[Dialogue] Thanks to P. Schrijnen

[Geri Tolman]

Bill and/or Barbara,

	I'm surprised and saddened to hear that you were disappointed in the
Vale meeting and that you felt that your hopes of building long-term
relationships with colleagues got waylaid.

	It is my view that the abuse of our children that was finally
revealed in Vale was one of the most helpful steps we could have taken in
allowing our children to be finally heard, believed, and taken seriously.
To suggest that the abuse which went on was maltreatment "by a few people"
misses the whole point.  We set ourselves up to be "an experimental family
religious order".  In my opinion we were as arrogant and lax as the Catholic
Church was during that same period of time when they sheltered and
re-assigned pedophiles who were reported to their hierarchy.  Living out of
"the past is approved" assumes, I believe, that you actually KNOW what went
on in the past, not that you were blissfully unaware of our organizational
failure to care for our children.  It happened on "our watch" -- we all
failed the children whose lives were so brutally affected -- to claim
otherwise, to point the finger at a few, is to admit that the scope of our
caring wasn't as comprehensive as we pretended.

	Hopefully any talks about the future will consider this failure,
along with other failures, and will build in the necessary safeguards rather
than try to sweep them under the rug.

Geri Tolman

-----Original Message-----
From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of William Alerding
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 5:41 PM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Subject: [Dialogue] Thanks to P. Schrijnen

Paul,

	We enjoyed your recent reflections, as well as Carlos Zervigon's.
You have articulated our beliefs also. We were shocked and saddened when the
Order was called out of being, but we too have readjusted our lives. Like
you, we still feel close to our old colleagues and enjoy hearing from them.
Hopefully, something helpful will come out of the gathering in Toronto.

	We were disappointed in our Vale meeting in 2000. Our hope of
building long-term relationships with our colleagues got waylaid when
everyone went off on a tangent out of guilt about how some of our youth were
maltreated by a few people. The whole experience went downhill from there,
while too many of our colleagues could not live out of "the past is
approved"  understanding. It was difficult for us to see how we were going
to talk together about the future after it was decided to spend the rest of
our time rollercoasting downhill into the past.

	Thanks for articulating our feelings also.  Love to Christine.

Bill and Barbara Alerding


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