My last blog on the crime of child sexual abuse elicited a lot of feedback, but some people were worried that I was suggesting that we shouldn’t ‘blame’ the Catholic Church for the child sex abuse that has occurred among its ranks because I wrote that the abusers are men before they are priests. That’s not what I was suggesting. I continue to insist that we must lay the emphasis on the abuser and the fact that he has committed a crime, rather than the fact that he may have chosen the priesthood (or become a teacher or club leader) in order to get easy access to children.
That does not, though, mean that the particular institution to which the abuser belongs does not bear responsibility for his actions. That is particularly true when it is the very nature of the institution – powerful, trusted, holding a privileged position in the lives of children and their families – that gives the abuser the opportunity to groom children and then abuse them.
Any institution that provides access to children for its staff – at all levels – must take responsibility for the safety and protection of those children. And this starts at the top: those in charge of the organisation must send out a clear message that any act that threatens the safety, health or morals of any child will simply not be tolerated.
This should be put in writing and written into the contract/undertaking of all staff, as well as volunteers. It should be a condition of their working for the organisation. The zero-tolerance policy should be made public and regular reports should be made on how it is being implemented. Additionally, the policy should include details of a reporting mechanism so that any incidence of abuse can be reported in confidence, and a fully detailed process for following up the report should be described. This should include immediate referral to the police if the allegation involves criminal conduct. Although this can occasionally be misused and mischievous reports are occasionally made, the organisation has to put the child first and allow the police to investigate.
The Catholic Church should be no exception to any of this. My dear friend Ron O’Grady, in his intelligent, balanced study of this in the book The Hidden Shame of the Church (Risk Books, World Council of Churches, Geneva 2001) has underlined that, if traditional church practices protect the abuser, then they must change. In particular, O’Grady notes that the ‘inviolable seal’ of the confessional flies in the face of both the child’s right to protection and almost always the fact that in most countries it is a crime to know about a crime and not report it. In short, in hearing an abuser’s confession and not reporting it, a priest is an accessory to the crime and therefore also criminal. Why should a priest be above the law?
And this applies to similar confessional procedures in other churches, not only the Catholic Church. O’Grady quotes the example of a Pentecostal priest in New Zealand who was brought before church elders after reports that he had abused children in his Sunday school class. The priest broke down, confessed, and asked to be forgiven. After prayers over the man, the church elders announced to the congregation that he had sinned but had repented and been pardoned. The congregation was advised that it was time to ‘forgive and forget’. A few weeks later the priest was caught abusing another child. This time he ended up in prison.
The point to be made here is that if, at any point, someone had thought about the CHILD who had been abused (and even those who might be in future), then maybe they might have thought twice about what they were doing. It bears repeating again and again: the child’s best interests must always come first! Surely all religions would agree with this? I cannot think of any religion that puts the adult before the child, or that suggests that the Supreme Being (whatever the name given) would grant forgiveness to someone who had repeatedly abused a child’s innocence.
Maybe things will change. In my home country, the government has announced that there will be an investigation into the multiple reports of children who have taken their own lives in the aftermath of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. We shall see what arises and I’ll post comments as it progresses.
Meanwhile, maybe things are changing, at least in some countries. As O’Grady’s book was going to press, a French court found the Bishop of Bayeux, Normandy, guilty of perverting justice by concealing the crime of one of his priests. Although he was only given a suspended sentence, this is the first time a court convicted a religious leader for concealing a crime he learned about in the confessional.
It’s about time.