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I would be lying if I said I wasn't struggling.
This is not my grief, but I am grieving. I don't feel I have a right to. I still benefit from what my ancestors did to yours. I have no right to encroach, I have no claim to the sadness, I feel as though by feeling it, I'm taking something from you that I don't have a right to. But, it's still happening.
It's not my grief. It's not our grief. You've had so much stripped from you, we have no right to take this from you too.
The cries of these precious babies haunt me as I try to sleep. And they should.
I see online comments from different people trying to minimize the tragedy, trying to say "it's in the past, I wasn't there, you weren't there, just move on."
I feel that's wrong on so many levels.
Moving on is impossible without healing. For that to happen, we need to learn to just shut up and listen.
We have no right to tell you how to grieve, how long to grieve, what you need to do to heal. We never had that right, we just did it anyway.
We need to just shut up and listen.
Do we really want to be the ones to suggest we know better? Again? As we continue to ride the perpetual waves of privilege their pain continues to provide? Really?
Generations of children. Hundreds, thousands of children, their children, and their children's children still suffer because of what we did, and continue to do.
Those who managed to survive the horrific abuse grew to be adults so damaged by trauma, they had no hope of becoming who they should have been allowed to become. Children who are terrified, hungry, suffering unspeakable sexual and physical abuse can't dream. Children ripped from their families only to be baptized in putrid evil can not grow to thrive. It's impossible.
So we break them, then want to blame them for being broken. Really?
The Catholic Church needs to own this. It sits on records. It continues to cover up. It continues to shield those who still walk this earth that had a direct hand in this.
The Church. With one hand it buries these babies in the yard like unwanted pets while holding a bullhorn with the other, screaming at the top of their lungs how "pro-life" they are.
The hypocrisy is astounding.
We need to just shut up and listen.
We need to follow the lead of those who have the right to lead. We need to give space for everything. All of it. We need to follow, heads bowed in reverence to their traditions and ceremonies. No questions, no suggestions.
We need to just shut up and listen.
The photos are lies. A majestic building. Groups of young children surrounded by nuns, open fields. The building, a torturous prison where they fed children rancid food, and when it made them throw up, forced them to eat the vomit. A place where pedophiles committed despicable crimes, a place where beating children unconscious was the norm. The children surrounded by nuns. The nuns who facilitated and participated in all kinds of horrible abuse. The open fields that should have hosted countless games, but instead became a crime scene holding evidence of genocide.
We need to just shut up and listen.
My privilege in no way entitles me to your grief. It's yours.
I will follow. Ears open, mouth shut, heart broken, head bowed in reverence.
I am so profoundly sorry.
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May all of the lost be found, all of the missing be brought home.
May they be set free by their families, with the traditions they deserve, no longer alone.
May the rest of us support, believe without question, validate the truths the come from these prisons.
May we finally do what's right, what's kind, what we should have always done, just shut up and listen.
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