An Invitation to Listen and Be Heard
As you may know, Pope Francis has invited the entire Catholic Church into a process of listening and walking together through the Vatican’s Synod on Synodality, and he has encouraged us to engage those whose voices are often unheard or marginalized in the Church.
For the past few months, I have been working with a wonderful team of volunteers through Awake Milwaukee to put together synod sessions designed for those who have experienced sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, as well as their loved ones and all who care about this issue.
Obviously, there are many important issues to be discussed in the Church, but it’s really important to us that the problem of abuse (and widespread leadership failures in addressing that abuse) doesn’t get overshadowed by everything else.
We also know that many victim-survivors don’t feel comfortable engaging in the usual parish and diocesan synod processes, for a variety of reasons. We’re doing our very best to create a trauma-informed, survivor-sensitive experience.
I am really happy that almost 40 abuse survivors have already registered to attend, but I also want to make sure you know that everyone who cares about the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is encouraged to participate. (If you’re reading this blog, that means you!)
Please consider joining us by registering below - and feel free to share this post and spread the word. I would love to see you there!