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	Reasons Why; Des Wilson Association of Catholic Priests November 29, 2011 http://www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2011/11/reasons-why-des-wilson-2/ REASONS WHY Priests and religious have been accused of not speaking out about the sexual use and abuse of children. Why did they not? Those using children for sexual gratification are secretive and even their closest colleagues may not know about it. Those who misuse alcohol can also be so secretive that even their spouses, families and colleagues do not know they are addicted or dependent, or know the schemes they use to satisfy their need. Priests or religious could hide an addiction to sexual gratification from even the closest of their colleagues especially when so much of the work they do is confidential and their colleagues, including those in authority, do not and often cannot probe closely into it. In the nineteen forties and fifties when people had great confidence in the clergy priests in Ireland said proudly that in other European countries priests could not visit households during the day because their intentions were suspect but in Ireland clerics could visit freely while husbands and men folk even tended to make themselves scarce when a priest visited. People inIreland presumed all was well and seemed unwilling to upset this belief. Those involved in “rings” in which people pass information to each other about young people or others who are sexually available are even more secretive and successfully so, especially if those involved would lose public reputation if discovered. There has been no serious suggestion yet, although there may be in the future, of “rings” created specially by or for clergy in Ireland, although it has been suggested that some clergy may have been involved in rings along with others ; this may be because we are reluctant not only to contemplate individual use and abuse of children but even more reluctant to contemplate organised use of them because this takes the sexual use and abuse of children out of the realm of individual wrongdoing on to a much more sinister and cynical level. There is at least a triple silence, by those used or abused , by the users and abusers , by the general public especially those connected through professional or other loyalties like family, army, navy, politics, religion, to those involved. It is in our best interest to know why this triple silence happens. Even when some exposure occurs by accident or is revealed by individuals, these secrecies hold firm; most allegations and stories about sexual use or abuse die within a few days or weeks and silence descends again. Stories about sexual use and abuse of children by Catholic clergy and religious in recent times however have been different, there has been wave after wave of revelations, publicity, condemnations and inquiries. Such continuing public attention to use and abuse of children was unusual. Secrecy had been society’s generally and willingly accepted norm for a very long time. Fr. Peter Mc Verry, a Jesuit priest working in Dublin, said there was a ring of abusers between Belfast, Dublin and London, Fred Holroyd,one time worker in Ireland for British intelligence, said much the same but public reaction to that soon died. When Fr Brendan Smyth was finally arrested in the 1990s the most important issue for Dail members seemed to be not the damage to children but the political failure of the Fianna Fail government and the demand for resignation of the Attorney General - the abuse of children seemed marginalised and the suggestion was that what was important in that situation was an adjustment of power and authority. There was also tolerance of and/or public silence about important people whose sexual activities were discussed privately. Schools curricula for young people recommended poets , musicians, writers who committed acts which could be bitterly condemned today. Politicians and others as well as churches protected their institutions , educationalists protected their artistic and cultural values. Frank Duff , founder of the Legion of Mary,complained about bad conditions in industrial schools but his voice was a small one at the time. He did what most people in a hierarchical structure did, referred such matters to those higher in authority within the institutions and presumed that this was both right and effective. Nowadays we are told that members of a community or the general public have a duty to report wrongdoing to other authorities , police for instance,but this is a very recent development. Until the present time society’s accepted norm was to report one’s complaints or suspicions to those in authority within one’s own sphere of influence, if at all, and there was little or no provision for members at a lower level to act personally by referring complaints to police, media etc. Indeed doing so could be penalised and a person’s colleagues would not necessarily protect those who did it. This is a most significant change in our culture. Even in such a climate of acceptable silence some people did speak out but they were met with general silence and were at times penalised for it. In the culture of acceptable silence newspapers published letters without the writers’ names because an unacceptable opinion could expose a person to rebuke or worse. A respected professional Catholic man who wrote occasional commentaries on religious matters in The Irish News (Belfast) was made aware that something he wrote – two lines in a comment about non- implementation of Vatican Two – was unacceptable to church officials. That was the end of his articles; Catholic professionals such as architects, doctors, teachers etc. depended on the goodwill of clergy and often on their patronage in a society in which Catholics were otherwise often denied jobs and had to be careful. A theatrical company which included Catholic, Protestant and Jewish members, Belfast’s Group Theatre, was invited to Moscow on a cultural visit but word came from Bishop’s house that this would be unacceptable. They declined the invitation. This may seem eccentric nowadays but such was the obedience to and reverence for clergy that professional men would even ask permission from the church authority to eat meat at professional dinners, which were often on Fridays and permission would be given through the Vicar General with the condition that a public announcement be made at the dinners saying a dispensation had been given. Such was the atmosphere of the time that Catholic professional and business people did not think this improper or demeaning; deference to those with political or financial power was even more important. There was need to be on one side with clergy and other influential people by whom one’s professional standing might be helped or hindered. People in general needed to be careful and silence in public about what they might talk about in private was inevitable and normal. This socially accepted climate of secrecy and reverence seemed to give clergy and others an advantage but it would be dangerous eventually if ever they took chances which depended on not being challenged. The onslaught on Catholic clergy during the past twenty years then came as an extraordinary shock. Clergy were led to expect freedom from criticism. Fr. Ray Helmick SJ relates that when Dr. Richard Hauser, with whom he collaborated in social studies, criticised Catholic industrial schools in the nineteen fifties he was confronted by a senior cleric demanding why he was criticising the Catholic Church, he being Jewish. He replied that his people and their children had suffered such hurt that now all children were their children. This underlined a reason for silence, so as not to expose a church to criticism by those looked upon as its opponents, however good their intentions about other matters might be. This was not unique , there was a similar reluctance by all churches to reveal for example,the real state of religious observance in N. Ireland in the nineteen fifties and sixties, unwillingness to expose institutional weaknesses to those who, they thought, might use the knowledge against them. Churches insisted that there was higher church attendance than there really was ; discussion about abusive behaviour within churches and other institutions would be even more damaging. Fr. Brian D’Arcy in his autobiography (“A Different Journey”,2006)gives an example of silence about abuse for reasons of loyalty to and the reputation of his own religious community. He shows that when such abuse happens a colleague can still have faith in and protect the person responsible and the community he belongs to, even though others – including people to whom the abuser preaches - may be in danger. The Irish News of the 26th.November 2011 reported on abuses in Lissue (Lisburn) and Forster Green (Belfast) hospitals, and the ensuing silence and lack of referral to police. Many people including parents must have known about such allegations but there was silence from lawyers, judges, police. In the nineteen sixties or thereabouts a Belfast magistrate was said to have crossdressed and wandered at night looking for sexual clients ; the allegations were talked about in private and known about officially but no action was taken until it became impossible not to act and he had to resign. Maurice Hayes in his autobiography (“Minority Verdict” 1995)tells of cover-up and silence in the Kincora case in which there was serious abuse of children . Colin Dexter in his novel “Death is My Neighbour” (1996) Chapter 26 refers to a fictional character being educated in a run-down comprehensive school, avoiding, in his words, the three Bs of many public schools, “Beating, Bullying and Buggery”. Most politicians, media and clergy ignored pleas for an end to strip searching and sexual and other abuse of women in prisons in Ireland and did not demand an inquiry into prisons and holding centres although there was public knowledge of it and prisoners, relatives and human rights workers pleaded for it. Silence about all these things was not a lack of response , it was a positive response, keeping silent about torture and other abuse because most people were persuaded that was the right thing to do. Those who kept silent followed the social and ethical norms of their day. According to Fr Ray Helmick SJ Dr. Richard Hauser, sent a report to the Irish government about the treatment of children in industrial schools but this report seems to have disappeared. Bruce Arnold in his book “The Irish Gulag” (2009) writes about a Report written on Artane for Archbishop McQuaid by Father Moore . Moore writes positively about Salthill which was also run by the Brothers although Arnold says there was physical abuse there to a serious extent. This suggests that sexual abuse could happen without the knowledge even of people who were critical of an institution in other respects. Fr Moore in his report to AB Mc Quaid writes favourably about the Archbishop and others in authority although there must have been some knowledge or suspicion of sexual abuse in institutions and elsewhere. Ex-RUC member Ivan F.Duncan in a book of reminiscences (“From Insult to Injury”) gives examples of silence as an ordinary thing in a mid-Ulster community in the 1950s to prevent some prominent people being embarrassed by their law breaking. One of the most persistent and ardent critics of the Catholic Church leaders , Father Patrick Mc Cafferty made it clear in court in Belfast (November 2011) that he was aware of and took some part in sexual events which he later quoted as wrong but about which neither he nor others in the College where they are said to have happened seem to have made much protest at the time. That is, significant cases of lawbreaking, sexual or other,whether with young people including children or others have been hidden, even when widely known about, because this culture of the home was accepted. So when abuses by clergy or religious were revealed and pursued with exceptional vigour in the 1990s and the early years of 2000 onward it is right to ask why. In the past there was silence. There was also protection for those who did such things. When a child was attacked in Artane in the mid-1950s and his arm broken a T.D.,Captain Cowen, made a speech in the Dail in which he went to some lengths to assure the Dail that the government believed this must be a single isolated event. There was no mention of any suspicion of other abuse including sexual abuse, the presumption was that such things would not happen in Artane. The Minister for Education at that time, Mr Moylan, said it was difficult to see what changes could be made in Artane to make it better than it was. This was not to say Artane was a hopeless case but rather that it was so satisfactory that one could not think of any necessary improvements. Years later this was shown to be too optimistic, as Artane was to be heavily criticised because of abuse by members of staff. It seems as if at some stage government and others felt a need to be compliant with people and institutions while at another it was politically more advantageous not to be. With so much private knowledge and so many hints about abuse , why was there so little public reaction to it in the past? And when it did come, why was this public reaction almost entirely centred on Catholic clergy and Catholic institutions ? There were visiting committees, chaplains etc. in various institutions including prisons and industrial schools but there seemed to be silence also among these about conditions in their institutions . Their conditions of employment or appointment may have included agreement not to comment outside their institutions, and there may have been understandings that there would be no comment but there seems to have been great tolerance within the supervising bodies. But then the attitude to children generally was different from that of the present. The attitude of moralists to abuse was different also. Selfish use or abuse of children and others was not always recognised by our moralists as a primary sexual sin. The primary emphasis was that a person’s sexual gratification was wrong apart from marriage and that sexual gratification was the primary fault, the circumstances in which it was done were secondary to that – what moralists described as a particular malice added to the main sin. Most attention then was on the illicit personal gratification with secondary attention on those with whom – including oneself – this gratification occurred and on the injustice committed on another person. In the case of sexual self-gratification some damaging physical or mental effects were said might occur but these were generally doubted. So the enjoyment of illicit pleasure by the person in adultery for example would likely be uppermost in the mind of moralists, confessors etc. rather than the injustice done to a husband or wife. This could happen also in the matter of abuse or selfish use of children, especially when people were not as conscious of children’s rights as they are now. There was heavy emphasis then on the sin of illicit personal gratification and less on the hurt and injustice it might cause to others. Now the emphasis among people in general and even among moralists has shifted, away from personal guilt, from such illicit enjoyment and on to the hurt done to those used or abused. It is a dramatic and important change and may help to explain past attitudes which seem uncaring for the rights of children and other abused people. Moralists, like the rest of us, reflect the times they live in. There was an echo of this in recent discussions about torture – it was contended that torture was really less than torture because those who did it did not take pleasure in it. Some who derided Catholic moral theology accepted this sophistry. Moralists should not have allowed it to happen but they did. There was also a problem that religious moralists depended so much on divine sanctions to create a moral code even when such divine sanctions were difficult to prove. Scriptural references to children seem not to mention abuse or selfish use of children particularly. The phrase “Suffer the little children…” has been misused to refer to painful suffering when it means simply, Allow the children to come near me….children should be allowed to come and be made welcome, not be excluded, a different message from the one it is sometimes made to convey for example in an RTE documentary “Suffer the little Children….”. Our Lord is asking us to recognise the children’s dignity, not pretend it is not there. He is scathing about those who are a stumbling block to children’s nearness to God. They, he says, would be subject to less evil and everybody else would too if they had suffered a violent death. St.Paul in his Letter to Romans writes about ways in which people offend sexually against God’s law but while mentioning homosexual intercourse,presumably by men, does not specify offences against children. People in his time must have been aware though of what could and did happen with children. Suetonius describes how Nero had children in his swimming pool as his “little minnows”, an activity attributed also to a defendant in a recent case in a Belfast court. But Paul does not make clear what attitude he had towards the selfish use or mis-use specifically of children. From Suetonius’ narrative it seems this was looked on as an example of Nero’s effeteness rather than as a crime, and no mention seems to have been made of the possible effect of it on the children. Sexual use of young people which fell short of what people thought of as physical assault or rape was often the subject of ridicule or contempt rather than condemnation. A scout master or teacher would be considered an oddity, eccentric, effete, an object of ridicule, and more easily as an object of contempt than as an offender against justice. A man is less than “manly” if he abuses or uses a child, but may be too “manlike” if he abuses a woman, while he may be celebrated if he physically abuses another man. Society has its range of abuses, and children were until recently at the bottom of the list in importance. A comment about Fr Brendan Smyth underlines the point: “He was only a groper…..” Another Latin writer,Horace, refers to his teacher as “the flogger” without suggesting he was exceptional although by present-day standards he would be condemned as such. Classical Latin and Greek culture helped to create the intellectual world in which the Christian moralists lived but in that world there seems to have been a marked tolerance of sexual activity with young boys as well as with young girls. As people these seemed to be regarded as of little enough importance. In the Bible parents are told not “to spare the rod”although of course one has to be careful (“Chastise your son while there is hope for him,but be careful not to flog him to death”- Proverbs 19:18). Horace in one of his satires refers in an offhand way to the subject of one of them playing himself with girls – and boys. It seems as though Horace looked on this as a frivolity which showed the man up as a lightweight. Attitudes to children are changing now but that is after centuries in which much less benign or more offhand attitudes became reinforced as part of “normal” and even morally necessary treatment of them. That change has been a long, slow, often hindered process which has moved with dramatic speed only in recent times. A prevalent attitude for a long time was that “children should be seen and not heard” and this was said openly in front of children. So if a child said something about being sexually used this might not be taken seriously or a child might fail to say it because he or she believed it would not be taken seriously. Apart from silence other ways of dealing with possible abuse were weak. Children got inexplicit warnings possibly through children’s tales ( ogres, giants, bad men who scare children) but we can wonder whether they produced a latent unspecific fear rather a real means of self protection for the child. Self defence by flight or physically repelling those who approached too near worked for some who had the wit and strength and instruction for it, but there was less defence against predators who convinced a child they were doing the child a favour. In Maynooth no specialised attention was given to use or abuse of children as a moral issue other then as an aspect of the primary sin, sexual gratification outside of marriage. Students would remark on, and show mild disapproval of, a student “driving” or specially cultivating the company of another student. Emphasis here was also on the sin of seeking sexual gratification rather than on an injustice to a person so used. An attitude of some people to physical punishments or practices and attitudes in English “public schools” seemed to be that beatings or sexual use did no harm but on the contrary “made men of us”. That is, some habits and attitudes in society may have helped – or even been designed to – prevent sexual use or abuse of others being seen as an injustice. Use and abuse may or may not have been part of our European culture but silence and even ondoning it often were. Would laws about mandatory reporting of all suspicion or allegations of use and abuse reduce them or the secrecy about them ? Dublin governments had the example of Jamaican law about mandatory reporting and its effects from the early 90s , there was a law requiring reporting in France some years before that ,yet no law has been made to enforce such reporting in Ireland even yet. The increase in reporting after the Jamaican law was enacted shows there had been a culture of secrecy in Jamaica too. In Jamaicaafter the publication of a Report on child abuse there was a big increase in the number of people reporting their allegations and an increase in prosecutions but whether there was a difference in the amount of abuse is impossible to tell. The Report said one reason secrecy prevailed was to avoid shaming people, an observation similar to that made about people in crowded streets of industrialised England. A change here is that while in the past it was difficult for an abuser or an abused person to leave home and find another dwelling, nowadays it is easier, and reporting therefore need not bring such great penalties as in the past , while the fear of shaming relatives or neighbours seems to have lessened.Anger seems often to have replaced shame. The Jamaican report mentioned above said that physical abuse of women is a characteristic in Jamaican culture – but although abuse of children also happens it does not say this is a characteristic of Jamaican culture too. This may suggest that the abuse of children is still regarded as of lower importance than abuse of women and abuse of women of less importance than abuse of men. At the same time,people within all cultures love their children . It may seem then that in many places deep love of their children can run parallel with a deep unwillingness to take action when their children are abused. Perhaps a reaction becomes more likely when a parent feels his or her rights to protect a child have been offended. Perhaps abuse is sometimes seen as against the parents’ rights even more seriously than against the child’s. Whatever indignation a parent or guardian has about the abuse of a child under his or her care, part of the indignation may be because of the insult to the adult. That could mean that if an offence can be covered up less harm is done to the caring adult, which could be another cause of successful secrecy, hiding the shame felt by the carer. Actual sexual use/abuse of young people could be a feature of the culture of a society that passes unnoticed or underestimated. Resolving the problem then would need more than finding and punishing users/abusers; it would need also courageous consideration of all aspects of our cultures and the attitudes passed on from one generation to the next. This could need a world-wide study of what is a world wide problem. People may be unwilling to engage in such a world-wide co-operative study, because they may want it to appear mainly a Catholic problem, or a clerical one or a problem that can be left alone once abusers have been punished for it and people convinced that something useful has been done although most of the problem still remains. The present crisis in Ireland gave the Church an opportunity – or a reason – to open up such a world-wide discussion about what the abuse or use of children means, where and why it happens, who are responsible and what can be done about it. If we confine our attention and our plans to the Catholic Church or the clergy or to Ireland or to limited sections of populations anywhere we miss an opportunity which may not come again for a long time. It would be tragic if all the present heartache and loss were to end with children being scarcely better off than they were before except in those comparatively few institutions which made real changes for their own as well as for the children’s sake. The Catholic Church has resources, universities, worldwide associations, networks , intellectual and spiritual ability and energy. It could be a better powerhouse for such investigation on a world-wide scale than most other bodies. Some people with good intentions oppose this. Perhaps they believe it would reduce the impact of their campaigns to highlight and gain redress for what happened in Ireland. Some may believe that by drawing attention to other people in other parts of the world they may reduce pressure on Catholic clergy in Ireland. But the effect of such an investigation publicly announced and publicly conducted could be dramatic for children and adults, and for the Church. The subject is delicate but the church is privileged to accept the task of renewing the face of the earth without fear in this as in everything else. Many issues will arise in such an investigation. The dividing line has to be explored between families’ and friends’ normal affectionate response to children and the ill-use of children for private satisfaction. As Maurice Hayes points out (“Minority Verdict” 1995), over-caution which outlaws normal affectionate responses will be hurtful to both children and adults. It has to be clearly defined why sexual use and abuse of children is wrong. This seems unnecessary but experience in other matters shows it is not. During recent years the condemnation of politically motivated “violence” was largely ineffective partly because “violence” was seldom defined, speakers and writers thought they did not need to define it. Adequate definition would have sharpened the understanding of moral principles involved while absence of definition roused suspicion that there weren’t any. In future years there will almost certainly be more open discussion about sexual experience both by and with children; ignoring this makes children even more vulnerable. As long as use or abuse can be defined as assault, obscenity etc.,courts can deal with it. But if it is suggested that in some cases a user may be looked on by a child as a friend and seem to suffer no ill effects? How clearly can we define what we mean by the rights of a child, especially when we accept that a child cannot be expected to incur obligations until reaching a certain age ? It is necessary to define exactly why sexual activity with children is wrong, and what the difference is morally between a parent or another family member engaging lovingly with children and someone else doing it, since affection and sexual experience can be closely related. Those who have sexual gratification with children may persuade the children they are doing them a favour and if so, the term abuse has to be used carefully because no idea of abuse may have arisen in a child’s mind until afterwards, perhaps long afterwards. The argument about the age of consent does not help , what is in question is the term “use” or “abuse”. A child may later have feelings of shame, secrecy, and anger. But there is already an idea, which few people have expressed and which in the present climate they could not comfortably express publicly, that sexual interchange with young people or among young people is part of normal human development. So a theoretical justification of sexual activity with young people and among young people, perhaps the very young, could develop rather than diminish in future years. The public and private opening up of such discussion has already happened through events including those surrounding David Norris’ Irish presidential campaign. Traditional arguments about sexual gratification being wrong outside marriage or of it being forbidden by God are already ineffective with many people, hence the need for a fresh and radical look at what the moral questions really mean apart from divine commandment – certain things are wrong not because God forbids them, but God forbids them because they are wrong. Those who protect children need clear convincing arguments against all exploitation; condemnation on religious or traditional moral grounds will suffice only as long as people continue to agree on the principles underlying them but such agreement will not last for ever. We need strong principles which are accepted by those who believe in divine command and those who do not. Religious reasons or motivations weaken if more is read into them than they warrant but will be strengthened by arguments arising from accepted ideas of natural justice and parental and children’s rights. Fearlessly developing such clear-sighted ethical arguments can revitalise our moral theology. When belief in God weakens or becomes unimportant to people we need other strong ethical reasons for what we ask of them or of ourselves, not waiting until our arguments based on God’s law are discarded by people who do not believe in divine authority any more or are doubtful about it. There has been a significant cultivation of immaturity in education including clerical education. Young people are staying at school,college or university at ages when in other times they might have been at work in an adult setting and taking on adult responsibilities. Up to university years young people’s occasional irresponsibility is taken for granted and tolerated. They have been at schools without built-in responsibilities appropriate to their age, without opportunity to take serious initiatives for living. Students for the priesthood have been brought into seminaries straight from such schools. This means that many priests will not have had the experience of ordinary life with all its hazards and responsibilities and this is bound to have a serious effect on their development as mature adults. Some change in education is needed. Palliative changes have been suggested, for instance that there should be a year between study of philosophy and of theology in which clerical students would be encouraged to go out and earn their living. Some of them might not come back.This is not only a hazard, it is a challenge to them to learn how to keep their principles and ideals in everyday life and to church leaders to make the priesthood relevant to the life these students see around them and have to live themselves. Immaturity may result from the direct passage of students from school to training and priesthood and a lack of life experience, and it may well be a factor in clerical abuse. In the past many children had to leave school early to go to paid work, and had to take on responsibilities earlier than those who extend their years of education now. Until recent times this possibility was made even more likely because responsible decision making was unlikely for many priests until middle age. Nowadays priests are given charge of parishes earlier in life but this is due largely to the smaller number of priests available to the church – whether we have seen a change in principle is not clear. Clerics were expected not only to make decisions as directed but to take no initiatives unless directed to do so, gearing all decisions and work to approval by those higher in the hierarchical scale rather than to their own assessment of the value of their work. Some clerics finding themselves simply agents of higher authority found relief in creating initiatives like building or fund raising, sport etc.over which they could have control and about which they could make adult decisions on their own responsibility. More harmfully, a few, mercifully few, succumbed to behaviours resulting from sexual immaturity. Sexual use or abuse of young people was one of them. It would be right to think deeply about the kind of world we have created for them as well as for the children.
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