The letter to survivors

Recently the Church has declared zero tolerance for sexual abuse among its clergy. The same laws for sexual abuse should be recognized for spiritual abusers."

Recently the Church has declared zero tolerance for sexual abuse among its clergy.

The same laws for sexual abuse should be recognized for spiritual abusers." I would like to express my gratitude to all survivors for their courageous and honorable organization that echoes the voices of gravely offended souls My contention is that before submission to physical violence, we are possessed on a spiritual level, which is capable of overpowering a victim by reducing him or her to an empty container to be used for whatever means the possessor desires. Our whole existence has been utterly betrayed and offended to the utmost degree.
We become beings void of any feeling and hope.

And yet our dignity can be restored by the knowledge that in the near future all clergy will be invested not by the cloth they wear but by their integration into all aspects of not only the working man's life-whether he be a street cleaner or a nurse who cares for the dying-but also with that of the homeless and dispossessed for the eventual goal of helping to alleviate as much as possible his daily struggle not by empty preaching but by loving that part of life which is ugly and brutal and which confers respect and dignity to humankind.

Perhaps then the clergy would begin to discover more of their humanity than their supposed saintliness.