LOUDfence at Wheeling Cathedral Offers Support for Victim-Survivors
The Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, W.Va. Photo courtesy of Nick Chancey
When worshippers arrived at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling, West Virginia for Mass this past Sunday, they found colorful ribbons tied to railings outside the building. Alongside the ribbons were laminated cards with stories and messages of support for victim-survivors of abuse.
Groups of shoes positioned inside the cathedral represented religious sisters harmed by Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik, as well as other adults and children who have suffered abuse in the Catholic Church.
These displays were created by LOUDfence UK, an organization founded to acknowledge the struggles of people harmed in the Church. The homily at Sunday’s Mass in West Virginia included mentions of sexual abuse in the Church and elsewhere, and survivors gathered after Mass for a post-event discussion with LOUDfence founder Antonia Sobocki.
This was the first U.S. event for the organization, which has caught the attention of a growing number of Church leaders. In fact, in September 2023, Sobocki traveled from her home in England to Rome to meet with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and was granted a surprise audience with Pope Francis.
“What Are You Going to Do About This?”
Shoes represented the religious sisters harmed by Fr. Marko Rupnik. Photo courtesy of Antonia Sobocki.
Sobocki lives with her husband and children in Kirkbampton, a tiny, remote village near Hadrian’s Wall, an ancient structure that separates England and Scotland. “It’s the least populated, most country place you can imagine, so for this to be the place where something like this started is actually hilarious,” she says.
A survivor of familial abuse that began when she was seven years old, Sobocki says she grew up thinking “I just have to survive until I’m an adult.” But looking over her childhood, she also says she feels lucky. “Although my family life wasn’t great, I had a wonderful priest in my life named Fr. Damian who was a mentor, and a teacher, and a friend.” He taught children in the parish about fine art. “He was that one teacher you remember for your whole life, that makes a huge impression,” she recalls. As an adult Sobocki developed a career painting and restoring Catholic statues.
One night in the summer of 2018, Sobocki had just put two of her children to bed when she switched on the news and heard a story from the United States about the release of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, which detailed widespread sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy in that state’s dioceses.
The news hit her hard. “My whole world just collapsed,” she remembers. “I was so shocked and so upset because this was so in contrast with my childhood experience with Fr. Damian. The next morning, I remember I put my feet on the floor and the floor looked the same, the curtains looked the same, the furniture looked the same, but I couldn’t get a grip on where I was.” Her doctor suggested that she was in shock and struggling because the Church no longer felt like a place of safety.
Looking for answers, she went to her parish priest and a church safeguarding official who were “defensive and confrontational,” she says. She no longer felt that she could attend Mass and began praying on her own on a nearby beach. “I would march up and down the beach with the dog and rant at God, “Why don’t you do something? You can do anything. Why can’t you do something?” she recalls. Around the same time, she grew close to a group of older women who cared for the small Anglican church in her village, who also felt tremendous sorrow when an investigation revealed similar abuse and leadership failures in the Anglican Church. The community was also rocked when news broke that an Anglican bishop wrote a letter in support of a priest who had sexually abused two eight-year-old girls.
Sobocki recalls comforting one of the church ladies, who was weeping with grief at this news. The 82-year-old looked at Sobocki and asked her, “What are you going to do about this?”
“The thing that shocked me was that my accusation [of God] was thrown straight back at me,” she says.
Ribbons of Remembrance
As an artist, Sobocki began thinking about visual symbols, including an ancient Scottish tradition of memorializing people and events by tying pieces of fabric to trees. LOUD Fence Inc, a movement in Australia, began tying ribbons to church fences in 2015 as a show of solidarity and support for those testifying to the nation’s Royal Commission investigating institutional abuse. Sobocki proposed a similar idea to the Anglican parish in Kirkbampton, St. Peter’s, suggesting that they decorate the church’s fence with more than 100 ribbons in honor of people who had experienced abuse. The parishioners not only agreed to the ribbons but also posted an apology to the two girls who were abused, Sobokci recalls. “It said, ‘We are so sorry. This church is your church. And if you ever need us, we are here.”
The Wheeling installation included messages of support from U.K. bishops. Photo courtesy of Antonia Sobocki.
Once photos of the fence were posted on social media, word of the installation quickly spread. Leaders at Anglican cathedrals and Bishop David Oakley of the Catholic diocese of Northampton soon contacted Sobocki, asking for her help in creating similar “loud fences.” People visited these churches from all over England, leaving ribbons to mark their own or loved ones’ experiences of abuse. “They leave heartbreaking messages,” Sobocki says. “It’s a way of memorializing loss and making sure that it’s not forgotten. It’s a small form of restorative justice.”
Last year, French bishops invited her to create a loud fence at Lourdes, and the organization also participated in the installation Mass for Bishop Stephen Wright of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. He replaced a bishop who stepped down after failing in his safeguarding responsibilities. Soon after that, Sobocki and LOUDfence were invited to meet the Pontifical Commission in Rome, the trip that led to the meeting with Pope Francis.
“A Symbol of Hope for the Global Church”
Sobocki gave Pope Francis one of the ribbons used on the loud fences. “He took the ribbon from me and said, ‘This is a symbol of hope for the global Church, and you’ve got to take this everywhere.’”
The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston was previously led by Bishop Michael Bransfield, who resigned after accusations of sexual abuse and financial misconduct. During the Mass on Sunday, Sobocki presented one of the LOUDfence ribbons to current Bishop Mark Brennan.
Sobocki hopes LOUDfence events end the silence around Church abuse. “What we’ve done is say, it’s good to talk about this,” she says. “This is an injury and you should be able to talk about it.”
She also aims for the events to bring about the changes needed for a safer Church.
“It's a symbol of hope,” Sobocki says, “but it's also a source of accountability. It's a promise.” She hopes church leaders move forward from these events committed to action. “This can’t just be PR,” she says. “It has to have something real behind it.”
—Erin O’Donnell, Editor
