Neil McNicholas: If only we had known better... moral evil of child abuse that casts a shadow on my Church

THE beginning of April sees the fifth anniversary of the passing of Pope John Paul II and the beginning of the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Given the recent controversies concerning child-abuse by Catholic priests, how does the Church move forward?

There is no question whatsoever of the basic moral evil underlying all instances of the sexual abuse of children. It is a misuse of power and a betrayal of trust on the part of the abuser and it can result in tremendous long-term psychological harm and damage to the victim.

There are no excuses, no mitigating circumstances. Children should be, and must be, completely safe and totally protected, and those who abuse children must be held fully accountable in law.

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Much of what we have been hearing in the media recently has had to do with the alleged mismanagement of priests suspected of sexually abusing children, with bishops and cardinals being held to account. But when we have also heard of horrendous instances of the physical and sexual abuse of children by family members, who then have we held to account and would we criticise the institution of the family as vehemently? Surely children should be safer in the family home than anywhere else? And yes, they should also be safe in church of course.

By and large, the instances of abuse by priests occurred many years ago at a time when the subject of paedophilia was little understood.

It was treated in much the same way as priests were dealt with who had a drink problem and who were typically sent to AA for help and then moved to a different parish with the hope of new beginnings all round. It's difficult for us to understand, knowing what we now know, that society in general (and not just the Church) was as woefully ignorant as it once was about paedophilia.

We know now that simply moving an abusing priest was not the answer; we also know now that specialised counselling (even if it had been available) would not have helped – paedophilia cannot be cured. If only we had known better, hopefully we would have done better.

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There is very little the Church can do to adequately make up for incidents of abuse in the past or its failure to deal with abusers the way they should have been dealt with had we known. As those who have been abused come forward, hopefully the local Church is responding to their psychological and pastoral needs, acknowledging that they are indeed the principal victims.

Hopefully, too, adequate systems are now in place (in our seminaries and afterwards) to safeguard children against physical or sexual abuse and to identify the first signs of deviant behaviour on the part of anyone – not just priests – involved in the work and ministry of the Church.

I think it's important to remember that even though instances of abuse continue to surface, it still only involves a very small proportion of priests and that the vast majority in no way deserve to be tarred with the same brush – and yet we find we have to defend and justify ourselves and our ministry all because of the actions of a few bad apples.

Some priests have even experienced being called a child abuser in the street simply because they are a priest. It goes without saying that people have a right to expect better of their priests, a higher moral standard, and that the trust they place in their clergy should be well-founded and hopefully it is.

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But it has to be said that we are currently labouring under a cloud of suspicion that we really don't deserve. When we were first experiencing that cloud, I will always remember the occasion when, at the end of a diocesan celebration, the late Bishop Kevin O'Brien spontaneously spoke up in support of the priests of the diocese. His words, and the priests who were present, received a very moving and prolonged ovation from a packed cathedral. It was just what we needed at the time and it's probably just we need again now.

It was St Paul who said that we are only earthenware vessels holding the treasure of the gospel, an image that reminds us how vulnerable we are and how easily we are broken. His point was that when we act out of our humanness, our fragility, our imperfection, thankfully it is God who holds things together despite ourselves.

If the future of the Church over the ages had depended on the merits of its members, that future would undoubtedly have been short-lived. I'm trying to avoid using the eternal and banal response of politicians and football managers: "We must learn from this and move on" but I'm afraid I can't. In all of the abuse-related problems that the Church is experiencing, there is certainly a lesson to be learned but it has been at a considerable cost to the priesthood and, more importantly, at an even greater cost to the victims of abuse.

The Church will move forward from this because that is the nature of "pilgrimage". Some of our earthenware vessels are currently broken but they can be fixed and hopefully they will be the stronger for it.

Father Neil McNicholas is a parish priest in Whitby.