Abuse survivors say New Zealand churches need to show genuine commitment to reform. Composite photo / 123rf
Abuse survivors say New Zealand churches need to show genuine commitment to reform. Composite photo / 123rf
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has apologised to abuse survivors in state care but many victims of clergy are still looking for answers from New Zealand’s churches.
Dr Christopher Longhurst, a survivor of repeated clergy abuse, believes some churches have made a good start, while others have a long way to go.
Longhurst and other critics say church power structures are a big part of the problem and survivors need to lead the process for genuine reform.
Content warning: This article discusses sexual abuse.
As the Prime Minister delivered an official state apology this week to the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who were abused in care, Dr Christopher Longhurst watched from Parliament’s debating chamber.
While he was left underwhelmed by Christopher Luxon’s speechon Tuesday – it was “clinical and dry”, he says, and “too focused on the past” – it still carried the weight of a historic moment.
“It’s a turning point,” he says. “It’s the beginning of a new stage in the process of healing the collective trauma of our nation.”
Church abuse survivor Christopher Longhurst, pictured after the Government’s apology at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The apology has been a long time coming for Longhurst, 40 years after he was sexually abused for the first time as a pre-teen.
The reputation of his first attacker, a Marist Brother working at the Catholic intermediate school he attended in Napier, preceded him. Longhurst and his classmates used to call him “Brother Bummer” because “he liked to touch our backsides”.
It became a joke, Longhurst said, something he and his peers used to laugh about.
But on the day this Brother took him into a darkened sports equipment room and molested him, he didn’t find it funny. He was terrified.
“I remember my muscles were all tight,” Longhurst recalls of that day in the early 1980s. “I couldn’t move and he was holding me. That was the scary thing about it, because you just didn’t know what was going to happen next.”
When he was assaulted by the same Brother a second time, he started to disassociate from his body – a defence mechanism that helped him cope with the shame and trauma.
“I didn’t like being touched anymore, I wasn’t comfortable in my body. My body was violated and I felt like it was no longer mine.”
Tragically, the abuse continued even once he had left intermediate school. As a 17-year-old at his Catholic high school in Hastings, a Marist priest who was one of Longhurst’s teachers invited him to his residence and attempted to abuse him.
Longhurst recalls with sadness how the experience led to acute depression and derailed a final school year in which he had been made prefect and was achieving well academically. He ultimately left high school early because the spectre cast by the abuse and the trauma of seeing his attacker day after day became too much to bear.
Still more abuse was to follow. Longhurst says he was molested in his late teens by a priest during an interview for the national seminary; and years later, while studying theology in Rome, had to flee from an encounter with a Monsignor that turned sexual.
The collective pain of these experiences came at great personal cost to Longhurst. In the years during and after the abuse, he was consumed by shame and embarrassment, and has undergone extensive therapy and counselling to recover from the traumas. To this day, he still harbours a deep distrust of priests in general.
But Longhurst’s relationship with the church today is complicated.
He currently serves as the national leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap), a role in which he has been one of the most fervent and vocal critics of the responses to abuse from Catholic and other church leaders.
At the same time, though, he’s remained connected to the Catholic institution. He formerly worked at the Vatican Museums in Rome, and currently works as a lecturer at Te Kupenga Catholic Theological College, an institution owned by New Zealand’s Catholic bishops.
Longhurst says while most people don’t remain in the institution where their abuse occurred, he’s in the rare position of being able to separate what happened to him from his personal faith. He sees Jesus as an ally to those who were abused, rather than to their perpetrators.
“We can’t criticise Jesus’ good teachings just because those who claim to be his followers don’t live up to those teachings,” he says.
“In my advocacy, I often quote directly from Jesus’s own teachings in the Bible about his protection of children and condemnation of his own pharisaical religious hierarchy. Jesus is on my side, and on the side of all victims. Jesus is with us on this road to justice and healing.”
Longhurst’s advocacy work is borne out of the hope that genuine culture change within all faith-based institutions is possible, and that he might see it within his lifetime.
“That hope – that there can be change, that there will be change – has kept me going,” he says.
“My hope comes from survivors and their advocates speaking up, pushing back, and empowering themselves. The work they are doing on the ground, those who are speaking up – that’s the catalyst for change.”
Longhurst is one of more than 200,000 people who were abused in state and faith-based institutions between 1950 and 1999, according to Whanaketia, the Royal Commission’s report into Abuse in Care, released in July.
The report found these institutions wanting in numerous areas, including their processes for raising and responding to concerns and complaints; the vetting, training and supervision of staff; and the standards applied in care settings.
Within faith institutions, it was found that the “assumed moral authority and trustworthiness” of religious leaders had been an additional factor enabling abuse to occur.
“Religious beliefs were often used to justify the abuse and neglect, and to silence survivors. Hierarchical and opaque decision-making processes impeded scrutiny and making complaints,” Royal Commission advisor Arrun Soma told Parliament.
Soma noted survivors had been expected to forgive and embrace those who had sinned against them, while their abusers were merely expected to repent. Many abusers were relocated, a practice that enabled abuse to continue unimpeded elsewhere.
Charlotte Cummings, a Christchurch counsellor who has worked extensively on abuse complaints processes, safeguarding reviews and investigations in faith-based organisations.
Charlotte Cummings, a Christchurch counsellor who has worked extensively on abuse complaints processes, safeguarding reviews and investigations in faith-based organisations, says Jesus’ mandate to “love one another” provides a blueprint for churches as they deal with the consequences of abuse within their institutions.
“We see in the Gospels, Jesus pausing his journey often to acknowledge, to hear from, to understand, to bring healing to people who are marginalised,” she says.
“Our posture towards those who have been abused is a really important thing for us to think about. These people are often at the margins of our society, and they’re certainly at a distance from the church, but we have a responsibility towards bringing healing to them and seeking to show understanding, compassion and love.”
Cummings has worked with numerous churches on their response to the Whanaketia report’s findings and 138 recommendations, and says she’s heartened to see some “really good” steps in the right direction.
“Many churches are doing their best to look at what their processes are going to be, what it is that they will be able to measure that they have done in response to this Royal Commission,” she says.
“I think the glimmers where I see hopeful action is where churches are looking at those underlying causation factors that the Abuse in Care inquiry highlighted, and they’re looking at what they do to change attitudes.”
Practical steps, such as improving systems, processes, police checks and training, are important, Cummings says – but it’s only in addressing the culture that an environment is created where people are safe.
She says what’s required of Christians now is a movement similar to the groundswell of demand for fair trade coffee a decade ago.
“We need to think about the ethics – the safety, the worker conditions, the experiences behind the scenes ... it’s only when there is consumer demand for fairness and ethical practice that we see a change in the product that is delivered.
“The institutions of the church have to respond to the realities of abuse, but it’s us as individuals who vote with our feet about where and how we participate in church, and us that need to think about the kinds of regimes we’re upholding.”
In the wake of the report’s release, Cummings prepared a resource for Christian organisations to help them understand the key findings and recommendations, and guide their next steps. It included an exhortation to take meaningful action.
“This is our time, as the church in New Zealand, to go well beyond sorry,” she said.
Being a mum has underlined for Cummings the importance of reinforcing apologies with meaningful action, because otherwise you’re able to “do something hurtful, say sorry, then run off and do your own thing”.
“Making it right for these people might involve an apology, but it also involves restoring their mana and dignity, giving them access to the services and support they need, and making a pathway back to the church, if that’s something that they’re interested in.
“It isn’t as easy as throwing money at someone. Many churches cannot even attempt to get near making a redress payment to people that is anything more than a token of that apology. So that holistic view ... is a really, really important part of the equation.”
One area Cummings believes should prompt introspection within the church is hierarchy. She says it’s imperative church leaders aren’t put on a pedestal where no one can question or hold them accountable.
“Yes, you want a church leader to have spiritual oversight of people, but that needs to not be held in an all-powerful way that becomes problematic and sets the ground for abuse to happen.”
This is a view shared by Longhurst, who believes that the Catholic Church, in particular, has a structure that gives power to bishops and clergy but takes it out of the hands of laypeople.
“When it comes to clergy being ordained, right now, it’s a top-down clergy-led process by which a bishop has total power to ordain a cleric, despite a church teaching that the vocation to the priesthood comes from the community.
“If a priest really is called from the community, then the bishop must go to the community and ask, ‘Should this man become a priest?’ And if the community says no, the bishop must listen.”
Longhurst also takes aim at the Catholic hierarchy for repeatedly referring to abuse and poor handling of complaints – including dismissing them and covering them up – in the past tense, when he’s adamant it’s still occurring now, including with his own cases.
He and other survivors have been revictimised by complaints processes that weren’t carried out with them front of mind, he says, adding that the Catholic Church in New Zealand has an “extraordinarily well-written redress process that is deliberately being breached”.
The Catholic Bishop of Palmerston North, John Adams.
The Catholic Bishop of Palmerston North, John Adams, concedes that there have been times when “the church’s reputation was seen as being more important than the sufferings of individuals”.
“People have suffered awfully. I deeply regret that, I’m ashamed of it.”
However he denies knowing of any instances in the current day of abuse complaints being deliberately mismanaged.
“I’m not aware of any cover-ups or any of the bishops conspiring to keep things hidden. I would need a bit more evidence, and I can promise if that was forthcoming to me, I would be keen to respond in some detail to that.”
Adams also takes issue with Longhurst’s criticism of the Catholic Church’s inherently hierarchical structure – he says it’s “morally neutral”, though admits it does create potential for misuses of power, which priests have to be wary of.
“Christ exercised a certain authority, but it was an authority of becoming a servant. Amongst priests, there’s a strong sense that one exercises their authority and power through loving service of the people.”
The Royal Commission report was heavily critical of the Catholic Church, finding rates of abuse higher than in other denominations and accusing Catholic leaders of not being “accountable or transparent” about the nature and extent of abuse and neglect by their members.
Adams says the Catholic Church is committed to becoming more transparent.
“The Catholic Church and the vast majority of our clergy just don’t want to live in the darkness anymore,” he said.
Not only did the church ask to be involved in the Royal Commission’s Abuse in Care inquiry, he says, but it recently commissioned an independent review into its abuse processes by a UK firm, the findings of which were released publicly a few weeks ago.
Adams says while it’s a journey, “the culture of the church is going in the right direction”.
He credits the 2002 Boston Globe exposé – popularised through the film Spotlight – which lifted the lid on a pattern of sexual abuse and cover-ups in Catholic dioceses across the US and the world, with being the catalyst for a series of major improvements to procedure and policy.
Adams says young men who want to train to be a priest these days come under intense scrutiny.
“I can’t think of another professional body that is as stringent as we are in assessing our guys who are going to be in the front line of the church.
“When I was running a vocations programme, we would do personality tests and send the results to a psychologist in the US to get a blind assessment. Any sign of narcissism, which is one of the red flags for a personality that could be abusive, those results were absolutely pivotal in our decision to accept or reject a candidate.
“We have extensive referee checks, we make sure women are part of the process, and then, of course, there’s a journey to priesthood of seven or eight years with ongoing assessments at each step.”
But Longhurst doesn’t believe the existing processes are enough on their own.
“How can safeguarding signs and police checks, which should be standard practice, produce culture change? This is simply a band-aid in dealing with the consequences of abuse.”
Different churches and faith institutions have responded to abuse with varying levels of effectiveness.
While far from perfect, most have at least recognised a problem with abuse and engaged in the Royal Commission’s process, offering apologies, changing policies and committing to change.
Dr David Tombs, the director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at Otago University and a researcher of church responses to abuse.
Dr David Tombs, the director of the Centre for Theology and Public Issues at Otago University and a researcher of church responses to abuse, says for “unresponsive” faith institutions like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s time to recognise “just how much went wrong, and to be honest about it”.
“There’s a need for truth and justice, not just a superficial hope for healing, or amnesia, or not getting to the root of things. Sexual abuse is an area many people would rather not know about or be troubled by, and they just hope for easy solutions – but that doesn’t work.”
In recent years, Tombs has authored research arguing that Jesus Christ himself was a victim of a form of sexual violence. He came to this conclusion having studied sexual torture in Latin America, the accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion, and the surrounding historical context.
He argues accounts of Jesus being stripped naked multiple times, including in front of a cohort of hundreds of Roman soldiers, fit the definition of sexual violence because it was carried out against his will and in a deliberate attempt to publicly mock and degrade him.
In 2018, an article Tombs co-wrote about the findings went global, drawing the ire of the Daily Mail – which described the research as having “co-opted [Jesus] into Hollywood’s Me Too movement” – and former Brazilian First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro, who referred to it on social media as “insanity” and “Christophobia”.
Tombs says the paper has also received a hostile reaction from some quarters of the New Zealand church.
“In churches, it’s expected that one would be willing to say Jesus suffered. One would even be willing to say he was tortured. But for some it is unthinkable to say that Jesus was subjected to sexual violence.”
He acknowledges it’s a confronting idea for many Christians, particularly given the stigma attached to sexual abuse and ideas around purity.
But he believes recognising Jesus as someone who was abused provides a way forward for faith institutions as they pursue genuine culture change.
“It actually short-circuits people’s thinking, because for many the first response is, ‘well, he must have done something to be blamed for’. And yet, at the same time, Jesus is the one who can’t be blamed.
“The same conviction should be offered to all survivors of sexual abuse. Rather than the instinct to immediately blame, it’s to recognise that ... while there’s no easy healing, you’re not to blame, you’re not alone, and help is possible and available. That’s where the churches could be offering more.”
Reverend Tara Tautari, the general secretary of the Methodist Church of New Zealand.
For Reverend Tara Tautari, the general secretary of the Methodist Church of New Zealand, the key to healing lies in ensuring survivors are empowered to have a say in how the Church deals with their abuse.
Both Tombs and Cummings highlighted the Methodists as having one of the most successful approaches to redress of any of the churches.
Tautari says their approach is epitomised by openness and transparency.
“The church has a history of being closed and having power retained in the control of a few, often behind closed doors, and that is when things have the potential to go terribly wrong.
“I truly believe the more we are open, the more we can kōrero and discern together the right ways forward, then we have a greater chance of shifting [the culture]. That may be naive, but I don’t believe so.”
The Whanaketia report found Māori and Pasifika people were disproportionately represented in abuse in care statistics, and the Royal Commission recommended that the Methodist Church adopt a tikanga and Pasifika values approach to dealing with abuse.
Tautari says that change has been implemented.
“Now we say, hey, we are on a journey together. Let us meet at the very start, kanohi ki te kanohi [face to face], because that’s what Māori people do. That is what Pasifika do, we talanoa [have a discussion]. We say we are now on a journey of redress where we will share and we will begin to build a relationship together.”
Tautari says while it may not be a realistic goal for the church to earn back the trust of those who were victimised in its institutions, doing right by them remains imperative.
“All I hope is that [those who were abused] can say, well, when the [church] finally got their act together, and understood the message of Christ, they were able to deal with me in a way that upheld my dignity as a human being.
“They dealt with me in a way that acknowledged the harm they had done to me, and said, here’s what we will do together to try and provide redress in this situation. And that’s enough.”
Longhurst says genuine healing is not about simply putting victims and survivors first, but about placing them in leadership roles that allow them to bring about the changes that are needed within their institutions.
“I’m advocating for a response that’s victim and survivor-led, not just one that’s victim and survivor centred.
“If church leaders empowered the right survivors to make the changes, because they have the experience, knowledge and skills, not only would this further strengthen them, but it would help the institution heal too.”
