Card O’Malley, chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children of the Holy See, put down his speech at the Warsaw Conference and shared his personal past and experience: all suffering is a source of healing.
(Vatican News Network)Card O’Malley, Chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children of the Holy See, delivered a speech at the Warsaw International Conference on the protection of children on September 20, stating that he himself also needs “pastoral conversion.” This conversion “takes a long time,” but it allows people to distinguish the appropriate and effective methods and strategies for combating such crimes in the church. On this point, the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal O’Malley, put down his speech at the opening ceremony of the Warsaw International Conference and shared his past and experience sincerely.
As the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal O’Malley has undertaken a daunting task: to “rebuild” the church that collapsed due to sex scandals and other issues. In front of the many attendees of the Warsaw Conference, the cardinal said with a heart-felt heart: “When I was ordained 51 years ago, I never thought that I would talk to a group of outstanding people in Warsaw about this issue in half a century. Know nothing. There is a proverb in English: “Ignorance is bliss.” But ignorance is actually not bliss, ignorance is ignorance. I am here to tell you the necessity of pastoral conversion and conversion. My personal conversion took a lot of time. A long time.”
Next, the chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Children of the Holy See talked about his first years of service for the universal church: he first served for immigrants from Central America, then worked in Washington, and later on the appointment of Pope John Paul II. The West Indies became the bishop. Card O’Malli has been appointed by Pope Wojtyla four times to serve in four different dioceses. “In the first parish, a small mission in the West Indies, the most serious problem was the hurricane disaster.”
In 1992, O’Malley was appointed bishop of Fall River in the United States. This parish is located in Massachusetts, and its residents are mainly Portuguese laborers and immigrants, most of whom believe in Catholicism. Card O’Malley recalled, “Shortly before accepting the appointment, a terrible scandal broke out in which a pedophile priest and Father Porter violated hundreds of young children. When I arrived there, my first priority was to meet a few. Victims and their families. The crowds filled the auditorium, which was larger than this conference hall, and hundreds of people attended. I must say that I was scared at the time. But that was the beginning of my personal pastoral conversion. I listened to them. Experience and experience what they are telling.”
After serving in the diocese for ten years, Cardinal O’Malley was dispatched to Palm Beach to replace two bishops who happened to have been removed from their posts in a pedophile case. The cardinal said, “As soon as I got there, I had a press conference, and the first question I asked at the press conference was: “Do you have a pedophile too?”
In 2003, Card O’Malley was transferred from Palm Beach to the archdiocese of Boston, which was on the verge of collapse due to the severe crisis of the sex scandal. The “Focus Group” of the “Boston Globe” reporter team investigated and disclosed pedophilia cases committed by local church priests. Card O’Malley said, “They exposed all these cases, the inability of the church, and the dispatch of the priests involved. They made their work into a film called “Breaking Spotlight.” I feel heartbroken. But I think that if church leaders watch this movie, they can better understand what is happening in places like Boston; it will definitely help a lot. In the United States, we have a brand of mouthwash called Listerine. Its slogan says: “Anything that tastes so bad must be good for you.” This is what I think about the feelings that the newspaper and the media bring to us. All this helps us understand that we must deal with it. Drop this hidden malignant tumor, otherwise it will kill us.”
Card O’Malley concluded: “I don’t want to return to the state of the church when I was young. No one knew it. All the suffering we have suffered is a source of healing. It is pushing us to deal with the problem of sexual assault. In our church, Children and vulnerable adults are the first. This is what it should be.”
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