Who knew about the abuse at St Benedict’s? The entire Catholic Church
(The article is behind a paywall but you can register for free and view a couple of articles a week.)
A key point of the article is that the cover-up was widespread and not restricted to Ealing, and continues to the present. As the article describes:
2011, with accusations against him mounting, Soper — the rapist who groped me and abused so many other boys — skipped police bail and went into hiding. Scotland Yard launched a hunt and asked the church for help.Stephen Bleach contacted the school, the Abbey and the Papal Nuncio's office requesting an interview. All refused. This is what happened when he tried to contact the Nuncio.
The Archdiocese of Westminster (which was responsible for safeguarding at the abbey) provided a file on Soper in which, police said, there was “extensive, some might say excessive, redaction . . . one page was completely blanked out”.
Police also asked the Vatican if it knew where Soper was. The Vatican did not reply. In fact the Vatican — or at least some people within it — had a very good idea where he was. As was revealed at the IICSA, Soper had more than €400,000 stashed away in the Vatican bank, and during the five years he was in hiding he periodically contacted the Vatican, requesting transfers to an account he had set up with a bank in Kosovo. Despite repeated requests, the Vatican did not pass this information on to the police.
The man who picked up the phone at his official residence in Wimbledon actually laughed at me. When he’d recovered, he said: “No, no, no, absolutely not. The nuncio does not give interviews to anyone.”The school refused an interview request, providing only a statement concerning all the changes that have been made. Key among them was that “There is now no physical access between the monastery and the school.”. This very much struck Bleach. As he says:
That sentence is the most telling. It could well be that St Benedict’s has, finally, changed. I hope so. But if it has, it has done it not by embracing the church, but by escaping from it: by reducing the influence of the clergy, and indeed physically keeping them out. It says something when, in evidence designed to reassure a judicial inquiry it can keep children safe, a Catholic school solemnly assures the hearing that it has put up a fence to ward off monks.More than 100 senior Roman Catholic bishops from around the world will gather in Rome this week for a summit Pope Francis has called to address clerical sexual abuse. The Guardian headline reads Credibility of Catholic church at stake in sexual abuse summit. Quite frankly, I wonder what credibility the author of that headline imagines the Catholic Church might still have. There's very little of it that I can perceive.
The school informs Stephen Bleach
ReplyDelete“There is now no physical access between the monastery and the school.”
This portrays to the audience a view of safety by virtue of physical separation.
However, the fact remains now days the whole school assemblies are held in the Abbey - note previously it was the on the school premises.
Culturally the mindset of school management remains unchanged. This physical access point just highlights the culture of the school to continue to protect the school name and not the pupils by giving this type of messaging to parents, staff and pupils.
No more than in the supercilious ways of Chris Cleugh to have the pupils of the school give him a standing guard of honour marking the physical route all the way from school to abbey as part of his leaving ceremonies.
It’s not too hard to see where this cultural mindset comes from.
Interesting to note the announcement today by Pope Francis of the inquiry in to systematic abuse by the clergy. Such abuse could be reduced at a stroke (but not I agree stopped altogether) by abolishing the rule of Celibacy. Such a move would negate the need of many of the clergy to resort to abuse in order to satisfy their sexual needs.
ReplyDeleteI doubt that celibacy is the decisive factor in the abuse crisis. If it were, then we wouldn't also be seeing widespread abuse in other churches with a married clergy.
DeleteAbandoning clerical celibacy might be a good idea, but don't pin your hopes on it being a "magic bullet" solution to the abuse crisis.
The celibacy rule is unnecessary and unkind and, if observed, often leads to loneliness. It needs to go. But it's not the main cause. Rapists (mainly men, some women) rape for one reason only: to have domination over the victim. Many single people, lonely though they might might be, manage to go through life without raping/sexually assaulting children. Also, there is increasing evidence that many officially celibate priests do have active sexual lives. . . sex with other adults. It's often furtive and in view of their official "face" it is hypocriticial and lacking in integrity but it is consensual. People do NOT rape (children, women, men) because they are sexually frustrated, that is a very dangerous myth. Plenty of rapists have partners, spouses, that is not why they rape.
DeleteIn my opinion I also agree, celibacy for monks is doubtful as being a decisive factor.
DeleteAt St Benedicts, John Maestri, Peter Allott were not monks and yet were in post for many years in senior positions at the school. The celibacy is an important discussion in its own context – but I believe is not a significant factor to what happens in schools like St Benedicts.
Look at the recent article published in the Guardian by Jamie Doward (published over the weekend) Head of Catholic order failed to tell police of sexual abuse at London ...The question that needs to be answered is why even when the head master Chris Cleugh (and governing bodies) were told on numerous occasions, responses such as ”You can rest assured he will seek absolution for his sins” was offered back in response.
The mindset of this school governing bodies simply does not hold its leadership to account.
You need something about you to go against the flow of the establishment and head at St Benedicts. The governors who are made up of monks, parents of pupils, past pupils and likeminded individuals from similar establishment have too much emotionally and financially invested in the school to buck the trend.
The school is unwillingly dragged along into confronting their issues in this matter both past and current. It should have been (and should be) the school and governors bringing prosecutions against the abusers on behalf of their pupils and parents.
But then again could any of us have any faith in them doing that competently?
Same old, same old. Until far more Catholics all over the world stop putting money in the coffers (at church, in schools, anywhere else) this will continue. Money is the only language the Catholic hierarchy understands. Also, two words: Mandatory Reporting. Lots of teachers, monks etc very clearly can't be relied upon to report abuse, maybe the fear of prosecution will push them in the right direction.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. At St Benedict's school, John Maestri, Peter Allott were not monks and yet were in post for many years in senior positions at the school. The celibacy is an important discussion in its own context – but is not a significant factor to what happens in schools like St Benedict's.
ReplyDeleteLook at the recent article published in the Guardian by Jamie Doward (reported over the weekend) "Head of Catholic order failed to tell police of sexual abuse at London ..." The question that needs to be answered is why even when the head master Chris Cleugh (and governing bodies) were told on numerous occasions, responses such as ”You can rest assured he will seek absolution for his sins” was offered back in response.
The mindset of the schools governing bodies does not hold its leadership to account.
You need something about you to go against the flow of the establishment and head at St Benedict's school. The governors are made up of monks, parents of pupils, past pupils and like-minded individuals from similar establishments. They have too much emotionally and financially invested in the school to rock the boat.
The school is continually dragged along into confronting their issues in this matter both past and current. It should have been (and should be) the school and governors themselves bring prosecutions against the abusers on behalf of their pupils and parents.
But then again could any of us have any faith in them doing that competently?
Maestri had been a novice monk
DeleteThe school and the Catholic church need to finally be held accountable for both all that went on there over very many years and the fact that it was very clearly covered up over and over again.
ReplyDelete"we've changed now" and all that is simply irrelevant and should not in any way let 5hem off the hook.
Shiperlee who professed his sorrow and surprise when people like Pearce and Soper were convicted had in fact been covering up for them, or at least Soper....
Any suggestion that everyone at St Benedict's from the dinner ladies to the abbots(plural) did not know he habitually abused pupils simply is.not credible.
There is not a single pupil who passed through St Benedicts who did not know that it was important to try and stay out of
Gay Dave's clutches and did not know that
Soper sexually assaulted every single pupil he caned. Were the staff all selectively deaf? My total respect to those who like Mr Halsall did speak up only to be ignored.
The rest of then should hang their heads in shame, I'm afraid. Keeping quiet while they knew boys were being molested is not justifiable on the basis of needing to pay the mortgage.....Their silence makes them culpable. They were responsible for the pastoral care of the children in their care.....looking the other way is simply not good enough even if they felt correctly that they would have been ignored anyway.
I agree with all you say. . . What I genuinely don't understand is why, when it is clear that various adults knew abuse was going on and chose not to go to the police, those adults are not being prosecuted. Isn't there already a law about being an accessory during and/or after the fact? The numerous cases at St benedict's, plus the numerous cases in many other Catholic schools and institutions, makes one thing abundantly clear: many Catholics are willing to stand by while children are abused. Prosecution is probably the only language such morally devoid people are going to understand.
ReplyDeleteThere you hit on a very important point. Sufficiently important that I'm going to write an article about it.
Delete