This Sunday is September 12^th is called Safeguarding Sunday.  Safeguarding Sunday, comes at the end of Child Protection Week, whose theme this year is: Every child, in every community deserves a fair go. This day we recall the terrible suffering of people who were abused as children in our Church and resolve, ‘Never again’. This year, however, we focus more broadly on ensuring that in our Church all people are safeguarded.

Safeguarding Sunday 2021: Prepared by Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ

Safeguarding Sunday invites us to ask whether the relationships within our Church express respect for people, and especially vulnerable people, who are precious in God’s sight. It leads us to ask how respect can be translated into policies, protocols and guidelines that spell out in detail how as Catholics we do things. Our procedures must protect people from disrespect.

When we think of safeguarding it is right to think first of children. We may never forget the terrible crimes of sexual abuse and its cover up that priests and other Catholics in positions of trust have committed against children. Abuse and official tolerance of it could happen only because there were no safeguards against it.

In recent years those safeguards have been put in place for children. In most of our Catholic parishes and schools we can say fairly confidently that children get a fair go. We need to keep working especially at it. But we need also to ensure that in all the daily relationships where there is a difference in power people can feel safe. These relationships include those of priests with parishioners, spiritual guides with clients, managers with employees, and volunteers with those whom they help. In all of these relationships those with less power must be safeguarded.  That is what safeguarding Sunday is about. It gives Christ’s mission flesh and bone in day to day life.

Prayer for Safeguarding Sunday

Gracious God, you love and care for all of your children, especially the smallest and most vulnerable. We entrust to you the lives of children and adults at risk who have been sexually abused, and whose trust and innocence have been destroyed. Help us to hear their cries of pain and to take responsibility for those whose lives have been broken. Help us to recognise the hurt felt by those wounded by abuse, and the failure to be heard.

We pray that with the help of your grace communities and families will find understanding and support, so that now and in the future their wounds may be healed and they may find lasting peace. Let your grace and love fall gently now upon our children and adults at risk, giving them the inner strength, peace and resilience to seek out assistance when required. We ask this prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen

Kind Regards

Sue Benc