Oct 27, 2011:
Correction: In his response to our open letter, the bishop cleared up a misunderstanding by explaining that "the meeting was about abuse cases in The Catholic Diocese of Oslo and "Trondheim Stift". The original wording was: "A review, summation and analysis of the abuse cases in The Catholic Church”.
The day after this was written …
… the Norwegian Catholic Church’s website had an article on the Catholic Academy
Here is a link to the Norwegian text
There was also a link to the bishop’s lecture, and a one of the paragraphs there compelled me to write to the site’s web editor. The following is a translation of what I wrote:
From: "Ingrid Johanne Vaalund"
To: webred@katolsk.no
Subject: Factual Errors in the Bishop’s Lecture
To: webred@katolsk.no
Subject: Factual Errors in the Bishop’s Lecture
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2011
There are some factual errors in the bishop’s summation of the abuse cases that I am asking katolsk.no to correct.
In the lecture that I found here …
… the bishop wrote:
"In this period there were some people who got in touch with us and informed of abuse. Some had been subjected to this as children, others as adults. The Professional Ethics Council tried to follow up all of them. Some asked for help in getting treatment, others wanted confirm what they said in writing. The need to be believed was common to them all, as was the wish to remain anonymous.”
This is incorrect if my sister, Kari-Anne Pedersen, and I are included in “all”.
The Professional Ethics Council’s “follow-up” of Kari-Anne and me is documented in “A correspondence with the Catholic Professional Ethics Council”.
Neither Kari-Anne nor I have asked for help in getting treatment, and we have not asked for any kind of written confirmation of what happened. What is important for us, is to share our extremely hard-earned experience on Church violations. This we offered the Ethics Council in 2010: “… my sister and I are willing to meet with the council, if it thinks that our experiences and viewpoints can be useful.”
I have no idea who “all” are, but Kari-Anne and I have not expressed any need to be believed. Our lack of this need is documented in our correspondence with the Ethics Council.
Neither do we have the slightest wish to be anonymous. Both Kari-Anne and I have written essays on this subject in Klassekampen, [and in 1988 an international magazine requested an article from me – the uncut English version is here: http://freudfri.blogspot.com/2011/03/we-shall-no-longer-be-silent-1988.html9]. In 1988 I was plastered all over the front page of VG, [a Norwegian tabloid], as a victim of priestly violations (I can send you a scanned facsimile). And last year Kari-Anne gave an interview to Klassekampen about the violations. I cannot find a direct link to that article, but …
... it was repeated by NRK {the national broadcasting company]:
And by “Dagbladet”:
and by “Hamar Arbeiderblad”:
I am appending an open letter from us to the Church with the bishop’s response. This was written before I read the bishop’s lecture.
Greetings
Ingrid Vaalund
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