How Can The Survivors Of Catholic Church's Abuse Find Justice?

For the first time ever, Pope Francis has acknowledged fully that the church has not dealt properly with “crimes” against children and must prevent cases of sexual abuse from being “covered up and perpetuated.” In his unprecedented letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Francis wrote, “We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” You can read the full letter here.

While his acknowledgment is long overdue and comes in the wake of the horrifying report on the abuse in the Pennsylvania Catholic Church that laid open the abuse perpetuated by more than 300 of its priests, we still only know about a small fraction of the actual abuse. As reporter Christine Kenneally recounts in this investigative research about the orphanage of St. Joseph in Burlington, Vermont:

But for all these revelations a darker history remains all but unknown. It is the history of unrelenting physical and psychological abuse of captive children. Across thousands of miles, across decades, the abuse took eerily similar forms: People who grew up in orphanages said they were made to kneel or stand for hours, sometimes with their arms straight out, sometimes holding their boots or some other item. They were forced to eat their own vomit. They were dangled upside down out windows, over wells, or in laundry chutes. Children were locked in cabinets, in closets, in attics, sometimes for days, sometimes so long they were forgotten. They were mutilated.

Darkest of all, it is a history of children who entered orphanages but did not leave them alive.

The most heartwrenching parts of this incredibly well-researched feature are the courageous efforts of the survivors to speak about what they had suppressed for so long and to seek justice. In this story, no justice is served, and we are left with the question: How can the Catholic Church truly heal the damage it caused? Writing a letter is a good start, but surely far from enough.