This Came today from our lovely friend Marysia in Poland, seems they are having a hell of a time there with the wretched church. I hope we can help them change things and in the mean time we send our love :
Poland: The church does not want the dialogue with the survivors
This year Polish Catholic Church is organizing the first ,,congeneric” conference on clerical pedophilia among its ranks. The person responsible for the conference is Fr.Adam Zak who is also nominated for the position of coordinator for children and the youth of Polish episcopate. The problems is that survivors abused by priests to which the Church has contact data (because previously they reported their cases in particular curias) have neither been invited nor informed about this event.
What is more, the first and only Polish organization that helps those sexually abused by priests, “Do not be afraid” Foundation [Fundacja “Nie lękajcie się”] which was founded by survivors, was not invited either. To make matters worse, the Church refused to let the Foundation deliver a short speech during the conference. With regard to this issue, those interested themselves will not take part in the meeting. Let us someone explain what`s the point of that? Malicious people say ironically that the special guest will be the well known priest-pedophile, who will be an expert.
Unfortunately, the matter is not funny but rather upsetting. The victims of priests became aware of the event and are deeply appalled by the fact that no one event sent them a notice about the conference.
P.S. ”Do not be afraid” Foundation has sent official requests for a meeting to major hierarchs of the Church in Poland, but they all refused and referred the Foundation to Fr. Adam Zak. He, in turn, refused the survivors the participation in the conference under the pretext of lack of sufficiently deep relations between the victims and the Church. Let alone the fact that a person was raped by priest in the childhood, isn`t it a good reason? It turns out now that the victims are to grovel to the Church and beg for dialogue. But the Church should be down on bended knees to ask the victims for forgiveness.
Marysia Mucha, Monika Wróbel
Fundacja “Nie lękajcie się”/”Don’t be afraid” Foundation
