The challenge of abuse within our Church
Jacqui Montgomery-Devlin highlights the issue of abuse within our denomination and outlines how PCI is seeking to address it.
C
hrist calls us to love, care for and value everyone. As a Church we should seek to reflect Christ’s compassion for all, and that includes safeguarding everyone who comes into contact with our Church. This needs to be our witness. As you read this, you may, or may not, have experienced abuse within our Church; you may have heard directly or indirectly from a victim/survivor, about their experience of abuse; you might be the parent or family member of someone who was abused within our Church; you might have heard whispers about it in the community; or, you might be someone who thinks this does not happen in the Presbyterian Church. That is the belief of some. Sadly, abuse is present throughout our communities and does not stop at the front doors of our churches. I hope that, if you are someone who has believed
20
Herald February 2024
that abuse cannot happen within our churches, by the time you have finished reading this article, you will no longer be of that mind. If we hold to this belief, we reinforce the reason why so many victims of abuse never tell, and, instead, continue to suffer in silence. When we do not speak about abuse, when people are encouraged to keep quiet about it, or when it is not dealt with – these things in themselves are abusive. Rev Dr Gerry Clinton, minister in Ballybay Presbyterian Church, is a member of PCI’s Safeguarding panel,
Abuse needs to be met with positive action – silence around abuse is inaction. Encouraging silence is worse than doing nothing.
and an ex-psychiatric nurse. He says, “Abuse needs to be met with positive action – silence around abuse is inaction. Encouraging silence is worse than doing nothing. All too often, those who are supposed to be a source of help, repeat the abuser’s message, ‘Don’t go telling anyone’. That’s called ‘secondary victimisation’ because the silence that is encouraged prevents the person getting the help they so badly need.”
What is abuse? Abuse can take many forms. It can include sexual, physical, emotional/ psychological, financial, institutional, spiritual, neglect, discriminatory, modern slavery, and domestic abuse. It can happen to children, young people and adults; to males and females; and can be both contact and non-contact. It is abuse whether it happens once or more than once.
