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Religion, abuse and the role of the secular state
The Guardian
Readers respond to Polly Toynbee’s claim that respect for the rights of religion has gone too far Well said, Polly Toynbee (The culture of respect for religion has gone too far, 28 August). The dreadful deeds that have taken place in religious establishments responsible for teaching, instructing or caring for children over the generations is unconscionable. Under the badge of religious exceptionalism, evil people (mostly men) have wreaked huge damage on countless numbers of children, physically, emotionally and morally. Now that the evidence of their misdeeds is being revealed, often through the bravery of victims who have succeeded in pulling back the curtain of secrecy and silence, we need to take a stand. We have acquiesced while the state stands back, allowing religion to occupy a place apart. Secular oversight is too often seen as unnecessary. We privilege religious schools, we take no interest in the fate of children consigned to their control, subjected to different codes of practice and, too often, the depredations of unscrupulous adults. We choose not to monitor the fate of children withdrawn from mainstream schools and educated in unofficial establishments, or “at home” by parents with religious intent.
The Disclosure and Barring Service checks countless numbers of volunteers working with children in the open, public sphere, but sees no need to know what is happening in the private, religious domain. It’s time, as Polly Toynbee suggests, for us to rethink the religious presence in our legislature and be unequivocal as to the right of all children to receive the same level of protection decreed as necessary and required by the law of the land. • Polly Toynbee rightly highlights the shame of abuse within religious institutions, but takes the argument too far in launching a familiar attack on faith in general. She overlooks that many of the great social reforms have been led by religious figures, including William Wilberforce’s battle against slavery, Elizabeth Fry’s prison reforms and anti-apartheid campaigners such as Trevor Huddleston. Movements that have helped thousands of people have been founded out of the roots of faith, like the Salvation Army (William Booth) and the Samaritans (Chad Varah).
The NHS, whose 70th anniversary we mark this year, was inspired by the thinking of William Beveridge, but also influenced by the archbishop William Temple, who held this office from 1942 to 1944. Faith has and can be a catalyst, inspiration and motivator for social change.
• In her assertion that “our state church holds power far beyond its dwindling size”, Polly Toynbee fails to factor in the role class plays in upholding the church as a continuing part of the establishment. My long experience as a practising member of the Church of England is that there is a predominance of the middle- and upper-middle classes in the pews, who naturally (belief or otherwise apart) have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. • It is unarguably right to give the problems and scandals of the Catholic church a high profile, otherwise we fail to learn. The perpetrators of abuse must be brought to justice and their victims given every help to rebuild shattered lives. To then link this to other constitutional and educational issues does seem like relishing an open goal. What the child abuse scandals have in common seems to be a world in which certain people were above suspicion. Victims were led to believe that they would never be believed. This has also happened in boys’ football, some secular children’s homes and in “normal” families. While the bulk of guilt is with the abusers, there is also the associated guilt of those that allowed such people to be venerated. We do not campaign for an end to football coaching or family life as a result.
There have been many rotten priests in the Catholic church. But just as abandoning religion would not eradicate war, it will also not bring about an end to child abuse, because new institutions will emerge in which we would venerate people as special and not bound by the normal rules. What is needed is for us all to be vigilant and not turn our eyes away. • As someone who chose self-imposed exile from Catholic Ireland some decades ago, the loss of the church’s authority in that country has been both stunning and welcome. Not so long ago allegations of clerical misdoings would have provoked a kneejerk defensiveness among most Catholics. Victims often remained silent because of the upset that challenging religious authority would cause within family and community.
While most Catholics have decoupled themselves from the church hierarchy and do not feel under attack when the latter is exposed, the other major religions do not have such clear and separate hierarchies, and are still able to use their communities as human shields. Undue respect for religion serves as an enabler for abuse within many religious groups: to remove that enabler we need to distinguish clearly between religion, those who wield theocratic authority within it, and the people who adhere to it. • As often happens in the pages of the Guardian, a writer puts the disparate and confused thoughts of many a reader into a readable, powerful and concise article. Polly Toynbee has performed that duty admirably. The pope has presided over an organised and systematic series of abuses which not only affront our ideas of common decency, but which are serious crimes. Toynbee has expressed the outrage we all feel.
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