“Night comes out of the forest…” Whoever loves songs knows this line from “The Night” by Richard Strauss. The song is part of the soulful heritage of German culture, and there is hardly a star in the classical concert scene who hasn’t sung it, from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to Diana Damrau. Nevertheless, on this evening in Rome, the audience will hear it with completely different ears for the first time. It is dedicated to victims of sexual abuse, particularly child abuse by Catholic priests.
Laurence Gien sings the melancholic, hypnotic tones of “Night” with his warm baritone, deep, clear, unmistakable. “…All the lights of this world, all flowers, all colors she extinguishes… She takes everything that is only fair… Takes the silver away from the river. Takes away the gold from the copper roof of the cathedral.” A woman in the audience wipes tears from the corners of her eyes. Diplomats from countries from Africa to Scandinavia have come to listen to him at Villa Malta, as have nuns, aspiring priests and those affected. The “Institute of Anthropology”, which is behind a church project for the protection of victims, and the German embassy invited the participants.
Laurence Gien chose “Die Nacht” and other songs for this program. There are also less classical sounds, for example by Kurt Weill – and instrumental pieces that describe without words what can hardly be said anyway. And about which, if it were up to some in the Catholic Church, it would be better to remain silent forever.
Laurence Gien is accompanied by violinist Angela Rossel and Geoffrey Abbott on piano. All three are top musicians, all three live in Augsburg and work throughout Europe. Laurence Gien was a member of the ensemble at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich for many years, later in Kassel and Braunschweig. He sang Beckmesser from Richard Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”. And he sang for Eberhard Schöner, the celebrated composer and grandmaster of the avant-garde of electronic music.
Nevertheless, the road to Rome was difficult for Laurence Gien. Harder than anything else in his life. For him, this concert was not just an artistic act. Accepting the clergy’s invitation to come here was tantamount to going public with his own story of being abused.
Gien was a student at a Catholic boarding school in South Africa when it happened
“I was eleven years old when I suffered severe abuse,” Gien, who grew up in South Africa, will tell the next day in front of prospective priests. They study at this institute of the Vatican University. After the minister’s act, which was simply transferred to another school, his life was “in many ways affected by those sad events”. Even if they had taken place 50 years ago on another continent, “in a darkened room in a Catholic boarding school”. He consciously takes the risk that he will now go through the world openly as an opera singer with this sign, that this knowledge of other people may block their view of him as an artist in the future.
“But I don’t sing as a victim!” That’s what Laurence Gien says, and you believe him when he stands on stage like a rock in the surf, perfect support, tall, strong. But his lack of self-confidence haunted him throughout his life, says Gien.
“This is so typical for those affected by abuse,” says Richard Kick, spokesman for the Advisory Board for those affected by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. “Only very few manage to be as stable in life as Laurence Gien,” says Kick. It is important for those who have been abused to be shown that this is even possible. That gives strength, courage that so many lack.
The singer Laurence Gien.
(Photo: Laurence Gien)
But why does the chosen path lead men like Laurence Gien and Richard Kick back to the church? Why did you even decide to work with a Catholic institution? Kick, who was an alcoholic for 15 years and never graduated from school as a result of the mental health issues that have plagued him since he was abused for a long time from the age of eight, explains: “We are socialized in the church experience. It’s a kind of home.” And Laurence Gien says: “The church does not belong to anyone alone. Basically, it is located exclusively in the heart of each individual anyway. And I have now met people in the church whom I trust.”
Gien speaks of Peter Beer and Hans Zollner. Zollner recently caused a stir when he surprisingly withdrew from a papal committee for the protection of minors in mid-March. In his declaration of resignation, he sharply criticized the structures and the lack of transparency of this commission, which Pope Francis set up personally in 2014, but which delivers hardly comprehensible results.
Zollner is considered one of the most important experts on the subject of child abuse in the Catholic Church. In 2012, the Jesuit co-founded and later headed the Center for Child Protection in Munich, whose headquarters were moved to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 2015 and later merged into the “Institute of Anthropology. Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care” (IADC). Zollner, who is not only a theologian but also a psychotherapist, has been the director of the institute since 2021.
The purpose of the facility: a global prevention program to prevent sexual abuse by clergy. The training of prospective priests makes up a significant part of this. Finding out which of them should not take up this office is the crucial aspect.
Realizing that the church would not be able to solve its abuse scandal itself, he resigned from office in 2019
Father Zollner works closely with Peter Beer. He carries the title “Head of Research and Development” at the institute. In Bavaria, many – and not only Catholics – know him in another capacity: for ten years he was Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. This made him one of the most influential men alongside Cardinal Reinhard Marx. Realizing that the church would not be able to solve its abuse scandal itself, he resigned from office in 2019.
Beer commissioned the diocese’s first report on abuse in 2010. The deeper he delved into the subject himself, the more its atrocity revealed itself to him. In an interview in the Time, which reverberates in church circles to this day, Beer said in January 2022: “I had to realize: We don’t have isolated cases of abuse, but a system. That shook me.” And the system, it “brakes and covers up” in Beer’s eyes to this day.
Beer was an educator and worked as a religion teacher in an elementary school for three years before becoming a priest and his career in the church hierarchy took off with great momentum. Beer hasn’t worn the priest’s collar for years (“Some abused people can’t stand the sight alone”) – and with the collar he has given up many dignities, honors and offices.
He speaks openly about the doubts about his life decision for the church, and when he does it, Beer, who can usually laugh so heartily, pulls the corners of his mouth down to his chin. He draws meaning for himself “from the decision to do what is possible now to help those affected and prevent abuse from happening more and more”. It was Peter Beer who asked Laurence Gien for help with this attempt.
The Archdiocese is currently seeking collaborations with several artists to encourage a healing process
Beer is also chairman of the Spes et Salus Marx Foundation, set up to give hope and help to those affected by abuse. Laurence Gien is now their artistic advisor. And he’s not the only artist currently willing to walk at least part of the way with the Archdiocese and the likes of Beer and Zollner.
Michael Pendry, whose work “Heart” will be brought to the Pope by those affected on Wednesday, is one of them. What is on display in the newly opened Diocesan Museum in Freising deserves special attention: from Berlinde De Bruyckeres, for example. Her bronze “Arcangelo” stands there as an installation in the atrium, with hanging wings and encased from head to bare knees in a cloak of patinated lead.
But no artist, no artist in this country has dared to take such a step as Laurence Gien, who is himself affected. And some are now wondering who will ultimately be helped more, those affected or the Church itself. “After consulting with my wife and children, I have decided to take the hand that the archdiocese extended to me,” he says. “I do this with the firm belief that art, music and literature can help.”
Because even as a young man, before his own voice was discovered, Gien sought solace in his loneliness in the music of singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel – and found it. From his concerts he simply hopes “that people will take away something that gives them strength. Because there is nothing worse than hopelessness.”