Listening again to the voices of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse

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Back in 2015 I listened to and watched many of the live stream public hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, and read as many of the transcripts as I could.

I prioritise this over reading media reports on the celebrity cases – which pay more attention to the scandal of the perpetrator than the pain and restoration of the survivors, or the demise of some victims for whom abuse was murderous – a long slow, excruciating suffering murder taking years.

I believe that until we have listened to the first hand accounts from survivors, perpetrators and colluders, we cannot respond responsibly. Media summaries, opinion pieces and commentaries are no help if we have not faced the human experience squarely, and really listened.

Listening – deep listening and extensive listening – is what is most needed.

I’ve just spent the weekend reading the private hearing narratives from the Royal Commission for a piece of research.

A number of institutions are named, including one that is so familiar that it is almost invisible, yet, named so clearly in this survivor’s testimony, calls us to some really careful thinking:

“I have a resentment of the middle classes – I think you understand why – because I think they’re enablers, and they used children like me from homes. They exploited us you know, on their farms and in their houses. They exploited us sexually, physically and emotionally. I hate all religions equally.”

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The co-opting of the church by the middle-class, and then the middle-class by the church is woven through the texture of many of these narratives.

The direct link the speaker makes from their indictment of the middle class with the hatred of religion is not to be dismissed

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There are many ways in which churches and civic leaders have forged a theologically artificial enmeshment of  christian ethics with middle-class aspirations.

– Using  religion as a tool for moral correction

– Attributing criminal problem-solving responses in poverty to purely individual moral deficits (‘thou shalt not steal’), rather than systematic societal moral deficits (2 Peter 2:14 ‘they [the indulgent rich] have hearts trained in greed’)

– Theological misappropriation of the notion of ‘blessing’ and ‘provision of God’ with cumulative material wealth

– Misidentification of social cohesion through manners and similar welfare as ‘christian unity’

– Idealisations of the nuclear family unit as the exclusive expression of God’s ‘best’ design for human relationships

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Whether for the wards of the state reaching out from the margins of poverty or the aspirational families entrusting their sons to elite church schools, the cyclical interconnection of the cogs of class and church and sexual abuse are a powerful engine, still running open throttle.

We have much work to do, when our approach to children and faith is still mostly structured as ‘instruction for character formation’.  Common practice with children in faith communities is still forged by framing scripture snippets with moral hermeneutics and life-lesson scaffolding, aimed to form, not radical followers of a homeless peasant prophet martyr Jesus,  nor whole-humans who love God and Cosmos and neighbour and enemy with whole being, but a strong moral-citizen  industry leader, or a compliant obedient worker.  There is more to say – but it must wait until we have heard, really heard, the primary evidence.

Whether you resonate with compassion,  or disagree, or don’t understand this – I recommend finding time to listen to the voices of those who know; who know in the scars of their souls, and bear witness in their embattled bodies.

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The content warning on the Royal Commission site is correct.

It is not easy reading.

If this is too traumatic for you, because of your own lived experience, then of course, your own telling and listening with safe help is more important.

At some point you may find validation and company in the truth of other’s experience.

Pursue your own healing first, and return when you can.

May peace meet you soon.