The Catholic Church's Cover-Up of Child Abuse Will Prove Far More Costly Than the Original Crimes
By Tom Murphy
The Times
August 7, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2208838.ece
United Kingdom — The first paedophile I met was introduced to me by a Catholic priest. I was blond-haired, blue-eyed and looked even younger than my 14 years. I had just joined the local Catholic-run youth club adjoining my parish church and expressed an interest in the drama group, run by a layman in his fifties.
About nine months later I endured one of the most unpleasant experiences of my teenage years at the hands of this man, who finally got me alone in his flat after months of what now would be called grooming. I became quite tearful as he elicited my childish fears and angst and the next thing I knew I was squirming in his tight but unwelcome embrace as he attempted to "kiss me better", on the lips, of course. I managed to get away, ran out of the door and never went back. Through a mixture of shame and embarrassment, I never told my parents.
Fifteen years later, shortly after being appointed editor of The Universe, the Catholic weekly, I received a letter of complaint from the late Archbishop of Birmingham, Maurice Couve de Murville. The Universe had reported the case of a priest of his diocese who had been found guilty of child abuse. "It's bad enough when this is reported in the secular press," he wrote, "but we don't want our own newspapers to publicise it as well." The priest in question, after complaints about the abuse, had been moved to another job and left free to abuse again, in a pattern that was to become clear as similar cases emerged.
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After a worldwide scandal and the drip-drip of case after case of abuse by priests, the Catholic bishops in England and Wales set up a new regime in 2002 to protect children and vulnerable adults based on the recommendations of a report by Lord Nolan. The Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Copca) was established and child protection officers sought for each diocese.
But have things really changed? Tony Blair may be about to become the latest high-profile convert to a Church that has become more confident of its place in British society in recent decades. But there is still a feeling in British Catholicism of being embattled and outside the established norm, and a tendency to clam up when things go wrong.
Last month, a commission chaired by Baroness Cumberlege, set up to review what has happened since Nolan, published a report that makes grim reading for the bishops. The report, Safeguarding with Confidence, recommends that Copca be replaced by a new National Safeguarding Commission, with an independent chairman but more integrated into church structures, emphasising a "one Church approach".
The report speaks of a vacuum left by the Church leadership in driving the child-protection agenda and says that the bishops must take a more central leadership role and responsibility. The commission notes that their leadership is patchy and that they may be minimising the distressing consequences, the harmful impact and the anguish that follows in the wake of child abuse. It speaks of complacency, grudging uptake and resistance to change and a fear and suspicion that the authority of the leadership is being undermined. It details tensions in the Church between priests and bishops on how to deal with allegations and says that there is a danger of taking a step backwards if more progress is not made.
Baroness Cumberlege, whose commission included two bishops, praised their courage in commissioning her report, but said: "I think there was a feeling that it was dealt with. The bishops have left it to Copca and thought: 'We don't have to take possession of this area.' We have said we want to see more support at the parish level. There is a very strong will to make the Church an even safer place but there is more to do. The problem is, you can never know everything that is going on."
The problem for the Church in persuading its troops on the ground of the need for change in dealing with abuse is that priests of the old school, as most in England and Wales now are because fewer young men feel a vocation, do not take kindly to being challenged.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of the Church in England and Wales, welcomed the report, saying it should be studied carefully and that a formal response will come later. The cardinal, unfortunately, has form in this area. After he took the red cardinal's hat, he admitted that, as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, he had been aware of issues related to the behaviour of Father Michael Hill, before the priest had been convicted in 1997 of indecent assaults on children and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. The archbishop, who had offered Hill counselling, said at the time: "With hindsight, what still surprises me is the amount of genuine ignorance that there was, not only among bishops and priests but also in society at large, including the medical profession, about the compulsive nature of child abuse."
The Church can hardly claim ignorance now, but the terrible consequences of such an attitude became apparent recently in the United States when the Diocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay out $660 million (£325 million) to about 500 victims of sexual abuse dating back to the 1940s, just two days before the first of many pending civil cases was due to go to trial.
Eileen Shearer, who resigned last month as the director of Copca, agrees that the organisation, largely because of lack of staff, has had a problem working with Catholics at parish level. "The public is distressed when they hear a child has been abused," she said. "That turns to outrage when they think it has been covered up and not dealt with properly. It has been difficult for the bishops to see child-protection issues as part of the mainstream. But the Church has been transparent. There has been a real sea change. They refer matters to the police now. They talk to the NSPCC and other childcare professionals."
But does the public believe it? Prominent Catholic commentator Clifford Longley wondered in his column in The Tablet recently: "Is there, at its root, something wrong with the whole fabric of Catholic morality? If we expect Muslims to examine the ideological roots of terrorism, we must be prepared to be equally tough with ourselves to root out child abuse."
The Church has managed to offend and upset its own priests, who were accused of abuse by failing to deal with them consistently and according to the principles of natural justice, as enshrined in the common law or Canon Law. And, terrified at the prospect of the victims of abuse seeking legal and financial remedies, and guided by the demands of insurers, it has made apologies that appear begrudging.
The institutional Church has comforted itself with the thought that most if not all the rotten apples have been identified and thrown out.
The money that it is being forced to pay out to victims of abuse will cause pain to the Church, but far worse is the blow to the Church's credibility as a beacon of morality. The cover-up has proved more costly than the original crime, producing more scandal than the Church could possibly have imagined.
It is not unreasonable to say that the price to pay could be the loss of an entire generation of souls that views, however unfairly, the Church as being run by hypocritical old men out to save their own skins and turning the other cheek away from lost and lonely children.
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