Downside Abbey

It seems that Ealing Abbey isn't the only Benedictine monastery and school with child protection problems. There is an investigation going on at Downside Abbey as well.


Four monks investigated over abuse claims at Somerset school

Imagine yourself in the Abbot's shoes

Let’s just put ourselves in Abbot Martin Shipperlee’s shoes for a minute, and ask what could be done about all the bad publicity there has been about child protection at St. Benedict’s School.

Let’s hypothesise that things have come to sufficient of a pass that there is a need to restore parents’ confidence, and possibly also the confidence of the civil authorities such as the ISI and the Department for Education, and perhaps even the parishioners, the Archbishop and the public in general. Also, given that the Pope is coming in a few weeks, there is a need to spike any stories the mainstream press might run in the meantime about child sex abuse at Ealing Abbey. I don't doubt that Archbishop Vincent Nichols would be livid if a big Ealing Abbey abuse story were to hit the papers on the eve of the Pope's visit.

So what is needed is some significant gesture.

The obvious thing is to announce an Inquiry, so that he can say “we are looking carefully into all these issues and aim to learn from past problems and prevent them from recurring”. Then the papers are stymied and can’t say that the Abbey is doing nothing. The ISI and the DfE can hardly complain about an inquiry either. Everything gets kicked onto the long grass.

But what sort of an inquiry should it be?

That depends on what he would be trying to achieve by it. If the main aim is to hold off the papers until after the Pope has been and gone, and then hope that the story dies of old age thereafter, then what is needed is for the inquiry to be led by a friendly Catholic who has little or no experience of child protection issues but is a well-known politician or other high-profile name. Except for the fact that he is rather busy organising the Pope’s visit, Lord Patten of Barnes would be absolutely perfect for the job, or failing him, perhaps one of the candidates for the job of Ambassador to the Holy See.

If a whitewash is wanted, then he would absolutely have to ensure that the leader of the inquiry is part of the establishment and so knows what sorts of things aren’t supposed to be inquired about too closely. He would also want a big name that impresses the yokels so it doesn't occur to them to look much at the details of what is (and more importantly what isn't) in the final report. A Lord of some sort would be ideal. Such people are expensive, as you're buying their name and reputation, but with £10m/year of school fee income that needs to be defended, it would be a price worth paying. Think of it as the personal appearance fee for a celebrity in a marketing event.

The report would certainly not be published until safely after the Pope has departed these shores, and until the new intake of children are safely settled in to the school for the Autumn term (and their fees safely paid into the school's bank account). It would be a nice fifty pages or so of legal waffle with lots of long words designed to impress parents who have no knowledge and experience of such things. A nice colour printed copy could be posted to each parent to show how exceedingly diligent the school is now being about all of this.

The key to making it look impressive and complete while ensuring that difficult questions never need to be answered (or even asked) is in the careful selection of the Terms of Reference. The previous “independent review” was a little too blatant about narrowing the scope of its Terms of Reference, in that it excluded the school altogether, excluded almost the whole of Father David’s paedophile career at the Abbey, and did not address any complaints made against any other priest or teacher, even those who had been convicted of crimes carried out against pupils at the school in the course of their duties.

Should there be new inquiry, it would have to be a bit more subtle than that, but it could easily be limited, for instance only to Father David and John Maestri, on the basis that since nobody else has been convicted, everybody else should automatically be considered innocent, and there is therefore nothing to be concerned about. It could also be limited to finding out a what those two individuals had done, and carefully avoid looking into what others had done that enabled the abuse to go on for so long without becoming public.

It would be possible to write the Executive Summary of such an inquiry already, even before anybody had been appointed to conduct it. It would go something like this.

• It is possible that Father David and John Maestri abused a few more people than they have actually been convicted of, but there isn’t enough evidence to say how extensive the problem was. It’s all in the past now anyhow, since neither has any current connection with the school and so there is no remaining danger to children.
  
  
• It would have been preferable to have detected their activities sooner, but what happened in the past was consistent with child protection practice at the time, and so no blame can be assigned to anybody.
  
  
• We found no evidence of any cover-up. Oh my dear God no! Certainly not! Who could possibly be so beastly as to imagine such a thing?
  
  
• There are a few minor changes that need to be made to the school’s current child protection procedures to clarify responsibilities and ensure that any future incidents are handled according to the letter of the law. We must look forward not back.

But it would of course still be a whitewash.

If the Abbot wanted actually to have an inquiry that was serious about finding out what has gone wrong, and wanted to change both the procedures of the school and the overall culture of the Abbey to ensure that any abuse discovered in future isn't allowed to continue, then the inquiry would need to be run on rather different lines.

It wouldn't have a big name fronting it. The mere presence of a big establishment figure would be an almost certain indicator that a whitewash is being conducted and paid for, because the real experts in this area charge more modest fees. What is needed is independent expertise of a very specific kind. The experts involved need to have a detailed knowledge of child protection law and practice, and need to have experience of dealing with safeguarding issues specifically in the context of independent schools. Such experts can be found, but not usually from amongst establishment figures.

This specific expertise is needed because independent schools form a very particular and unique environment, where there is inherently a conflict of interest between protecting the children from a predator who may have obtained a position on the staff, and protecting the reputation of the school.

The first duty requires that cases are properly reported and even publicised, the second absolutely requires that everything is covered up. And many people rationalise their prioritising of the school’s reputation as being for the “greater good” of all the other pupils whose education might be disrupted if the school were to have to close or if their parents decided they needed to change their children’s school. A messy paedophile case unsettles everyone and is terribly bad for business!

The second requirement would be for the inquiry not only to be independent but to be seen to be independent. Given that the Catholic Church has had something of a worldwide problem with child abuse, and given that Ealing Abbey has already had one abortive so-called “independent review”, for any new inquiry to be seen to be independent, the experts appointed would need to have no prior connection either with the school or with the Catholic Church. Child protection is a non-denominational matter and expertise from outside the Catholic Church should be welcomed.

The third requirement would be that the experts must be given free access to all the Abbey’s records, all the school’s records, and be free to interview whoever they wish. That includes present and past monks and teachers, present and former pupils (including victims), parents and any other interested parties. The names, CVs and contact details of the experts conducting the inquiry would need to be published so that anybody who has relevant information can get in touch.

The fourth requirement would be that the Terms of Reference are crystal clear. They must be extensive, enabling the inquiry to go back decades. They must require the inquiry to address the past history of the school and abbey as well as its present procedures. They must require the inquiry to look into the handling of all complaints or allegations of abuse by clergy and lay teachers, including allegations made against people who have not been convicted of any crimes. They must expect the inquiry to address issues of cover-up, where allegations were not forwarded to the civil authorities or where the victims were persuaded by one means or another to remain silent about the abuse. In other words, the terms of reference should enable the inquiry to be as thorough as the Ryan Report was in its investigation into the Archdiocese of Dublin. Any St. Benedict's inquiry would be on a smaller scale, so there is no possible excuse for making it less thorough. Any inquiry would have to be free to make recommendations about teachers and/or monks who are still at St Benedict’s, if the experts think that they pose any kind of threat to the safety of children.

The fifth requirement would be that the report would be published in full. It should protect the identities of victims, whether or not their cases have resulted in criminal prosecutions, but this is the only detail that should be omitted. Any Executive Summary separately published must have been prepared by the experts and not edited in any way by any other person.

In the unlikely event of such an inquiry being set up, I would want to see the following questions asked and answered. If a significant proportion of them weren’t, then I would very much suspect a cover-up, whether or not there was an establishment figure involved.

1. Has the school or the Abbey made any agreement to pay a sum of money in exchange for not proceeding with a civil action in any case involving sexual or other abuse alleged to have been committed by Father David, Father Stanislaus, John Maestri or any other monk or teacher? If so, when, and how many times, and was a clause included in the agreement(s) requiring the victim(s) to keep the matter confidential?
   
   
2. Was any action taken to restrict the alleged abuser’s access to children at the time of any of these agreements?
   
   
3. Were the allegations made by the victim reported by the Abbey or school to any civil authorities? If not, why not?
   
   
4. When Father David was arrested in January 2008, the Trust sent a Serious Incident Report to the Charity Commission. Did they make any other notifications at that time? (For instance to the Independent Safeguarding Authority?) If not, why not?
   
   
5. Has Father David been arrested on any previous occasion(s)? If so, were any notifications passed to civil authorities (e.g. the ISA, the DCSF Teacher Misconduct Section which preceded the ISA, the LADO, or the Charity Commission) at the time?
   
   
6. What was the reason that Father David was moved from the post of Junior School headmaster? If this was related to concerns about his suitability to be working with children, was a Notification sent to the DCSF Teacher Misconduct Section at that time?
   
   
7. What other complaints have been made regarding inappropriate sexual behaviour by Father David? What was the school’s response on each occasion?
   
   
8. When was it decided that Father David should be placed on a restricted ministry?
   
   
9. What was the reason for making that decision?
   
   
10. What restrictions on Father David were decided on?
    
    
11. What arrangements were made to supervise and enforce the restrictions?
    
    
12. Who was advised that Father David had been placed on restricted ministry?
    
    
13. What reason was given to them for Father David having been placed on restricted ministry?
    
    
14. Were any of those advised of the restricted ministry asked to supervise or enforce the restrictions in any way? If so, what were they asked to do?
    
    
15. Were the civil authorities notified of the decision to put Father David on a restricted ministry?
    
    
16. Paragraph 4.4 of the report of the ISI Inspection carried out on 9-12 November 2009 states “The trustees and advisors are aware of and are diligent in discharging their responsibilities for the welfare, health and safety of pupils, including taking proper steps to review and evaluate the effectiveness of their child protection policies and procedures. A serious recent incident involving a member of the monastic community caused the trustees to request an independent review of the measures taken to minimise risk. The advice received from the independent experts has been fully implemented.” What review was this? Who carried it out? What recommendations were made by the independent experts, and what changes were made in response to the recommendations?
    
    
17. In the Abbot's letter to parents of 2nd October 2009, he stated “I am instructing an independent review into this matter to examine what there is to be learned in order to ensure that there can never be a recurrence of this situation.” What did he mean by “this matter” and “this situation”?
    
    
18. Earlier in the letter he stated “Fr David Pearce, who taught at St Benedict’s from 1976-1992, pleaded guilty on 10th August to serious criminal offences against children and has now been sentenced to 8 years imprisonment.” In that context, what did he expect that a reasonable reader would believe was meant by “this matter”?
    
    
19. When did the Abbot decide to commission the independent review referred to in the letter?
    
    
20. Who carried out the review?
    
    
21. Why have their names not been published?
    
    
22. What were the terms of reference given them?
    
    
23. What line of reasoning was followed in deciding on these terms of reference?
    
    
24. When was the report received, and why was it not published?
    
    
25. Who prepared the summary now posted on the Abbey website?
    
    
26. What are the differences between the summary and the original report? Why are they there?
    
    
27. In his letter to parents of 22nd April the Abbot stated that “a number of statements in the newspaper articles were incorrect”. Which statements were these, and why was no effort made in the letter to advise the true situation as he saw it?
    
    
28. In his letter of 22nd April, the Abbot stated “However as a result of issues relating to Fr David we have reviewed all our procedures and policies for Safeguarding of the Vulnerable, as has been noted by the Charity Commission.”. This is not the case. The Charity Commission in Para 17 of its report noted that the existing policies “had been reviewed by the appropriate authorities”, and in para 54 noted that “the trustees have confirmed publicly that an independent review will be carried out to ensure that this situation can not reoccur”, but they did not state conform that any review had been carried out. So why did he make that untrue statement?
    
    
29. In his letter of 22nd April, the Abbot stated “No doubt you will be aware of the recent inspection report on St Benedict’s which judged Child Protection to be good and overall pastoral care to be outstanding.” Was he aware of the fact that the Independent Schools Inspectorate had by then withdrawn its November 2009 inspection reports from its website? If so, why did he continue to rely on that report?
    
    
30. When Father Stanislaus Hobbs was arrested, were any other civil authorities notified by the school or the Abbey?
    
    
31. Has Father Stanislaus been arrested on any previous occasion?
    
    
32. Has the school or the abbey received any complaints of sexual abuse or similar inappropriate behaviour by Father Stanislaus? What action was taken in response?
    
    
33. What action has been taken as a result of the “Italian incident” described in court during his trial? For instance, was a Notification returned to the DCSF following Father Stanislaus’s admission of abuse?
    
    
34. Has Father Stanislaus been placed under a restricted ministry? If so, is it still in force, what are (or were) the restrictions and how are (were) they enforced?
    
    
35. When was John Maestri first appointed as a teacher at the school?
    
    
36. When were complaints first made concerning sexual abuse or other inappropriate behaviour by John Maestri? What action was taken as a result?
    
    
37. When was it decided that John Maestri should be appointed Middle School Headmaster?
    
    
38. At the time of the decision, what complaints had been made against him regarding sexual abuse or inappropriate behaviour, and how had they been dealt with?
    
    
39. Why did John Maestri not take up his post as Middle School Headmaster?
    
    
40. When did John Maestri leave the school? What prompted his departure?
    
    
41. When John Maestri left, did he take up another teaching position subsequently?
    
    
42. Did the school provide a reference for John Maestri for that or any subsequent teaching position?
    
    
43. Did the reference include any mention of complaints about inappropriate sexual behaviour, or about the reasons for his departure from the school? If not, why not?
    
    
44. Did the school send a Notification to the Teacher Misconduct Section of the Department of Education about the circumstances of his departure (as required by law)?
    
    
45. When did Father Gregory Chillman resign as a Trustee of the trust of St Benedict’s?
    
    
46. For what reason did he resign?
    
    
47. On what date was he arrested?
    
    
48. Was a Notification made to the ISA?
    
    
49. Was a Serious Incident Report sent to the Charity Commission?
    
    
50. Has there been any allegation or complaint made concerning sexual abuse by Father Gregory in his role as priest, teacher and/or Trustee at St Benedict’s? If so, what was done in response?
    
    
51. Has there been any allegation or complaint made concerning sexual abuse in his role of Chaplain and/or Chairman of Governors of St. Augustine’s Priory School? If so, what was done in response?
    
    
52. When did Father Gregory resign as Chaplain of St. Augustine’s Priory School? Why did he resign?
    
    
53. When did Father Gregory resign as Chairman of Governors of St. Augustine’s Priory School? Why did he resign?
    
    
54. Was any Notification passed to the ISA or any other civil authority?
    
    
55. Has Father Gregory been placed under a restricted ministry? If so, who was informed, is it still in force, what are (or were) the restrictions and how are (were) they enforced?
    
    
56. Have any complaints of sexual abuse been made against any other present or former monk or teacher at St. Benedict’s? If so, what was done in response in each case?
    
    
57. Has any other present or former monk or teacher been arrested or otherwise questioned by police in connection with any allegation of sexual abuse? If so, what was done in response by the Abbey and/or school in each case?
    
    
58. Has any present or former monk or teacher been dismissed from a post at the Abbey or school, or resigned rather than risk dismissal, or been redeployed to a different post, as a result of concerns about his/her suitability to be working with children? If so, was a Notification made to the civil authorities in each case?
    

But I'm sure the Abbey's supporters will say that of course there's no need for any kind of inquiry at all. The Abbot is doing a splendid job! It's sheer impertinence to suggest that any inquiry could possibly be thought to be necessary. If you feel that way, feel free to say so. You will be most welcome.

Counselling Survivors of Sexual abuse

Ealing Abbey Counselling Service is advertising a course of counselling for victims of childhood sexual abuse.

One in four people have experienced childhood sexual abuse or negect [sic]... Are you one of them?

Ealing Abbey Counselling Service is running a new group with you in mind.
This mixed group for adult survivors of abuse will offer a safe and confidential space to gain support. It is open to people of all sexual preferences who want to come to terms with childhood sexual trauma.

The effects of childhood sexual abuse emotional abuse or neglect can be toxic. These can include; low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, fear of intimacy, shame - guilt, substance abuse, social withdrawal, numbness and an inability to form trusting relationships.

Nice of them to start trying to clear up a mess the abbey has contributed so much to creating. Ealing Abbey itself has probably created hundreds of such victims. No shortage of potential demand for such services then!

And also nice of them to describe how serious are the effects of child sexual abuse. Perhaps they can take account of that when they find themselves defending another civil suit concerning child sexual abuse by one or other of the priests. Bound to happen sometime soon.

Perhaps they can also put their house in order and not make any further contribution to that 1-in-4 statistic. Having a written, published and effective safeguarding policy of the Abbey and Parish would be a start (there isn't one published or referred to on the Abbey website yet), and get the School's child protection policy into a fit state.

Until then, I can't think of a worse place to run such a course. I've nothing against Richard Simpson and Maja Zivkovic, who are running the course. I've no reason to think they are not well-qualified and experienced counsellors. The problem is that to hold such a course on premises owned and run by the Abbey, when child sexual abuse has been a particular problem there and when there are not yet adequate safeguarding arrangements in place seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility.

This is the objective of the course.

The emphasis of this group is to be therapeutic and supportive. Over the course of the four weeks the group will explore issues around self-esteem, anger, assertiveness and trauma whilst also providing positive tools to help build and strengthen relationships.

I very much hope that they do not take any clients who suffered childhood sexual abuse at the hands of any priests or teachers at Ealing Abbey, and preferably not at the hands of anybody within the Catholic Church as a whole.

To accept such clients would leave them open to accusations of conflict of interest. Increasing a victim's self-esteem may have the result of activating a willingness to take action against the perpetrators and those who have sheltered them.

Overall, this is a staggeringly bad idea, and reflects extremely badly on the judgement of whoever authorised it.

Letter to the Catholic Herald

The Catholic Herald last week had as its lead story Archbishop Nichols takes legal advice over newspaper's 'unwarranted slur'.

I wrote a Letter to the Editor pointing out that abuse at St. Benedict's School has been going on for decades, and that it is a strange sense of priorities which has Archbishop Vincent Nichols asking for legal advice as to whether he has been defamed by the Times when most of the duration of Father David Pearce's paedophile career at Ealing Abbey has not been the subject of any review or investigation by the church.

Of course, the Catholic Herald didn't publish the letter!

Here is the letter in full.

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

Sir - With regard to the crimes committed by Father David Pearce at St. Benedict's School and Ealing Abbey, most of the press attention has concentrated on the fact that Pearce managed to assault his last victim while on a restricted ministry. Far more important is that Pearce was able to sexually abuse pupils at the school unhindered during the previous 35 years. Pearce pleaded guilty in 2009 to sexual and indecent assaults on a range of dates from 1972 to 2007. Pearce's nickname "Gay Dave" was widely known amongst the pupils over several decades, as was the danger of being alone in a room with him. It is inconceivable that the adults running the school never learned anything of this.

Another former teacher, John Maestri, has also been convicted three times of sexual assaults on boys at the school. He was sentenced on the first of those occasions to 2½ years in prison, and has been placed on the Sex Offenders Register for an indefinite period. It would appear that the child protection procedures at the school entirely failed to pick up on Maestri, since the convictions occurred some 20 years after he left the school.

Therefore, this is a far greater issue than merely a failure to supervise Pearce properly once he had been placed on a restricted ministry. We have a situation where two now-convicted paedophiles were able to operate at the school over a period of decades. So far, this wider failure appears not to have been investigated at all, and so it is very unlikely that any lessons have yet been learned from these tragic events. In the circumstances, it is entirely possible that abuses by others could also have occurred at the school so far undetected, and that further abuses could still happen there in the future.

On the "Sunday" programme on BBC R4 on April 11th, Abbot Martin Shipperlee suggested that everything had been done correctly according to the guidelines, while Eileen Shearer (COPCA's first director) said that "the system is only as good as those who operate it", perhaps implicitly suggesting that the Abbot was incompetent in implementing the guidelines. Since Pearce was able to continue abusing, either the guidelines weren't adequate, or they weren't correctly followed, or both.

Even today, the school's current published child protection procedures are well short of the CSAS recommendations. For instance, reporting of allegations is only carried out under "proper circumstances", a phrase left undefined and therefore in effect left to the unlimited discretion of the school, and even the definition of "sexual abuse" depends on a subjective assessment of the extent to which the child is aware of the nature of the activities.

It is urgently necessary that a detailed investigation be conducted to see what can be learned from this case over its whole duration of more than 30 years, to reduce the chance of such failures happening again either at St. Benedict's School or elsewhere. In addition, the school's child protection procedures need to be externally reviewed and updated to come into line with best practice, including the mandatory reporting of all allegations and suspicions of abuse to the Local Authority Designated Officer, who then has the responsibility for deciding whether the matter requires further investigation.

It would seem to me that the placing of a priest on restricted ministry in response to child abuse allegations is hardly an everyday occurrence, and I find it extraordinary that the board of COPCA would not be informed when such an event occurs. I also find it extraordinary that COPCA would not also get directly involved in reviewing the arrangements for supervising a priest on restricted ministry when he continues to live next door to a school! However, accepting Archbishop Vincent Nichols' assurance that this is so, this is another area which the review should examine, to see whether COPCA's successor organisations NCSC and CSAS should have a coordinating role in supervising restricted ministries and other similar arrangements, to ensure that best practice in safeguarding is implemented across the country.

Since the events occurred during Archbishop Vincent Nichols' time as chairman of COPCA, this is a failure that occurred on his watch, even accepting that he had no personal involvement in the case. It seems to be a strange sense of priorities for effort to be expended on considering whether the Archbishop has been defamed by The Times while the underlying issues of the case remain uninvestigated. He can hardly be unaware of the extent of the failures now, so there really is no excuse for a full investigation not to be undertaken immediately.

Talking to victims of sexual abuse

A commenter on my previous article has made the following point.

If you have strong evidence that several monks have been involved in abuse, you should pass this to police without delay. Also, if you have received allegations, you must encourage those concerned to go to police. You are in danger of prejudicing prosecution if you carry out an unofficial investigation.

If you have evidence that there are 'hundreds of abuse victims' at St Benedicts' you should contact the police immediately.

It's a serious question and it deserves a serious answer.

Of course, I have spoken to the police. I have told them that from time to time I receive emails from victims talking about their abuse. The detective I spoke to was happy with the approach that I take, which is to provide such support and encouragement as I can to persuade the victim to come forward voluntarily to make a statement, but not to forward correspondence without permission.

As I understand it, if the victim is unwilling to make a statement to police and is unprepared ultimately to speak in court, then any email sent privately to me by a victim is useless for the purpose of a prosecution.

So, I treat correspondence as confidential unless and until the victim is prepared either for me to contact somebody on his behalf or to make that contact himself.

It is not easy for victims to come forward. There is a considerable overhang of guilt and shame involved, which remains even though the adult rational part of their mind recognises that there is nothing for them to feel guilty about. That is why victims can often take 30 years or more to summon the courage to come forward. When dealing with child sex abuse and its effects, all ideas of what we think of as logical thought-processes count for very little, and the guilt doesn't go away just because the rational part of your mind decides that it should. This is because the experiences occurred before your adult rational mind was fully formed.

The victims have an experience of the adult world betraying their trust. I have no moral right to betray that trust all over again.

By the way, I'm not carrying out my own investigation. I can't barge into the Abbey and demand to see all its books and correspondence. I'm calling for the Church to carry out its investigation. My aim is to ensure that procedures are put in place to prevent abuse in the future. I hope you would agree that is a good idea. In order to know what must be prevented in the future, it is necessary to acquire a realistic perception of the nature and extent of the abuse in the past, even though relatively few cases might ultimately end in prosecution.

So let's have a think about what that realistic perception consists of. Given the range of dates on which Pearce committed crimes he was convicted of, it is reasonable to infer that he has been an active paedophile for pretty much the whole of the 40 years or so that he was resident at the Abbey. Moreover, we have dozens of accounts of abuse here in comments on this blog, most of them from people who have not yet come forward to the police, or at least hadn't at the time they wrote.

Given the difficulty in coming forward in the first place, and the active work in suppressing complaints which we can infer from the comment by "Paul", it is entirely unrealistic to think that anything but an extremely small proportion of Pearce's crimes have come to trial. But nonetheless, based on what we do know, we can make a conservative estimate of perhaps 3 boys a year whom he abused. That's perhaps 120 boys.

Then there is Maestri. He was at the school for something like 12 years. Chalk him up for an estimate of another 3 a year. That's another 36.

Then there are others about whom comments have been made. Even supposing they between them only account for 50 or so, that puts us over 200 in total. Hundreds is a vague but entirely reasonable estimate. It is the sort of figure indicated by the evidence we have so far. You might choose to make a different estimate. But don't think in terms of saying that since Pearce has only been convicted of abusing 5 boys that this is the total extent of his crimes. That's just wishful thinking, hoping that the problem will go away. I don't expect that Pearce or anybody else will get convicted of hundreds of counts of child abuse, unless I am vastly underestimating the extent of his crimes and they actually number in the thousands. But there isn't evidence to suggest that.

So, if you are former pupil at St. Benedict's School and are a victim of Pearce or anybody else, and feel that the time has come to share the burden you have carried for so long, I have these words for you.

You are not alone. Others have also suffered as you have. You have friends in the world who wish you well and want to help, even though you might never actually meet them.

If you wish, I can put you in touch with other victims of abuse who are willing to share their experiences, so you can compare notes and talk with somebody who really understands in a way I can't, not having been abused myself.

If you wish, I can help you contact the appropriate people within the police. I am assured that you will be taken seriously. The police have specialist units which specialise in child sex abuse, they understand what it takes to talk to them.

If you wish, I can help you find professional assistance which I hope might bring some healing to your life.

Or if all you feel able to do is take the step of privately contacting me in confidence, then I will hear you and take you seriously. Whether and when you take the matter any further is for you to decide, based on your strength and welfare and that of your family. You don't have to take all the decisions at once. Believe me, I have a good idea of how brave you have had to be even to have looked up this page and read down this far.

Unless and until you decide to take it further our correspondence will be confidential. I know what a massive step it is for a victim to confide in anybody at all, even 30 or 40 years after the event.

Naturally I hope that you will in due course feel able to contact the police, but I know enough about the effects of sexual abuse on children to realise what a gigantic step it is even to contemplate this. I will think no less of you if you decide that for now or for ever you feel unable to do so. The great majority of victims never manage it. There is no shame in being part of that majority. But tackling lesser hurdles first can help, for instance talking privately to somebody you decide you can trust. That's a big enough first step by itself. Other steps can be left for another day.

If you wish, you can email me at jonathanwest22@googlemail.com. Or you may decide that talking to a sympathetic member of your family would be better. Or a trusted friend. You do what you think is best for you.

If you read this but don't feel able to make any approach, know that the door will remain open, and you can choose to walk through it some other time.

Requesting an enquiry at Ealing Abbey

Here is an abridged version of an email I sent yesterday to Archbishop Vincent Nichols.

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

Dear Archbishop

I welcome in particular the following part of today's Statement by the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales

"In our dioceses we will continue to make every effort, working with our safeguarding commissions, to identify any further steps we can take, especially concerning the care of those who have suffered abuse, including anyone yet to come forward with their account of their painful and wounded past. We are committed to continuing the work of safeguarding, and are determined to maintain openness and transparency, in close co-operation with the statutory authorities in our countries."

In pursuit of that specific aim, I request that you institute as soon as possible a wide-ranging enquiry into child sex abuse at Ealing Abbey and St. Benedict's School. There is strong evidence that there has been abuse at the school, involving several monks, priests and lay teachers, extending over decades.

Such reviews as have taken place at Ealing Abbey so far appear to have concentrated solely upon the failure to effectively supervise Father David Pearce once it had been determined that he was a danger to children and had been placed on a restricted ministry. However, as you are aware, Pearce was convicted of sexual and indecent assaults over a 36 year period, and John Maestri, a lay teacher, has been convicted three times of sexual crimes against pupils of St. Benedict's School during his time as teacher there in the 1970s and 1980s. As far as I am aware, no enquiries have yet addressed this longer timescale, why Pearce and others were not detected and stopped sooner, what is the full extent of the abuse that went on there, and who else may have been involved.

My son attended St Benedicts Junior School for two years, when Pearce was Junior School Headteacher. Fortunately for both my son and for me, he was not among Pearce's victims. But as a result I have taken a close interest in the case. Through my blog http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/, a large number of victims have come forward with accounts of abuse by a number of monks and teachers.

Several victims have contacted me privately. I am treating their correspondence as confidential so I shall provide no individual details. But they all tell a very similar story of lives blighted, a loss of respect for adult authority, confusion about their sexuality, destructive and even psychotic behaviour, broken families and difficulty in forming adult relationships. I am doing what I can to offer support to them, by assuring them that they were in no way responsible for the abuses committed against them, and encouraging them to seek the help they need to rebuild their shattered lives and to contact the police to report the crimes against them.

The scandal of St. Benedict's School is not limited to those priests and teachers who actually committed sexual assaults on children. It appears that there was an active effort to silence victims and cover up abuse.

The victims of abuse at St. Benedict's School quite probably number hundreds, only a small proportion of whom have ever come forward. Those who have the strength to report their abuse deserve to have their story heard by a properly run enquiry, which will establish the truth of the matter as far as possible and make recommendations for improvements at the Abbey and the School.

Even after the Pearce and Maestri cases, the school's published child protection policies still fall far below best practice and do not conform to the CSAS guidelines. They are so bad that even the definition of "sexual abuse" depends on a subjective assessment of the extent to which the child involved has an understanding of the activities he is being subjected to. I have raised this matter both the Abbot and the Headmaster, to no effect.

In my opinion there is an imminent, continuing and serious risk of further sexual abuses committed against children at St. Benedict's School. An enquiry is urgently needed in order to prevent future abuse.

The Bishops' apology

Well, this is a bit of a welcome change. From last week when the Catholic Herald's lead headline announced that Archbishop Nichols takes legal advice over newspaper's 'unwarranted slur', the Bishops of England and Wales have issued a statement apologising for the abuse.

Let us be fair, while in some respects it is less than it should be, there are several welcome and positive things in the statement. Here are a few of the high points.

Our first thoughts are for all who have suffered from the horror of these crimes, which inflict such severe and lasting wounds. They are uppermost in our prayer. The distress we feel at what has happened is nothing in comparison with the suffering of those who have been abused.

That is welcome. In the past, the apologies from the church have tended to conflate the suffering of the victims with that of the church itself, as if there were some equivalence between them. This rightly makes it clear that such comparisons are odious.

The criminal offences committed by some priests and religious are a profound scandal. They bring deep shame to the whole church.

A statement of the obvious, but not something we have heard quite so directly before. We progress.

We express our heartfelt apology and deep sorrow to those who have suffered abuse, those who have felt ignored, disbelieved or betrayed. We ask their pardon, and the pardon of God for these terrible deeds done in our midst. There can be no excuses.

The Bishops seem to have suffered from another acute attack of passive voice. Even now, they seem to find it difficult to find a form of words which makes it clear that abuses don't just happen, they are committed by abusers. But at least they are not offering excuses and are saying there can be none. So, two cheers for this.

Furthermore, we recognise the failings of some Bishops and Religious leaders in handling these matters. These, too, are aspects of this tragedy which we deeply regret and for which we apologise. The procedures now in place in our countries highlight what should have been done straightaway in the past. Full co-operation with statutory bodies is essential.

Oh dear. They still can't bear to bring themselves to utter the word "cover-up". They are still being entirely unspecific as to what the "failings of some Bishops and Religious leaders" have actually consisted of.

Any organisation which has responsibilities for the care and welfare of children will attract its share of paedophiles. Therefore, from time to time, abuses will happen. Whether the priesthood has a few more paedophiles or a few less than comparable occupations such teaching is neither here nor there. What matters is the institutional handling of this. What is required is really very simple to describe, and not all that hard to implement.

• There has to be culture of awareness, so that the honest non-paedophiles know what to look out for, and how to report it.
• There need to be clear procedures for reporting abuse
• There need to be clear procedures for handling complaints, including where necessary temporarily removing the subject of a complaint from contact with children while an investigation is undertaken.
  
• There need to be clear procedures for rapidly removing abusers from contact with children.
  

The overall aim is to keep known dangers away from children in the first place, to detect any instances of abuse quickly, and to stop them immediately.

The true scandal of the Catholic Church is not that it has some paedophiles within the clergy, it is that the Church's institutional response could hardly have caused more harm over a longer duration to the maximum number of victims had it been designed with that specific aim in mind.

Now, we believe, is a time for deep prayer of reparation and atonement.

Many, perhaps even most of the victims are no longer Catholics or even believers of any kind. Their faith has been shattered by the betrayal of trust inflicted on them by their clergy. You can pray if you wish to, but I doubt that many of the victims will be in the least bit impressed by this. It is unfortunate that this is the first response the Bishops list. When discussing the Pope's apology about the scandal, I mentioned that there was a bit of Father Ted about this.

This is how Father Ted and his fellow priests would address the problem.

"The whole institutional response of the church to sexual abuse has been shown to be corrupt and ineffective. What shall we do?"
"I know! Let's say Mass."

In our dioceses we will continue to make every effort, working with our safeguarding commissions, to identify any further steps we can take, especially concerning the care of those who have suffered abuse, including anyone yet to come forward with their account of their painful and wounded past. We are committed to continuing the work of safeguarding, and are determined to maintain openness and transparency, in close co-operation with the statutory authorities in our countries.

This is very good - if the Bishops live up to it. There is a lot of work still to do. Because of the shame and guilt involved, it can take victims decades before they summon the courage to come forward. There are probably 30 years of abuse stories still to come out.

I've written to the Archbishop asking him to make a start by setting up an enquiry into the goings-on at Ealing Abbey these past few decades. I'll publish that letter in the next article.

What the Pope should have said

One of the comments to my post about the pope's apology asked what I think should have been said instead. That's a fair enough question. But let's clarify first what the situation is which requires the apology.

This issue is really simple. Any organisation responsible for the care of children will attract its share of paedophiles. The Catholic Church is no exception. Therefore, the staff of the organisation have to be on their guard against this, and ensure as far as humanly possible that:

• abuse is prevented in the first place
• it is detected quickly when it happens,
• any abuser discovered is quickly and permanently removed from a position where he can continue to do harm.

The issue is not that a few priests are paedophiles - human nature being what it is, that is only to be expected.

The true scandal of the Catholic Church is that its institutional response could hardly have been better at maximising the harm to children and the number of victims had it been deliberately designed with that end in mind. The issue is one of incompetence and cover-up on a breathtaking scale by non-paedophiles in senior positions to whom these matters were reported.

What is required is equally simple.

1. The church must openly, publicly and sincerely apologise for the harm it has done in failing to bring an end to the activities of paedophile priests then they were discovered. No weasel words, no euphemisms, no use of passive voice. No nitpicking distinctions between paedophilia and ephebophilia (sexual attraction to post-pubescent children of the same sex). No putting all the blame on the paedophile priests themselves. And absolutely no complaints about how the church is suffering in all this, as if the church was the victim. To make such a comparison is an insult to those who are the real victims in this - the children whom the church has abused.
   
   
2. Insofar as it hasn't already been done, the church must put in place robust and effective child protection measures, and that assistance from secular child protection experts must be sought in order to ensure that the church's procedures are as good as those of any secular organisation. The procedures must involve the mandatory reporting of all allegations and suspicions of sexual abuse to the civil authorities. Failure to do so must result in severe disciplinary sanctions.
   
   
3. Worldwide, every diocese shall conduct enquiries to ascertain the scope of past abuse. These enquiries shall be conducted by experts external to the diocese, and the diocese shall open all records not confidential under the seal of confession. The reports shall be published in full, except that the names and other identifying details of victims shall be omitted to preserve their privacy and anonymity.
   
   
4. Measures must be put in place for the support and assistance of victims of sexual or other abuse by clergy and members of religious orders.
   
   
5. Every bishop, archbishop or cardinal or other senior churchman who participated in a decision to return a paedophile priest to duties which gave the priest further opportunity to abuse children, must resign from his post. If not past retirement age he should embark on a ministry of reconciliation as a simple parish priest.

In brief, the Catholic Church and its senior clergy must atone for their sins in exactly the same way that they expect of everybody else.

A pastoral letter that made this apology and promised these actions is what in my view should have happened. If the Pope had said all this, and said what was going to be done to fulfil the promises, then it would probably improve public opinion quite radically overnight.

So let's take a look at the Pope's apology

The Pope's pastoral letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland has now been published in lots of places, for instance here.

I've taken the time to read it at leisure - I'm not a journalist so I don't have to deal in deadlines and get instant comment out. So I've decided to take a bit more time over my comments.

Here's the first paragraph.

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them.

A mixed start. On the good side, he is being quite blunt about calling the abuse "sinful and criminal acts" which they undoubtedly are. But the bad part is that he is being extremely unspecific about the failings of the church in dealing with reports and allegations of abuse. He has simply mentioned "the way Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them" without describing it what was wrong with it.

Let us be clear, every profession that involves contact with and the care of children will attract its share of paedophiles. This attraction is a fact of life and must be dealt with. The way organisations responsible for the care of children have to deal with this is by a multi-layered defence against it, making sure that everybody knows what to do in terms of reporting suspicions and passing on reports to the civil authorities. You can't make an organisation immune to the attractions of paedophiles, so you have to ensure that any harm they do is detected early and stopped immediately.

The scandal in the Catholic Church is not that it attracted its share of paedophiles, but rather that its procedures seem to be almost perfectly designed to achieve the precise opposite of what is needed to minimise the harm done. Knowledge of paedophiles was hidden from the civil authorities, all too frequently no attempt was made to prevent paedophiles from remaining in contact with children, a high priority was put on the standing and reputation of the church and its priests (including the minority of paedophiles among them), and protection of the children its its care seemed hardly to figure at all as a priority when making decisions as to what to do with sexual abuse cases that came to its attention.

So, the problem is that the Pope seems to be apologising for the wrong thing. He can't apologise on behalf of the priests who committed the abuse - they were acting without and despite his authority or that of his predecessors. What he should be apologising for is the nature of the church's organisation, policies and procedures that allowed known paedophiles to continue to harm children.

In point 2 of his letter he goes on to say

I must also express my conviction that, in order to recover from this grievous wound, the Church in Ireland must first acknowledge before the Lord and before others the serious sins committed against defenceless children. Such an acknowledgement, accompanied by sincere sorrow for the damage caused to these victims and their families, must lead to a concerted effort to ensure the protection of children from similar crimes in the future.

The problem here is that his only previous mention of the "sins" refers to those who actually committed the abuse, not those who failed to bring an end to it. Paedophiles (even those in the church) aren't suddenly going to put their hands up and apologise publicly for their sins just because the Pope tells them to. This is not least because paedophiles frequently manage to persuade themselves that what they are doing is causing no harm, and therefore shouldn't be regarded as wrong.

The next three paragraphs consist largely of historical background of dubious relevance to the matter at hand, and I see no need to make much comment on it. It is interesting in as much as it sheds light on the way of thinking of the pope, but adds nothing directly to the apology. The next relevant passage is section 6. Here is how it starts.

To the victims of abuse and their families

You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen.

Again, it's missing the point. He's using passive voice: "the wrong that you have endured". It makes it sound as if he is trying to avoid accepting responsibility for the fact that the wrong was done by people, and that those people were priests and others in the church, that others stood by and let it happen, and that others covered up the crimes lest publicity damage the church's reputation.

He goes on to address those who have committed abuse.

You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals. You have forfeited the esteem of the people of Ireland and brought shame and dishonour upon your confreres. Those of you who are priests violated the sanctity of the sacrament of Holy Orders in which Christ makes himself present in us and in our actions.

It sounds very much like the form of words used by Abbot Martin Shipperlee in the case of Father David Pearce. Pile as much blame as possible onto the abusers, in the hope that people will forget about the inaction of those who had an opportunity to put a stop to the abuse.

He goes on:

Together with the immense harm done to victims, great damage has been done to the Church and to the public perception of the priesthood and religious life.

Quite frankly, it is an insult to the victims to mention damage to the public perception of the church in the same sentence as harm to victims. Putting them together like that suggests a degree of equivalence between them which most people will find abhorrent.

He continues:

I urge you to examine your conscience, take responsibility for the sins you have committed, and humbly express your sorrow. Sincere repentance opens the door to God's forgiveness and the grace of true amendment ... Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God's mercy.

This is so unrealistic it is breathtaking. Again, he's again taking aim at the wrong target. Paedophiles exist, and they for the most part convince themselves that they are doing nothing wrong. Asking them to openly acknowledge criminal acts is about as realistic as expecting the Pope himself to proclaim the nonexistence of God. It's just not going to happen. If this is the best the Pope can do, then he hasn't even got properly started in grappling with this issue.

He then goes on to address himself to parents.

You have been deeply shocked to learn of the terrible things that took place in what ought to be the safest and most secure environment of all.

There's that passive voice again. It is as if he is describing some terrible natural disaster, rather than a systemic failure of his own organisation.

I urge you to play your part in ensuring the best possible care of children, both at home and in society as a whole, while the Church, for her part, continues to implement the measures adopted in recent years to protect young people in parish and school environments. As you carry out your vital responsibilities, be assured that I remain close to you and I offer you the support of my prayers.

So there we have it. The measures already being undertaken by the church to fix the problem are sufficient, and parents should get on with caring for their children. Oh, and I'll pray for you.

Section 10 is words of encouragement to priests in Ireland, and asking them to pray more.

Section 11 is addressed to the bishops in Ireland.

It cannot be denied that some of you and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse. Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations. I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that grave errors of judgement were made and failures of leadership occurred. All this has seriously undermined your credibility and effectiveness. I appreciate the efforts you have made to remedy past mistakes and to guarantee that they do not happen again. Besides fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse, continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence.

From what we have learned in the Ryan Report and elsewhere, it is "the norms of canon law" which have greatly contributed to this mess. It is the elevation of canon law above the criminal law which has led to cases not being reported to the police. And this airy passing comment that the bishops should "cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence" is really inadequate. The problem has arisen in part because the church has denied the competence of the civil authorities in the matter of actions which broke the criminal law.

Sections 12 and 13 are general encouragement to "the faithful of Ireland". He starts section 14 by saying.

I now wish to propose to you some concrete initiatives to address the situation.

I thought "Ah, now we will finally see what reforms he's going to make to prevent this sort of thing happening in future". Imagine my disappointment when the first measure proposed is as follows.

At the conclusion of my meeting with the Irish bishops, I asked that Lent this year be set aside as a time to pray for an outpouring of God's mercy and the Holy Spirit's gifts of holiness and strength upon the Church in your country. I now invite all of you to devote your Friday penances, for a period of one year, between now and Easter 2011, to this intention. I ask you to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland.

This reminds me of an episode from Father Ted, where Father Dougal Maguire is stuck on a milk float with a bomb in it, and Father Ted calls on his fellow priests to help him come up with a course of action that will save Father Dougal. Their best answer is to say a mass for him. At the time I thought it a hilarious over-exaggeration for comic effect. I now know better. This is how Father Ted and his fellow priests would address the problem.

"The whole institutional response of the church to sexual abuse has been shown to be corrupt and ineffective. What shall we do?"
"I know! Let's say Mass."

Is the Pope's response very much different? There's not much difference I can discern.

Leaving aside its ludicrous inappropriateness as the first substantive response to the scandal, notice also the aim of this action, "to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland". Nothing about providing justice for or comfort to the victims. Renewal of the Church is the aim.

The next item seems a bit more promising.

I intend to hold an Apostolic Visitation of certain dioceses in Ireland, as well as seminaries and religious congregations. Arrangements for the Visitation, which is intended to assist the local Church on her path of renewal, will be made in cooperation with the competent offices of the Roman Curia and the Irish Episcopal Conference.

If this is the equivalent of sending in the inspectors to examine the books and all the procedures to make sure that all is being handled correctly, then this might do some good. Everything though depends on what specific aims the Visitation will have, and that is not vouchsafed to us.

I also propose that a nationwide Mission be held for all bishops, priests and religious. It is my hope that, by drawing on the expertise of experienced preachers and retreat-givers from Ireland and from elsewhere, and by exploring anew the conciliar documents, the liturgical rites of ordination and profession, and recent pontifical teaching, you will come to a more profound appreciation of your respective vocations, so as to rediscover the roots of your faith in Jesus Christ and to drink deeply from the springs of living water that he offers you through his Church.

This sounds like a pontifical equivalent of "I'm going to set up a nationwide scheme for additional training of all personnel". That might help, depending on what the training is intended to achieve.

The rest of the letter is further general encouragement and promises of more prayers.

So, let's consider the positive aspects of the letter.

• There is the fact that it was written at all. That is no small thing. I can't remember anything comparable coming from a Pope before.
  
  
• He was quite blunt about the fact that the abuse was a sin and a crime.
  
  
• He did offer criticism of his bishops. Even though it was entirely unspecific, the fact that there was any criticism there at all is (as far as I know) unprecedented in modern times.
  
  
• He's going to do these "Apostolic Visitations", which might cause the dioceses concerned to pull their socks up.
  
  
• There's going to be this National Mission, which (depending on what it actually consists of) might also help to concentrate minds.

But the disappointing aspects are as follows:

• He seems not yet to have understood (or not been able to admit publicly) the real problem that is at the centre of people's horror and disgust about all this, i.e. the cover-up and the failure to act to prevent known paedophiles from continuing to do harm.
  
  
• He's not proposed any changes to canon law that are intended to help clean up the mess.
  
  
• He's not acknowledged the primacy of criminal law in this area.
  
  
• He's not called for or mentioned the resignation of any senior figures implicated.
  
  
• He's been very vague about organisational measures that will be taken.
  
  
• The victims don't figure very much in his description of the aims of the changes to be made.
  

To conclude, the problem is that paedophiles, like the poor, will always be with us. What is required is measures to minimize the harm they can do, by ensuring as far as possible that they are caught quickly and are immediately and permanently removed from positions of trust in which they can abuse children.

An apology, if it is to be truly meaningful and effective, has to contain certain key elements.

• It must be sincere.
  
• It must be specific as to what is being apologised for.
• The thing being apologised for must be the responsibility of the person doing the apologising, either directly or by virtue of his position at the head of an organisation which has done harm.
  
• The apology must be accompanied by a sincere determination to stop doing what has made the apology necessary, and practical steps to achieve it.

By those criteria the Pope's pastoral letter, while undoubtedly well-meaning, doesn't score very highly.

The crime of inaction

Vittorio Bufacchi has written an excellent piece The Crime of Inaction on the Guardian website about the paedophile scandal in the Catholic Church in Ireland. Here are some key points.

While all cases of child sex abuse are devastating, there is something about this story that is particularly disturbing. When children are systematically sexually abused for a period of decades by men wearing the collar, the perpetrators of violence are not only the deviant priests serving in parishes and religious orders. Violence is also done by those working at all levels in the Catholic church, both in Ireland and outside, who knew that these abuses were taking place and did nothing to stop this crime, or to bring the paedophiles to justice.
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In an institution as rigid and hierarchical as the Catholic church, it is hard to believe that the cover-up stopped within Ireland. Sexual abuse cases involving cover-ups have also been reported in England, France, Australia and the United States.
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If there is one lesson that must be learned from this report, it is that violence can be done in many ways: either by way of a direct action, or by an inaction. Paedophilia is unquestionably one of the most sickening forms of direct violence; but knowing that children are being sexually abused and doing nothing about it, therefore forbearing to prevent the crime, is arguably an even greater evil.

I can't fix the whole world, but I can try and improve my own small corner of it. That is why I will not rest until I get full cooperation from the Abbot of Ealing concerning past abuse at Ealing Abbey and St. Benedict's School, safeguards against any repetition of this abuse, and proper apologies and support for the past victims of abuse.

But I can't do it alone. So if you wish to help achieve this and have any kind of support you feel able to offer or any kind of influence you might be able to bring to bear, please contact me by email.

Sentencing of Fr David Pearce

Just two very quick items, I'll report in more detail later.

Fr Pearce today was sentenced to 8 years in prison for his offences against boys at St Benedict's School. According to law, he will serve half and the other half will be suspended. He will be placed on the sex offenders' register for life, and the judge also made an order that he must not have any unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 18, not be involved unsupervised in any educational activity with any child under the age of 18, and not undertake unsupervised any religious service in the presence of any child under the age of 18.

The Abbot was not present and no statement on behalf of the Abbey was made to the press at the court (though a press statement was issued later). I understand from discussions with journalists present that he has been refusing all calls from the press recently.

UPDATE
The story has hit the news. It was lead item on ITV's news programme "London Tonight". So far, the fullest written account is in The Independent, but the Ealing Gazette, the Press Association, and the BBC website are also carrying the story.

I'm not going to compete with the Independent's account, written by Wesley Johnson and Anisha Ahmed of the Press Association. Their journalists have better shorthand than mine and their account is a substantially accurate summary of the offences committed by Fr Pearce. Also, the victims have had their lives messed with enough, I don't want to invade their privacy any further by repeating the details all over again. I met one of the police officers who had conducted the investigation and she advised me that the case was under reporting restrictions as regards the names of the victims, but I assured her that even without restrictions I had no intention of naming any victims.

But there are a few points which I made a particular note of.

Firstly, it is quite clear from the account given by the prosecuting barrister that Fr Pearce got himself into a position of trust and authority and then used that position to prevent his victims from speaking up, and to prevent them for a long time from being believed even when they did speak up. One victim was even estranged from his own parents for a time as they found the accusations to be unbelievable.

Second, although the physical acts involved were not the most serious possible sexual offences, it is quite clear that it has had a devastating effect on the lives of the victims, as much from the abuse of trust as from the physical abuse. Statements read out in court from more than one victim mentioned how Fr David "was everywhere" in their life. It is quite clear that the victims were in no way able to deal with the psychological manipulations he inflicted on them, they just didn't have the age and maturity.

If any of the victims read this, let me assure you that from the description given in court, there is no reason at all for you to feel in any way guilty about your own actions. You were manipulated and you were not responsible for the abuse done to you. The mere fact that there was little or no physical coercion is entirely irrelevant, Fr Pearce was in such a position of authority over you, and in some cases over your parents, that there is no way that somebody of your age could have resisted an adult with the age, authority, education and sophistication of Fr Pearce. Psychologically it was the equivalent of putting a 9-year old into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson. There's no way you could possibly have been expected to withstand that. You have my every best wish and sincere hope that now Fr Pearce is behind bars for a substantial time you will be able to get on with your lives in peace and privacy.

Thirdly, I'd like to mention some of the points made in plea of mitigation by the defending barrister. I happened to be sat next to one of the victims in the public seats during the hearing, and could sense his hackles rise at some of the statements being made. But I don't blame the barrister for making pleas of mitigation - it is his job, and it is necessary for the judge to hear whatever good points there are to be made. But there was very little that really could be said that would have much mitigating effect. Here are some of the points made.

• the defendant wished to apologise to the victims for the acts committed, and the barrister was now doing so on his behalf
• he had shown sufficient contact with reality (in contrast to many other sex offenders) that he had changed his plea to guilty, albeit at a very late date
• he did not set out to cause distress
• the judge had a duty to sentence only on the basis of the charges to which Pearce had pleaded guilty (about half the charges originally brought - the rest were dropped by the prosecution in exchange for the guilty plea)
• he had also done much good in the world, that he had been a good and effective teacher, that he had participated in and led a great many out-of-hours school activities, and that many pupils had benefited from the education he had had a part in providing
• many people had come forward to act as character witnesses for him, including pillars of the local community, even though they were aware of his offences and that he had pleaded guilty
• he hadn't acted as a predator - the crime career of a sexual predator classically involves an escalation in the seriousness of offences over time, which didn't happen in this case
  
• the victim impact statements should be read with some caution, not because they should be regarded as in any way untrue, but rather that they should be read as the effect of all the abuse suffered by the victims, and that some of the victim impact statements made mention of abuse inflicted by others in addition to that by Fr Pearce

The judge was thoroughly unimpressed by most of this, and this was reflected in the points he made in giving sentence.

Fourth, I was very much struck by one point made by the prosecuting barrister, almost as an aside. After the civil case in 2006, Fr Pearce was placed on a "restricted ministry" by the Abbot. Part of a letter from the Abbot was read out in court which stated that Fr Pearce:

• was not to have any public ministry
• must celebrate mass only in private within the monastery
• must have no contact with children

The reason given in the letter for this restricted ministry was "to protect Fr David from unfounded allegations". No mention was made in court of any other reason given.

The last of his victims was befriended by Fr Pearce after the civil case, despite the restrictions supposedly imposed by the Abbot.

Fifth, there was no sign of the Abbot. He was not present, despite the fact that he had led me to understand that he would use the occasion to make a statement. A press statement was issued later by the Abbey. I don't yet have a copy, because as far as I can tell it hasn't been posted either on the Abbey website or that of the Diocese of Westminster, so all I can do is quote what was included in the report in the Independent.

In a statement issued by Ealing Abbey, Abbot Martin Shipperlee said: "The crimes perpetrated by David Pearce were a betrayal of the trust placed in him as a teacher and priest.

"His exploitation of the most vulnerable was brought to an end by the courage of those of his victims who came forward and revealed what had been happening.

"I would like to apologise in every way I can to the victims and to everyone else who has been affected by this case.

"I will remember in my prayers all those whose lives have been troubled by David Pearce's actions."

The Abbot said he was launching an independent review into the case "to examine what there is to be learned to ensure that there can never be a recurrence of this situation".

He added: "David Pearce's future as a priest will now be reviewed by my superiors in accordance with the child protection procedures of the church."

That is not nearly good enough. It leaves entirely unstated what of his own personal failures or the Abbey's institutional failures he was apologising for. After all, these failures were what permitted Fr Pearce to continue his abuse for so long. The words are very slightly less weaselly than those which followed the civil case, but fall far short of what the victims can and should reasonably expect from the Abbey.

Even the statement about the "independent review" could be interpreted as weasel words. "A recurrence of this situation" could be read to mean "a recurrence of things being found out to the extent that it got to court and embarrassed the church." I warned the Abbot against the use of euphemisms and circumlocutions, that an apology would have to be full and frank if it was going to do much good. Certainly I am comprehensively unimpressed with what has been offered so far.

I think that the victims deserve something a little more substantial in terms of support than that the Abbot will "remember in my prayers all those whose lives have been troubled by David Pearce's actions".

But I'm pleased about the independent review. I would like to learn more about it - who will be conducting it, what their terms of reference will be, and whether its report will be published. The details of this matter, and unless I know it is going to have a broad remit, unqualified cooperation from everyone at the Abbey and its schools from the Abbot down, a public report, and be conducted by secular non-catholic experts, then I'm going to be skeptical as to whether this is any more than window dressing. However, it it does have all those characteristics, then there is every chance that future abuse can be prevented and any other past abuse brought to light.

I intend keeping an eye on this and seeing what happens in future.

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.