The gentlemen did not deign to reply, preoccupied no doubt with pressing spiritual matters. The pastor of the church was retired prematurely for failing to meet his obligations as a mandated reporter of suspected child abuse. The new pastor expressed his regrets and reaffirmed that Jesus would heal all wounds. Revictimizing the victims is not endemic to Christianity, or even a defining characteristic of it. Just last weekend, in fact, I listened to a Buddhist nun responding to a question about rape by assuring an audience that only anger at one's capacity for delusion was legitimate.
Denial still seems to cross more boundaries of creed than tolerance.
To this there can be no response but humble, sensitive empathy. Such sufferers are our teachers, and they deserve, they have paid dearly, to be heard. If I undertake, then, to write about what I regard as the healing significance of forgiveness, I begin by emphasizing that no one has the right to ask it of any victim. It is in no sense an obligation. Forgiveness is at the discretion of the injured, whose rage and woundedness must command our deepest respect lest we add to an already incomprehensible weight of suffering.