This afternoon, while listening the BBC's Radio 4 PM programme I heard for the first time about the Minister & Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS) organisation. MACSAS chair Anne Lawrence was being interviewed. As a victim of clerical abuse herself she spoke with authority and experience, and said exactly what I feel about how the Churches should respond to the issue of abuse by clergy, namely that they should come clean, answer the most searching questions and publish the results.
The website www.macsas.org.uk is well worth a look. It contains a survey for victims of abuse (which I completed) as well as information about plans for a book to be published based on testimony from abused individuals. The kick-off will be a MACSAS conference: 'We speak, you listen' in London - 11th September 2010. Survivors will speak and offer messages to Pope Benedict - their stories, hopes and dreams will be compiled and made into a book for presentation to His Holiness.
MACSAS demands are well set out in a press release of March 2010 aimed at the Church of England. It could equally well apply to the Catholic Church. http://www.macsas.org.uk/PDFs/News/MACSAS_PressRelease2march2010.pdf
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