Because I'm one of the Vacation Bible School teachers at our parish next month, I have to attend, under penalty of excommunication or some similar such fate, a VIRTUS training program.VIRTUS, from their website:
VIRTUS is the brand name that identifies best practices programs designed to help prevent wrongdoing and promote "rightdoing" within religious organizations. The VIRTUS programs empower organizations and people to better control risk and improve the lives of all those who interact with the Church.
The training I have to take is three hours long. After I registered for the class, I put a request in with the Big Guy upstairs and asked Him if I could substitute my time in this class for time off in Purgatory. And, I didn't just ask for a 1:1 comp. I asked for a 3:1 comp, since this experience is going to be like going to the dentist and having my wisdom teeth removed.
The abuse scandals are a complete tragedy. Few things are worse. However, this training is way off in a legal, CYA, realm to really do much to protect children. As I've mentioned before, my family was affected by the Father Ryan Erickson scandal. We need astute and strong leaders in our seminaries to catch these monsters before they get in a position of trust. Stop the abuse from even happening.
Blessed Mother, please protect our seminaries and seminarians. Provide us with many good priests and strong shepherds.
5 comments:
Oh Yuk! I am sorry you have to go through this. I heart Fr Altier's view of it before he was hastily removed.
All I can say is offer it up. And you are so right. Strong leadership and a bit of common sense would prevent a whole load of this from even happening.
There are signs when someone is behaving badly.
God bless
I'm sorry you have to do this, too. I had to attend before teaching CCD. I found it very upsetting. I do have to say it is doesn't point to the Church at all, just abuse in general.
Let's just not ask any questions and the time will go by really fast.
At least dentists offer sedation.
Can adults be scandalized? I'm not sure what to expect with this class, but hope it's not like the Talking about Touching program Father A railed against (and Father Welzbacher refused to have in the parish).
VIRTUS is not the TAT program...the latter.. * shudder *
I've worked with sexually abused kids, so nothing I heard in VIRTUS was surprising or shocking to me.
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