Commemorative ribbons removed from outside Auckland church - again

Friday, 27 September 2019

The top Catholic in the Wellington area has written to church members imploring them not to remove commemorative ribbons tied to church railings. 

But a victim's advocate has said the 'Loud Fences' ribbons are still being removed from outside an Auckland Catholic church.

Ribbons were removed from Our Lady of the Assumption Church, Onehunga, in June, before being put back up, Survivors of Abuse in Faith-based Institutions spokesman Dr Murray Heasley said.

Every so often Heasley goes and checks on them, and last week they had been removed again, he said.

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'They were slashed off. This parish does not give a rat's a… about survivors and their pain.'

The 'Loud Fences' initiative, which started in Ballarat, Australia, is where messages are written on ribbons, which are then tied onto railings or fences outside churches to honour victims of abuse by clergy.

The idea is that it is the voice of victims survivors 'trying to claw back some redress for the harm that they suffered inside the Catholic Church,' Heasley said.

Ribbons were also removed from a church in Wellington at the end of last year, before being put back up.

Cardinal John Dew has recently written to priests and lay pastoral leaders in the Wellington archdiocese asking that respect be given to the tying of ribbons.  

'In this, coloured ribbons are being hung on fences to show solidarity with

victims of sexual abuse and to encourage victims and survivors to appear before the Royal Commission [of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions],' the cardinal wrote.

Heasley said it was a sign the church was moving in the right direction, but it didn't go as far as Otago and Southland. 

'They're actually encouraging people to tie them on.'

There are three different approaches that churches around the country are taking, Heasley said. 

'There is massive support, unqualified, total support of ribbon tying by Bishop Michael Dooley in Dunedin. 

'We've got qualified support from the Cardinal to leave them alone. Then, if anything, resentment and outrage in Auckland that these ribbons should be tied on.

'[Bishop Patrick] Dunn has written to Onehunga, but he has not done what Dew has done and written to all parishes to tell them to leave the ribbons alone. He wrote to Onehunga, not all the way up to Northland and down to Hamilton border.'

Auckland diocese spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said they knew were aware the ribbons had been removed again, but didn't know who had taken them down.

'The Bishop has done what he could to tell people to leave them and to respect the fact that they have a significance and that that must be respected.

'He wrote a letter to be read out at all masses to say, 'We want you to respect them' and to say what they were.

'It was certainly not staff. When they were first placed there they were taken down by some children who didn't know what they were and thought the messages were a bit disturbing.

'They took them down and put them into a rubbish bin. Staff went and recovered as many as they could and put them back up.'

​Heasley said anyone with an interest in preventing the sexual abuse of children could tie a ribbon of support for victim/survivors at any church of any denomination, especially given that the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care is about to have its first public hearing at the end of October.

'The ribbon is a profound and beautiful symbol after all, moving and impactful.'