What Should Have Been
This is another re-run from my blog, written while I was researching for this piece in April of 2022. The themes I express here have been stirred up in my life again recently, and I thought this worth revisiting.
I've been working on a project that scares me a little.
Ok, it scares me a lot.
One of the questions I've had for years in the wake of my experience with clerical sexual abuse is what happened on a spiritual level. I don't mean in terms of subjective personal experience so much as a supernatural, sacramental, spiritual reality. I'm trying to put together some sort of paper or article on it; some framework I can use to learn more about this.
My assault, as well as the majority of the grooming prior to it, happened in a confessional in the context of receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation. I've found surprisingly little written on whether or not sexual assault in a confessional would be sacrilege, and what exactly that means, since it happened in the context of a sacrament. Because of that, a lot of my research has been on on things related to what happened, in the hopes that I can piece together what I'm looking for from writings on other things.
I've gained access to a FORMED account, and I noticed that they have several recorded talks on the sacrament of Confession. Since that's a large part of what I'm focusing my project on, I decided that it would be a good idea to try and learn more about it.
One of the talks was 7 Secrets of Confession by Vinny Flynn. Mr. Flynn looks at the Sacrament through the lens of the Divine Mercy devotion and revelations, and describes it primarily as a sacrament of healing.
"Sin doesn't change how much God loves you. Your sin can't change God wanting a relationship with you. Confession isn't winning God's love back, it's allowing God to heal you because He wants to."
I had been listening to the talk while doing some housework, and I had to stop what I was doing when I heard that part. I ended up curled up on the floor, nearly in tears.
My biggest wound and struggle prior to having to deal with the assault were scruples. Constantly feeling like God didn't love me or was nursing hurt feelings over something I did. God wasn't someone who loved me unconditionally so much as someone I had to constantly tiptoe around and try not to offend.
My image of God, through several years and a lot of painful adjustment and struggle, has healed somewhat. Christ is someone I'm trying to form a relationship based on love rather than fear with now, and I've come to realize that's what He actually wants.
So hearing about how Reconciliation is meant to be healing, how it's not about me apologizing and placating an angry, sulky God but rather about a loving God wanting to heal a wounded relationship, was pretty difficult. The revelation that this is what Reconciliation was meant to be, and that the confessional was where I'd been attacked in such an intimate way, exactly in the place I was already so wounded and lost, hit me like a ton of bricks.
I wasn't angry, which honestly surprised me a little. I was sad. Just really, deeply sad and grieving. I think I've already had this realization in some capacity; I knew I was lost and I knew the man I trusted to help me had betrayed and used me. But hearing about the sacramental side of it, what it was spiritually meant to be, just threw that corruption and loss into high contrast.
The most surprising thing about it for me is that I wasn't mad at God. For the first time, I could see what happened as a direct offense against Him too. Someone decided that, instead of fulfilling their vocation and allowing Christ to heal a soul that He loved through them, they were going stand in His way and inflict a further wound instead.
We hear that sin is against God as well as man. This was the first time I could see it clearly. I remember praying, "I'm so sorry this happened." Not because I felt that I was to blame, but because I could see a little of how it hurt Him too.
It's so odd, how Christ chooses to be vulnerable to humanity. And it's deeply startling when you catch a glimpse of just exactly how deep that vulnerability goes.
The whole experience has pretty much convicted me that the sacrilege aspect, the aspect of these assaults that directly spits in the face of God, desperately needs to be talked about. I feel very unequipped for the task, but if nothing else, maybe my asking questions of people more qualified than I will start to get those wheels turning.
I am so sorry that your attempt to reconcile back then was stolen from you. I hope that you can do this now, moving forward in the confidence of God’s unconditional love.