

I can assure them as both spiritual director and from a psychology professional point of view, none of them can really climb out of the black hole without consideration of God. God. God. Not the church, not the abusers, but God. Priests were tortured to death in Dachau by Hitler's SS but they remembered and turned to God, knowing that what humans do to humans, whether in the Church or in the government, or in the alley, has nothing to do with God's will and love for each person. How can anyone heal of anything without acknowledging God?

It's sad and it seems solutionless, when one is in a pit of despair without even looking for the light of God. Good luck with your healing. I'd pray for you but you seem mad at the Pope for doing so, and I sure don't need more people mad at me for no reason.