Sunday 14 January 2018

Holding Space



It's always comforting and encouraging to receive messages of support and I would like to express my profound thanks for them! I will use this particular blog post to chronicle all such correspondence (after first seeking permission / redacting / editing etc), so please check back for updates.

Dear Tom,
I wanted to drop you a short email. I came across your story when I was looking online after a visit to Farnborough to visit the Imperial Vault on a Saturday afternoon tour. (I’m gay, Catholic). I’m a history nerd so I enjoyed my visit, though I was struck by the decay in the place and by how much nature was taking over. Something didn’t add up either and I felt a bit strange about the young overseas monk in the gift shop who could hardly take his eyes off his computer screen. I was therefore not entirely surprised when I read your story which, though it may make no difference, I believe implicitly.
Though I can remember being 18+, gay and the pressures that such an orientation created in those days, with a layer of religion on top, and I remember the enthusiasm with which I entered into a long term relationship at university. I can see therefore how unhealthy the situation might have been for you and how the culture at Farnborough may have allowed for spiritual and physical/sexual manipulation which was not right. I’m sorry that this seems to have had such a lasting effect upon you and, though it may be against the teaching of the Church, I hope that you are ultimately able to find a spiritual and physical relationship in which you are happy - or be at peace with the fact that you do not. Abuse of any kind, particularly by those who are themselves damaged or in a position of power, is wrong.

I just wanted to write, without being presumptuous, to say that you are right to tell the Church authorities how you feel about Abbot Cuthbert and the harm you feel he has done to you. The way you’ve been ignored is shameful by men of the Church who, even if they did not want to get involved with something outside their remit or authority, should have reached out with some compassion. Abbot Anselm certainly showed this; what an indictment that others did not.
~~~~~

Unfortunately in the last fortnight I have been contacted by somebody else new, who has been deeply traumatised by their association with Abbot Cuthbert Brogan! Though managing to get on with their life, it has not left them and becoming aware of our campaign though in many ways re-traumatising, will, please God, be the start of a more cathartic process of healing.
Of course Abbot Cuthbert Brogan could hasten this healing by, of his own volition, stepping down as Abbot, leaving Farnborough Abbey, making a wholehearted public apology and committing himself to a life of prayer and penance as an ordinary monk in another monastery, assuming no criminal case be ever proved in which case he may well have to swap a monastic cell for a prison cell!
I'll finish this post with an appeal to any men / friends & family of any men, especially young men, thinking of trying their vocation at St. Michaels Abbey, Farnborough....Please Don't!

Not yet......

No comments:

Post a Comment