Meeting with Abbot Shipperlee of Ealing Abbey

I spent a little over an hour with Abbot Martin Shipperlee on Friday morning, discussing issues arising out of Fr David Pearce’s conviction on charges of sexual assault and indecent assault.

The Abbot was aware of my blog, and I made it clear from the outset that I would write down my impressions of the meeting. He told me that Fr Pearce is to be sentenced on October 2^nd, and a public statement will be made then, and that there would be some things he couldn’t say now in a discussion with me because they would pre-empt that public statement. I think that is fair enough, it is obvious to me that a further public statement must be made then, and we can only wait to see what it contains. Furthermore, my blog is not an appropriate vehicle for formal public statements from the Abbot about the case.

I started out by presenting to him the comment from the anonymous abuse victim. Although he had read the blog, it was before that specific comment had been put up, so he hadn’t seen it. I pointed out that this was (to the best of my knowledge) an entirely characteristic reaction to abuse of this kind. It is very difficult to come forward, and the pain doesn’t go away. I pointed out that this being so, it is certain that there are more victims who haven’t yet come forward, and who perhaps may never do so. It is very likely that these greatly outnumber the victims he is so far aware of. I also commented that while the anonymous commenter and I agree about the non-existence of God, I regard it as an absolute tragedy that somebody should be driven to that belief as a necessary psychological survival mechanism. He didn’t disagree with any of that.

We then looked at the public statements as they were reported in the local papers at the conclusion of the civil case in 2006 and on the occasion of Pearce pleading guilty to the criminal charges last month.

At the conclusion of the civil trial, the Ealing Times included the following in its report.

In a statement written to parishioners and obtained by the Ealing Times, Abbot Martin Shipperlee from Ealing Abbey said: "A High Court judgement was given against Fr David Pearce and Ealing Abbey, and damages awarded to a former pupil of our school.

"In addition, allegations relating to 1984 have been made against Fr Stanislaus Hobbs, and he has now been charged with an indecent assault."

He added the Abbey "deeply regrets" anything which could have led to such allegations being made, and said the incidents were being investigated in "full co-operation" with the diocese and police in accordance with the recommendations of Lord Nolan's report on the protection of children in the church.

Both Fr Pearce and Fr Hobbs have been relieved of any ministry and are currently away from the monastery.

The Ealing Gazette included this in its report on Fr Pearce’s criminal trial.

Westminster RC diocese said: "Ealing Abbey is deeply saddened by the case."

I have quoted above the sum total of the church’s statements as included in the two reports.

I asked him whether these reports were a reasonable representation of what had in fact been said, or whether they had misrepresented him or the church in any way. He agreed that they were a fair summary of the statements given at the time, and that there was no misrepresentation. He said that the statement following the criminal trial was as brief as it was because the criminal case doesn’t actually end until sentence is passed, and so his full statement will come then.

I then described the impression that those statements had had on me when I first read them. I said that they sounded like weasel words. He initially bridled somewhat at the phrase, saying that they were truthful words.

I explained that they sounded like he was being extremely careful to be as unspecific as possible about what exactly he was regretting. I said that it could easily be interpreted as regretting that the case had come to light, but not actually regretting the harm that Fr Pearce had done, since he didn’t offer any description of that harm. I said that whether or not that was what he intended to convey, or whether he thought the way I received the words was fair or not, that was an honest description of how it came across to me, and that it was entirely likely that others will have formed the same impression.

I made a comparison with confession, that a true and valid confession cannot be made until the sinner has a full understanding of what he has done wrong, and that once that full understanding has been achieved, the confession has to avoid the use of euphemisms and circumlocutions that minimize the magnitude of the sin. The use of euphemisms is a sure sign that the repentance is not genuine. I said that the same applies to apologies, and that anybody who has suffered at the hands of Fr Pearce will treat any apology that uses euphemisms as an insult and as a sign that the apology is not genuine. I commented that statements such as have been provided to the press so far quite probably serve only to increase the pain of the victims.

He promised to take my thoughts into account when preparing his statement for October 2^nd.

During the conversation, we both repeatedly caught ourselves slipping into the use of euphemisms to describe the abuse.

We then moved on to the question of whether he is now in fact in a position to know what has been done wrong. By this, I meant not only the extent of the abuse perpetrated by Fr Pearce, but also the actions (and inactions) of the Abbot and others which resulted in Fr Pearce continuing unchecked for so many years, and the full extent of the harm that has been caused to the victims of abuse. In other words, I asked whether he is yet in a position to fully understand what he has to apologise for.

I asked what had been done (aside from the criminal investigations) to review the past and uncover the extent of the abuse. This merged into the next issue that I wanted to discuss, the measures being taken to prevent any repetition of the abuse, and particularly to ensure that any reports are promptly acted on so that any abuse gets stopped immediately instead of being given a chance to continue.

First of all he acknowledged his past failures. Quite clearly, the measures he had taken when he first received reports of abuse had been insufficient. He acknowledges that he had believed himself competent to act to bring an end to the abuse when with the benefit of hindsight he clearly wasn’t. He had thought that the steps he had taken to prevent a continuation of the abuse would be effective, and clearly they failed.

He said that the procedures have now been changed, such that for instance whenever there is a report of abuse, the police are now brought in immediately. We didn’t go into detail of what precise changes have been made. I saw little point as I’m not an expert in the field and therefore not competent to carry out an audit.

So I asked instead if he had requested or received external expert assistance in reviewing the Abbey’s and schools’ procedures for child protection. Agencies external to the Abbey have been brought in. He briefly described to me the Catholic Safeguarding Advisory Service and the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission, and told me that both had been in to review procedures and policies. He said that changes have been made and there is still much work to be done to make sure that the policies are not only implemented but that everyone involved is used to effectively operating them. He said that the work of these two bodies is being carried out on a systematic basis though the whole of the Catholic Church in this country.

I pointed out a major problem of perception. It may be that those organisations are extremely effective in what they do, or they might not. I have no way of telling. But both are Catholic organisations, set up to be part of and to provide a service specifically to the Catholic Church. Given that the failures of the church to prevent and respond to sexual abuse are tragically common and widespread, with horrifying cases popping up all over the world, many people will understandably have grave doubts as to the church’s ability to reform itself by turning to organisations set up by the very church in need of reform.

In addition, I pointed out there has been a highly public and major failure resulting in great harm to children in the church’s care, which has happened on Abbot Shipperlee’s watch here in Ealing. Even if the two organisations he mentioned are doing an effective job, for him to earn a restoration of trust requires more. In my view, it requires that he go an extra mile beyond what the rest of the church is doing, and call in non-Catholic secular agencies who are experts in this field to provide an independent review and report. Otherwise, many people will understandably think the various church agencies are colluding in a cover-up. I said that I didn’t know who would be the best people to do that review, but that a phone call to the NSPCC to discuss it might be a good starting point from which he could find out.

Abbot Shipperlee didn’t promise to do that. He said that in this context he perhaps had not yet given adequate thought to the need not only to set things right but also to be clearly seen by the outside world to do so, and that this was an issue that he needed to reflect on further. He saw where I was coming from and accepted that the idea had merit, but felt that since he hadn’t thought this through sufficiently, he wanted time to reflect before deciding, and so he didn’t feel able instantly to say that he would go ahead and do this.

We then discussed the matter of providing care and support to the victims. One of my objectives in giving him that comment right at the start was to fix in his mind the fact that there are almost certainly very many victims who are at present unknown to him, who through shame or disgust or fear have not come forward, or who were unaware of the criminal investigation and so did not make a statement to the police. If Fr Pearce’s abuse started in 1972, the victims are hardly going to be restricted to the five boys he has been convicted of assaulting.

I also expressed the opinion that the letters he has sent to parents of the Abbey’s schools and the statement he has made at Mass cannot be regarded as public apologies, since many of the victims will have moved away from the parish or even left the church in disgust, and so would have been in no position to hear the apology, no matter how heartfelt and sincere it was. (By the way, I don’t yet know what form of words he used in his statement in Mass or the letters to parents. He has promised to forward a copy of both to me. Since again it would pre-empt his October statement, I am not going to publish them here even once I receive them.) Once children leave the school, they scatter to the four corners of the earth, and if the abuse has been going on at least since 1972, there are undoubtedly a far greater number of victims amongst ex-pupils than among those still attending the school. Apologies read out at Mass and notices posted on the boards in the Abbey don’t constitute an effective way of reaching out to those victims. I pointed out that modern technology, in the form of the web, offers a means of reaching out that simply wasn’t available to past generations, that an apology on the Abbey website has the scope to reach far more past pupils than the efforts made so far.

His response to this was that it simply hadn’t occurred to him to do that. He said that on reflection he has concentrated too closely on himself and Fr Pearce and the actions necessary to stop the abuse, and on the victims he is in contact with and for whom support is being provided. He wasn’t specific about what this support was, and out of consideration for the privacy of the victims I did not ask for details. He acknowledged that on reflection too little has been done so far to offer support to victims as yet unknown.

Finally, I asked about his motivations, whether in his public statements so far he could with complete honesty say that the care and support of the victims was his primary concern, or whether trying to salvage the good name of the church was also in his mind. He was surprisingly slow to answer. He acknowledged that in retrospect, concern for the reputation of the Abbey was one of the matters on his mind, and that the statements as they have been reported in the press have not adequately communicated concern for the victims, partly because he himself did not make it sufficiently clear, and partly because the message has been attenuated through the medium of newspapers who have other agendas. I replied that concern for the Abbey’s reputation is also concern for the Church’s reputation, and that the Abbey’s reputation deserves to be no better than is justified by the actions of its clergy, and that his expressions of concern for the victims and tangible actions to help them form part of that reputation. He agreed.

I closed by saying that I was in no way convinced that all would be well, and that I would be following the situation with interest. I said that I would far prefer that the Abbey learned and was able properly to protect those in its care, but that if I concluded that this wasn’t happening, I would have no hesitation in calling for the Abbey to sever its links with the schools if thought that would better assure the safety of the pupils. I said that I might wish to visit again in a few months to discuss progress with him, to which he agreed.

===========================

I wrote up the notes above as soon as I returned home. I then decided the leave them overnight and review them again and make any necessary additions or corrections that I spotted. It isn’t a verbatim transcript of the discussion, but it is an account of the meeting which is as honest and accurate as my memory permits. I took notes of a few specific items during the meeting (the names of the organisations called in to help refine the child protection policies), but in order to keep the conversation going, I decided not to attempt to take notes of everything else during the meeting. I’m not a journalist and I don’t have shorthand.

I’ve deliberately avoided as far as possible mixing my opinions as to the Abbot’s responses in with the narrative, except in as far as I provided responses to him at the time. I felt it better to put my opinions down separately here at the end, so as to give people the opportunity to form their own impressions first.

I found the discussion somewhat frustrating. He was very cagey in many of his replies, and there was no means by which I could tell whether this caginess was simply for the reason he gave (that he cannot pre-empt the public statement he will give when Fr Pearce is sentenced) or whether there was some other reason as well.

He said the sorts of things I would expect to hear if he was essentially a good man trying to do his imperfect best to rectify a terrible situation, one brought about in part by his own failures in trying to do things he was unqualified for. But they are also exactly the sorts of things I would expect to hear from a person who is looking to restore the good name of the church by telling people what he thinks they want to hear. And until I see the actions, I have no way of knowing which of those two possibilities is nearer the truth, or whether it is in fact all a bit of a muddy mixture of the two.

Given the catastrophic extent and the duration of the Abbey’s failure to protect the children under its care from a monk and priest under the Abbot's authority, I don’t think that he can fairly expect to be given the benefit of the doubt. For the Abbot and the Abbey to regain public trust, fine words are needed, but even more important is that they are matched – and seen to be matched – with fine actions.

I left the meeting quite tired and feeling somewhat angry, for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Having read through my notes, I think I now recognise the source of that anger.

In describing his failures to stop Fr Pearce earlier, Abbot Shipperlee was of course stating no more than is blindingly obvious to anybody with a passing familiarity with the case. What he said was fine as far as it went, but it didn’t actually go very far.

And this is symptomatic of what I see as the main problem, the true source of my anger. It is that the scope of the Abbot’s actions so far seem always to have been as narrow as possible, and aimed at dealing with the most immediate problem.

• His original actions to try and bring an end to Fr Pearce’s abuse were kept within the church, and as far as I can tell were aimed solely at preventing future abuse and not aimed at punishing past abuse or at identifying or supporting victims. And what is more, they didn’t even succeed in that limited aim.
  
• His public statements have focussed solely on the immediate issues at hand, and have been restricted to a relatively narrow audience in most cases.
  
• He appears to have done no more than is now being required across the whole Catholic Church to put in place procedures to prevent and halt future cases of abuse.
• He appears to have shown little or no curiosity regarding the wider picture – how far has the abuse extended, who else might have been involved, how many people have been harmed, how can they be helped.
  

I was most shocked about his response to the idea of putting something up on the website to reach out to scattered victims. If he were lying, and had up to now made a conscious decision to try and let sleeping dogs lie and not reach out to victims so far unidentified, then that would be a terrible betrayal of the idea that Christians should conduct their lives so as to be a witness to the love of Christ. On balance, I think it overwhelmingly probable that he was not deliberately lying to me. He struck me as a person who would find it difficult to tell a deliberate and outright lie.

But it is not all that much better if he is telling the truth and that the idea of trying to use the website to reach out beyond the current parishioners and parents simply didn’t occur to him. The Abbey already has a website, the existence of which he can hardly be unaware. It contains material concerning matters such as messages to prospective new parishioners and to people considering a vocation as a monk. It provides a weekly letter from the parish to all who wish to read it, and the text of the week’s homily. It has a regularly-updated notice board concerning parish events. In other words, the website is already attempting to reach out beyond the boundaries of the parish.

For it not to occur to the Abbot to use the website as a means of reaching out to victims of Fr Pearce is an extraordinary failure of imagination. He put it down to being an elderly cleric who is not all that up-to-date with the developments of the world. On reflection, I find that excuse to be hard to swallow. If he’s that out-of-touch with the world, he is hardly a fit person to have responsibilities concerned with the running of a school which is preparing children for their place in that world.

From the criminal case we know that the abuse started at least as early 1972. That is the date of earliest crime to which Fr Pearce has pleaded guilty. I don’t know when Fr Pearce first joined the Abbey or started teaching at St Benedict's School, but if it was some time before 1972, I think it unlikely that the police have managed to successfully prosecute the very first case of indecent assault that Fr Pearce ever committed. And it is beyond belief that the cases which have come to court are anything other than a very small proportion of all the assaults and other abuses Fr Pearce has committed. The oldest of his victims are quite probably now in their 40s or 50s, and they could be living anywhere in the world.

No, I’m not satisfied. Not by a long chalk.