Sorry

Recently I was in the company of a friend and his 2 children. One poked the other and then, when he thought Dad wasn’t watching, punched his arm. It had the desired effect as a howl of pain emerged from the victim. Dad turned round and confronted the son and asked him to apologise. He calmly folded his arms and said “Shan’t” The reluctant son was sent to his room only to return when “he felt able to say he was sorry”. Twenty minutes later he returned and without eye contact, mumbled “I’m sorry” to his brother. Dad added, “well was that so hard?”
Why are fulsome apologies so difficult for us to make? Does saying sorry carry with it implications of inadequacy? Does apologising somehow diminish us in front of others?
It is meaningless to say “I’m sorry you were hurt/were upset/offended, annoyed by what I did.” That subtly transfers responsibility from perpetrator to victim. The purpose of any apology is to apologise for the action and its consequences without justification.
Today, dozens of people, victims and survivors of sexual abuse while in institutions in N Ireland between 1922 and 1995, will receive an apology from our Executive Ministers. It has been co-developed with victims and survivors.
I pray this apology will be fulsome, unconditional and without any reservation. For too long we have avoided addressing this dark corner of our shared past. Abuse against children has never needed laws and regulations to make it abhorrent, sinful and criminal. The absence of procedures and regulations cannot justify the actions and attitudes which people in positions of trust inflicted on vulnerable young people in their care. They have always been wrong, particularly in religious establishments.
Today I hope and pray the apology will be restorative for those who have suffered in silence. That it will publicly acknowledge the involvement of organisations and the state, through acts of commission as well as omission, in damaging the lives of hundreds of young people.
But, as with all apologies, this one should not simply be symbolic, but should mark the beginning of a new era where such conditions can never again exist and one in which vulnerable children can trust those who care for them. Apologies never change the past, but they can change the future. Apologies can sometimes be doorways to healing.
But there are others who are still seeking that elusive apology, the recognition that they too have suffered injustice at the hands of others. For them, this apology will have little impact. But maybe, just maybe, this public recognition of the harm inflicted upon victims and survivors of sexual abuse might be the trigger for further apologies to be made - apologies which might allow others to move on with their lives because their plight has eventually been publicly recognised.
I pray that today’s event will start that healing process for all who have suffered.