HE MIGHT not have realised it, but World Youth Day coordinator Anthony Fisher touched on an important principle of healing, albeit expressed insensitively.
Having spent most of the past two years preparing for the event in Sydney, Bishop Fisher's frustration at those who spoiled the party by reminding the church of its sins was understandable, if not justified. He certainly reinforced his reputation as a hardline enforcer of church doctrine.
Yet when frustrated by niggling demands for a papal apology over sexual abuse by Australian Catholic priests and religious, Fisher complained the anger and suffering of victims was spoiling World Youth Day for everyone else. That thousands of lives had been scarred by sexual abuse seemed to escape him. The problem, as he saw it, was that these people were dwelling crankily on old wounds.
The question is, what is an apology worth if extracted only by public demands? Surely, a genuine apology is freely offered, not given begrudgingly in response to demands.
With or without an apology, how do people recover from a deep hurt? First, it is by grieving the loss. It is not by financial compensation, though that can help to pay for practical services, such as medical or psychological treatment. Too much emphasis on receiving financial compensation has been shown to delay or even prevent healing.
Some abuse victims have been persuaded a financial settlement will resolve the matter. Similarly, that an apology will fix everything.
But recovery and healing take time and involve focussing on the value of one's life more than on what has been lost. Healing often requires forgiving the perpetrator and to accept one's own value. Those who focus on the loss without recognising the potential of a new beginning risk a life of bitterness and missed opportunities.
That, perhaps, was the point Bishop Fisher was trying to make. After any period of grieving, the time comes to face a new future, not by denying or ignoring the past, but by accepting it, and in the case of sexual abuse, to know one was not to blame.
Broken Rites Australia, formed in 1992, was at the forefront of demands for a papal apology to sexual abuse victims. The organisation has been regarded, fairly or not, as more concerned with criticising religious organisations than supporting sexual abuse victims. This, of course, it denies, but the perception remains, not least among more liberal and sensitive clergy.
Perhaps belatedly, the Pope gave his apology in Sydney. Then there was criticism it was in the wrong place.
Broken Rites says that shortly before returning to Rome, the Pope had excluded Anthony and Christine Foster from a meeting with four such victims last Monday. The Fosters' two young daughters were sexually abused by a Melbourne Catholic priest. Though they had travelled from England hoping to meet the Pope, it is hard to see that they had any greater right to meet him than the thousands of other victims who live in Australia.
Yet Mr Foster said it was underhanded and sneaky that he had not been included and that everyone involved in the meeting should be ashamed of themselves.
World Youth Day organisers, it seems, were damned if they did and damned if they did not agree to a token meeting with sex abuse victims. The extent of this blight on the church meant the logistics of arranging a meeting for all victims were effectively insurmountable.